yours truly, sienna

Simple Math; Fractions (a poem)

My face is hot.

Input search:

How to go to stats class when you’re paralyzed

Results:

Call 911 immediately. Sudden paralysis is an emergency.

I get up.

I get up 

(bodies on the floors of our classrooms do not).

Nor those who couldn’t outrun 

the wreckage of war that we fund

I have half a mind to fake sickness today.

– and I should not scroll on Instagram today

Because the home page kicks off with a Kirk memorial then shrapnel

lodged in the leg, the head, the heart of a another Palestinian 

Next a dance trend,

an ad for a “Grow-your-booty” Pilates challenge 

then, back to mutilation

then a bikini pic

A Hollywood scandal 

A video of Elon–nearly indiscernible as AI if he weren’t forcing his tongue down Donald’s throat

Then a selfie

Then a selfie

Then a selfie.

I’m going crazy.

I have half a mind to disable my account.

And half a mind to start a livestream

And cry

I’m not going to class.

Skeletal people follow me back into my bed.

I dream of one meal a day –if that 

flour and water 

and when I wake and I eat, I am full and I am empty

I remember:

“Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty.”

And there are parents curled into themselves 

Screaming tonight

And I am reminded not to find any solace 

Because a man has died, (presidentially recognized!) 

A man who has rooted for, 

hoped for, 

prayed to his god for, 

the death and dehumanization of

Billions.

And my face is hot.

And I have half a mind to stop trying. 

And there is a fear in me 

That to write this is to ask for my murder 

–a plea 

for my grief to be met with a bullet–

This is the American way (at least, after we stole its land)

Violence aimed at conquering violence, ununited we stand 

Because freedom is granted or stolen by the hand of a

gunman

But if I lay myself down, who will cry for them then?

Who will cry for the boy: his eyes sunken in

Who will cry for the 1800 whose bodies were misplaced and their records erased from within 

where they were held in custody for having brown skin

And who will fume and who will unravel at the racist masses 

That booed when a professor uttered his title 

While teachers risk their lives in their classes,

But shame on them for not teaching the Bible

– Politicians, do you too mourn? 

Because grave after grave, urn after urn 

We finance the obliteration of the lives yet to be lived

I have half a mind to lose faith in it all

Half a mind to buy starbucks 

and disregard the casualties this chai latte sponsors

I won’t think of the faces torn from their skulls

I won’t think of the infants never given a chance to touch their own feet to the ground

Before they are nothing but flesh 

in a concrete collapse

I have half a mind to

click “don’t show me posts like this again”

I want to turn my head; 

want to go on and live.

But they are dead.

Question:

If you subtract the innocent and add some thoughts and prayers, what do you get?

Answer:

I don’t know. I haven’t fulfilled my math requirement yet.

I have half a mind to place a bet on the names within the Epstein files

I have half a mind to buy up and preserve every contraceptive for miles

I have half a mind to erase myself as lawmakers sought

Half a mind to sink your billionaire yacht

Half a mind to be the next Aaron Bushnell

So I can get my mind off my best friend in a cell

I have half a mind to force you to see

The crimes of genocide they won’t show on tv

Half a mind to tell you we can’t agree to disagree

on who gets to thrive amidst fascists liberties

I have 

I have

a whole, still-beating heart

And I have half 

a mind

I wrote this piece to articulate life in the midst of the catastrophic state of the world from the perspective of our generation, Gen Z, through a speaker who begins the poem discussing witnessing the world’s chaos through technology. Our phones particularly have brought us closer to a plethora of atrocities from such early stages in our lives than previous generations could understand. Every generation is severely impacted by what they have witnessed firsthand –and those experiences can certainly be heavy– but today, we do not carry just our own first-hand traumas. We carry the traumas of the world. 

In that regard, it's so easy to be consumed by what’s happening in our society and our world. So much so that everything else can sometimes feel incomparably trivial –humor, meeting one’s obligations (class, work, relationships), and even taking care of our basic human needs. The word choice in this poem was intended to reflect the overwhelming amalgamation of information we intake on the daily: scattered, proposterous, inhumane, and sickening, as each atrocity begs for our attention and action. Sometimes the traumas unfold within us as nothing more than a sensory feeling (ex. “My face is hot”). At other times it's an in-your-face and hard to ignore experience (ex. “shrapnel lodged”, “bodies on the floors”). The array of subject matter, informal/poetic language and visceral images were written with the intention to give the reader a sense of whiplash and disarray, just as I think many of us are feeling these days. This poem feels, to me, like a testament to trying to proceed through life when it feels like the bad outweighs the good. Although this piece is not optimistic in tone, I don’t think that art always needs to uplift. Perhaps this poem can be a shoulder for you to cry on or a reassurance that others are feeling what you’re feeling the next time you get a perilous “breaking news” update. 

Now, more than ever we need to prioritize love and hope, but simultaneously, we need to have outlets to give our frustrations and grief to. When we wake up, and don’t know where we can put our sadness and rage, it's more than okay to let it out through art, to lean on others, to begin dialogues, and to wear our fears on our sleeves when they overcome our courage –as long as we don’t let our courage become extinguished. An act of strength can justifiably be an act of self-nourishment, a break from the news and a moment to re-establish the feeling of simply being as much as it can be blatant activism. We will all move at our own pace when it comes to healing, pushing onward, being our best selves and acting as a voice for those who are voiceless. My only desire is for us to all move throughout our days with loving intentions, as that is the only defense against division, ignorance and hate.

Go cry today. Go hug someone until your soul is a little more warm. Go to that class or job you’ve been dreading. Go make yourself proud. Go protest today. Go sleep. Go create. Go and live for those who cannot.

Yours truly, 

Sienna