echo From our creative writers, Julia Rosalyn and Lillian Lai Ruey Yee
We Are The Change We Yearn
By: Julia Rosalyn
Dedicated to all the lives lost to injustice. You will not be forgotten.
We are the change we yearn,
With trembling hands we fear,
Our minds will be unable to turn,
From the unchanging ideals we silently discern,
With wavering voices that yield to silence,
As we blindly spectate acts of violence.
“They require guidance”, echo bygone voices,
But they are not the way we wish to be led,
We remain undeceived by their concealed vices,
Allowing our humanity to be renewed.
We hear our people,
We know their cries,
Are we so accustomed to Death,
That we turn away from the theft of their lives?
Though the eddying waves seem to drown out our voices,
We must continue to be the dreamers of tomorrow,
Before us now lie a myriad of choices,
Ours should be to repent our people’s sorrow.
Do not let yourself be colonised by vessels of hatred,
Against this affront we are brothers in arms,
Prevail your spirit to remain unjaded,
This battle ensues to relinquish our past qualms.
Our brothers and sisters,
The skin you were born in,
Should not be a verdict to your lawful fissures,
It remains the skin you live in,
And connects you to the strength of your ancestors.
Shoulder to shoulder,
We barricaded ourselves from the torrents of inhumanity,
Together we are peaceful soldiers,
Deafening our ears against decries of enmity,
Knowing that justice can still persist in paucity,
Hoping that one day this will no longer be our children’s society.
We stand by you,
With our fists held high,
Our endeavour unsubdued,
To end this crimson feud,
So that we may at least try,
To fight for a reason to rise.
Our predecessors,
Your youth have spoken,
Will you join us now,
To lay our past to rest,
So we may journey to a new life ahead?
For now we know that we are the change we yearn,
But we have changed our conventional ideals,
With voices that amalgamate into union,
As we march against acts of violence,
We are the change we yearn.
A Sonnet of Sacrilege
By: Lillian Lai Ruey Yee
Close your eyes; believe everything’s okay.
The blood stains scrubbed and bleached a warzone white.
You clasp your hands behind your back, today
a halo hangs above your neck, you bite
your ripped lips until you can taste freedom.
Donned in black and blue so you play heaven;
holy medals and white badges earned from
blueberry bruises. Turn your wings weapon.
Then, serve your country, man on a mission:
search for sharp teeth, crush the fallen angel.
You crack your knuckles and squeeze confession
but – you snap the wrong wings. Unjust. Painful.
Oh, open your eyes! See how your lips bleed
red like your hands. It’s you. How can you breathe?
