I have found myself an abode with an era that has long passed, an era with those that I would have struck accords with– the passage of an era that I lament. For this era’s moral luxuries were abundant, an abundance that may have eclipsed all other eras that I may breathe in.
I mourn the loss of such valiant blood– not just those who have left behind their names in the annals of history but those who lack even that recognition. For those brave men have truly given everything for their cause– their identity reduced to a mere statistic, their stories never being graced with ink.
It is their loss amongst all that I truly lament for– that there is not enough of them left to mourn individually. Yet it is fitting for their deaths to be mourned as a collective– for bullets that left holes in them led to their split blood merging, their loss becoming their collective purpose.
I mourn the virtues that were lost with the death of such men, a seriousness that has died out in this hollow age– the very same seriousness that compelled those men to their unwilling deaths. While the laughter and joviality of my generation is indeed a beautiful one– there is no substance behind it, for the weight of gravity no longer affects them, untethering them from this world.
My generation is one that has already forgotten sacrifice– mocking its sanctity. A generation that I would remiss myself from claiming– my seriousness is a shadow that I am unwilling to cast upon their light, for I know that their combined light would erase this shadow.
I mourn for the lives of those who lived with a single purpose, the ones whose flames kindled the sparks of the moths who flew into the flame– they who refused death and embraced life, their actions being no less nobler than the nameless– their fate only softened death’s blow, for their story still remains.
A story that has resisted the encroachment of time. They were Humanity’s torch– a torch that man willingly became fuel to sublime it. The deaths of the nameless may have affected those within their circle– the death of the known affected ideology itself.
I mourn for a mercy that has introduced taint unto us all– a mercy that permitted the existence of evil and gave it refuge. A mercy akin to a glass of water dousing the flames of our cause– this glass shielded an ideology formed of war crimes from the Nuremberg trials. The justice for the deaths of over 50 million is an incomplete one– a justice that shall never be completed for our own people have been infected by such rot, thus staying our hand.
But such an ideology does not die out in silence, silence only fosters its numbers and entrenches it further. To be merciful towards oneself is to be ruthless against its foes– yet our nation is one that has spat on the epitome of its virtues as the blood they shed only softened its heart, a heart unwilling to lose any more lives.
I mourn the ideals of an era that gave birth to our current ideologies– ideals that have been hollowed by dissent and man’s malice. I dare say that that if the founders of each nation were to assemble from their graves to cast their gaze upon their nation, first and foremost there shall be a crippling purge– for the virtues of these Founding Fathers were timeless in nature yet were still tainted by men lesser than them, their sins amounting to Treason in the eyes of the Founders.
Ideals that we have failed to uphold and protect– an accelerated collapse whose horn first rang when we began to forget that we were a nation of immigrants– a beautiful one that embodied the word “Freedom”.
I mourn the death of my Country’s freedom– a freedom that has become wrapped in chains with such frivolous chains. A freedom for those beyond our reach has now become a freedom that is denied to our own. Above all, I mourn for the state of my nation– for we used to chant “LIBERTY OR DEATH!” in our wars yet our freedom has now become a selective one– used to veil our sins.
O how my nation has fallen– from a nation whose charter was to treat all men equally that has now become a nation that treats some men more equal than others. When the label of those who sought to deny liberty changed and pushed out the old guard, it became apparent to us all– that our gradual decline started from this purge, bipartisanship becoming a slighted tradition.
Worst of all was the wedge that was driven between my people– one that shall never close as long as the mouths of our politicians remain unbound– one whose Unamerican words divided us all. For it would be remiss to not say that our people split before and have completed a cycle of killing and sparing– a cycle that I fear we may start anew if this split is not mended.
I mourn the laws and people that once held our leaders accountable– for it forced their hand to encompass all Americans, not just their voter base. Yet in these trying times, our government has become an echelon of corruption– for each upright person, there are two loyalists installed to counteract their virtues.
I am disillusioned yet must still serve, for my loyalties lie not with sycophants but with the immortalization of the Founders, the Constitution– a loyalty that couldn’t be wrung out of my mangled corpse, to strengthen the precedent of the people by adding yet another corpse to its tower of paragonic virtue.
For the precedent set by our leaders and Justices have already been overturned– the legislative and executive’s cries covering the butchery that the Judiciary has committed to precedents honored by nobler courts than their tenure.
I mourn the death of my people’s spirit, a spirit that touched the sky at the height of its fight for their civil rights. A people that has pledged them to fight against an establishment that enslaved them and won. For my people have become a complacent people– a people that were elevated yet chose to fall back into the mud out of their own accord, thus smearing our record.
A people whose suppression was both external and internal– assimilated by a culture that rejects them, exiling themselves from their own. For our people is of two extremes– the first being not the visionary but the vision. For such men possessed the same vision yet were called as visionaries as their paths for this vision were different– a vision of a unified people.
Yet the other extreme is a man that attempts to compensate for that which he lacks– a lack that no amount of mortal possessions shall sate him. A man who seizes the providence of others and bloodies his hands, dirtying our spirit.
We have deluded ourselves into thinking that we have won the ultimate victory when we have only won a victory in the external– our infighting and internal conflict being a matter of perpetual motion.
We have begun our infighting before we could even claim to have won total victory against the establishment– for we have covered ourselves with the blood of our brothers, blinding ourselves to the fact that this war is not of a single phase– our enemies have merely adopted the shadows and have learnt from our tactics.
We have been misled, believing that we have truly broken our chains when the collars still exist– and now we are paying the price for our complacency. Time alone will not solve this external conflict for the founding fathers rightfully assumed so and we took their assumption to be right until we saw the true depths of their hatred– one that still remains disguised to avoid its rightful prosecution.
I mourn for an era full of those armed with conviction– an era full of men whose light could only be blotted out, for light could not be extinguished otherwise. For each light that is blotted, the two shadows that it suppressed are freed once more.
Every conflict or campaign of a righteous cause in that era was paved forth with the deaths of the righteous– severing meritorious lineages and covering their deaths with mere sophistry.
For their passion was of two extremes, a peaceful one whose stability was that of a mountain and a violent one whose strength cemented the mountain’s position– yet their endings were both the same, a bullet that robbed them of their honour. For a moral code is not enough to deal with such unsavory foes– fear must paralyze their body in order for such men to stay alive.
Yet this thought shall be a thought never adopted for it signifies an unpermitted escalation– for the only way for this to occur is for our government to tighten their hand around their own neck– the powerful elite. Our nation had inspired the French yet we have never learnt from their protesting– for our people have become a self-serving people, a people that have divided themselves into groups and began internal conflicts.
I lament for an era where men retained their innate dignity– a dignity that I can only emulate in writing. To understand their tongue is to serve as a proof of literacy– for we have simplified this tongue, reducing syllables and rendering such sophistication void. My tongue is a rusted one for my words are jarring enough for me to have learned to watch– to enjoy the emotions that others exhibit.
I lament for an era that would have accommodated my eccentricity– an era that I hold a kinship and haven eaten from the fruit of their deaths. An era that holds a gravitas that bogs my soul– leaving no room for shallowness to permeate the air, allowing me to set my heart ablaze in a pit of fiery insanity– a flame that this era would not permit.
For it is with the men that inhabited such times that I feel drawn towards rather than my own kindred folk– for the mark of a foreign nation has already marked a part of me yet my purity eclipses it– rendering me as a stranger to this nation and to my motherland.
I have already gazed at my generation and have found only few are worthy enough to befriend, yet these thoughts lie with me alone– for I have no interest in walking towards a meaningless defeat for I recognize my lack of worth.
I am a stranger to all– for my uniqueness is one that isn’t assimilated nor acts as its conductor. I am of my own culture– for mine is too dissimilar from my race yet is close enough to be viewed as the same from afar.
I lament this strangeness of mine yet this strangeness matters not, for my obligations are not directed to men but to the intent of those that preceded me– loneliness alone shall not serve as my collapse for the boundaries of my cold-heartness have yet to be shown to others.
I mourn on the behalf of a generation that has already forgotten sacrifice, to remember not the fallen lives but their deaths– for their lives have only added depth to the meaning that death gave it. A tribute to the men that I aspire to join one day, a tribute to their cause and beliefs, to pay respects to an era more beautiful and tragic than my own.
For humanity to forget the bodies that they stand on is a dreadful feat– one that I hope to never achieve. Sigh, my purpose is one unknown to me but I shall don this mantle, for the dead are too easily forgotten.
Let this become an undertaking of mine.
Afterword:
My face always had an upset look whenever I was working on this– I think at least 6 hours which is a pretty good feat considering that I started this today. Alright I feel like I’m cooking a bit too well with death as a topic so once again, I would like to affirm that I am a sane and mentally sound individual and does not need an intervention. I usually loop a song whenever I’m writing and decided to use “Softcore-The neighbourhood” for this piece which worked better than expected considering that I’m listening to it right now and I’m still not tired of listening to it. Anyways, congratulations for reaching the end of this piece.
** 29-People Repeating 27-Life 11-Ego and Death 10-Vulnerable. Death’s gravity.