Content Warning: Explicit references to neurological and psychological disorder, recollection of Grenfell Tower and unjust suffering, including uncensored reference to child death, su*c*de and ab*se.
Blog cover art by Olaoluwa Smith, June 2020. 'Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil.'
A few years back, in 2017, London was thrown into a state of intense shock at the horrific event of Grenfell Tower. Not just at the 72 devastating deaths and many more injured as a result of a fourth-floor kitchen setting alight, but of the implications and realisations this incident imposed.
The lack of acknowledgement between working and high-class citizens, the consequences of a seemingly corrupt economy attempting to work with cheaper materials, at the expense of leading to disgusting outcomes. This then flooded into questions around societal perception and stigmatization of lower-income families, the beliefs of human value and ethical code.
In essence, it forced many people to rethink how life exactly played out.
In 2017, I was 16, studying for my GCSEs in a safe, financially stable family, receiving education from a top London private school. While I was not in a 'bubble' that some of my fellow schoolmates were, I do not deny I was entirely awake to reality either. However, I grew angry at the events Grenfell had implicated and this anger grew as I followed the response action (or lack of) following the devastation. This lead to the poem, Silence.
Silence was not titled for about a year or so and was edited every so often whenever I refound the document until 2021 when I submitted it to a poetry competition. Now, I should probably admit that it may just have been a little too 'real' for the judges. But regardless, it became for me, an eye-opener to the thoughts racing through my head. It allowed me to think through my perception and position among London's socio-political sphere, while at the same time, forced me to understand the suffering of my own brain.
Silence is not intended for a specific interpretation. It is not denoting facts about one individual, nor one environment. Its purpose is to spike realisation, prompt understanding and force exploration into a reality we should already acknowledge. On the surface, it may seem like a melodramatic complaint, while within it holds our deepest fears. To the extent you agree, is entirely up to you, despite me being the author.
With that, I present: Silence.
SILENCE
SILENCE.
Is it for reflection?
For depression?
For mourning?
For complete and utter
overwhelming excitement?
Or perhaps…
SILENCE is the debating question: is this ramble really necessary?
SILENCE are the sniggers at the back of the room at a pointless poem
Which seems to have little purpose beyond giving a young adult
The chance to be noticed.
At least I get a voice.
SILENCE are the children who cannot speak.
Forlorn. Forgotten. Isolated.
SILENT are the words they wish to speak.
Stressed. Needed. Desperate.
SILENCE are the children whose parents do not care.
SILENCE is for those who suffer in a world that seems too bare.
SILENT are those who do not treat their partner’s right.
SILENCE is for the women who have just lost their rights.
To vote. To speak out. To be free.
SILENT are the shocked faces whose child has been killed.
SILENCE is the despair when told it was not an accident.
SILENCE is the horror when told it was a suicide.
SILENT are the words of the mother at her son’s funeral, her words choked in her throat,
A lump fused to her vocal cords; She is unable to overcome.
Her son was ripped away from her so young.
Fifteen.
SILENT is the child who is malnourished.
SILENCE is heard from the stomach of the girl a block away.
SILENT are the breaths of the impoverished child’s mother.
SILENCE is heard from the free girl a block away.
SILENCE follows the sobbing orphaned girl.
SILENCE follows the girl who threw her tantrum at a crap phone.
SILENCE is my disgust over the 328 this week
A moment of SILENCE for the 14,199 due to mismanagement
And human … arrogance.
SILENCE is my anger.
SILENCE is my grief.
A moment of SILENCE for the young girl killed because of the colour of her skin.
A moment of SILENCE for the young boy beaten to death because of his sexuality.
A moment of SILENCE for the young woman outcast because She was once He.
A moment of SILENCE for the young baby who took their last breath
Their eyes closed among the rubble and debris-
An invisible child graveyard.
SILENCE.
It really makes us think.
Of who we are.
Who we want to be.
Am I to be that silent, depressed youth who
Starved-
Harmed-
Tried to-
anxietydepressionschizophreniabipolaranorexiasubstance abuse
attentiondeficithyperactivity disorder
sociopathypsychopathyeveryneurological condition
personalitydisorderpost-traumaticstress disorder
SILENCE
when we just want it to stop.
I
fall to my knees. And
pray. That one day my
poem will become
Irrelevant.
That
One
Day
It
will
be
laughed at as “In the
old days- All those problems.
They’ve been sorted now
a-
By Juliette Balchin
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