The perspicacious Warsan Shire and Michael Jackson

later that night

i held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered

everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.

- excerpt from “what they did yesterday afternoon” by Warsan Shire

Nine lines. These nine lines perfectly encapsulate all that is going on in the world today. When I came upon these nine lines on a friend’s FB profile, it struck a chord within me. It just hit me. I kept re-reading the lines because it’s just so right. The WHOLE WORLD is indeed hurting EVERYWHERE.

To me, the words are profoundly haunting. I know that some people will call me crazy when I say that I feel the words; but just as how some people connect so deeply and emotionally with a song and its lyrics, similarly, I too sometimes become intensely absorbed in a book (or its character) or a piece of writing.

With the tragedies and catastrophes that the world has endured and will no doubt, continue to endure, I cannot help but envisage a time when, if the world was asked where it hurt, the answer would be “nowhere my child, for I am at peace.”

And while wait for that to one day happen…I shall continue to ask the same questions that MJ asked in the Earth Song:

What about sunrise

What about rain
What about all the things
That you said we were to gain...
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we've shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores?

What have we done to the world
Look what we've done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son...
What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores

--