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The Grief Exchange


Charlie's down
sniper's thread through Utah air,
and suddenly the world weeps
salt into soil

for wife and children left behind,
for the conservative voice silenced,
for democracy bleeding

in earth

that remembers

other blood.

 

Twenty-two-year-old Tyler

surrendering through telephone wires,

his father's voice the bridge

between rage and reckoning,

anti-fascist phrases carved

like morse code

on bullet casings,

the American Comeback Tour

ending in percussion's

final note.

 

But where were your tears

for Hind Rajab?

Six years old,

trapped in a car full of silence,

pleading down a phone line

like static seeking signal

for three hours

before 335 bullets

wrote her name

in Gaza dust,

in frequency's failure,

in our selective

hearing loss.

 

She had family too

cousins, uncles, a grandfather

who'll stand before whatever listens

demanding receipts

for every voice that heard

her transmission

and chose static

over clarity,

interference

over connection.

 

Two paramedics died

trying to reach her,

their ambulance bombed

metres from her coordinates,

red crescents painted

on twisted metal

like punctuation marks

in an unfinished sentence.

 

No flags at half-mast,

no trending algorithms,

no parliamentary frequencies

tuned to

manufactured

silence.

Today they march

"Raise the Flag" they cry,

 

Dover's chalk cliffs shedding powder

like old makeup

while they point fingers

at boat people,

at asylum seekers,

at anyone dark enough

to absorb blame for empty wallets

and rising numbers,

while Farage counts clicks

from his broadcasting booth,

monetizing rage

like a subscription service,

while Yaxley-Lennon

rebrands hatred

as patriotism,

his real name buried

beneath manufactured martyrdom,

while the real architects

of scarcity

count abundance

in glass monuments

that reflect nothing

but sky.

 

The same hands that fund

F-35s over Gaza,

that bankroll occupation,

that turn children into coordinates

now shake fists

at the coordinates

washing up on Dover's edge

like scattered data,

created by their own algorithms,

their own calculations,

their own mathematics

of extraction.

 

Charlie Kirk had a wife and children

so did the father

who tried to flee Gaza City

with his cargo

before Israeli tanks

turned their vehicle

into a stopped clock,

into a question

no one answered,

into arithmetic's

remainder.

 

Kirk dead, Hind dead,

the ledger keeps balancing

like a metronome

while the accountants keep accounting—

grief as exchange rate,

mourning as currency conversion,

some deaths worth more

than others

in the marketplace

of weighted scales.

 

The ruling class

conducts the orchestra

funding both the instruments

that create displacement

and the voices

who blame displacement

for the discord

they themselves orchestrated,

while Farage amplifies

the frequency of blame,

his voice a carrier wave

for empire's static,

while Tommy Robinson

performs his script

of manufactured persecution,

each arrest a marketing campaign

for the grievance economy,

the rhythm

they composed

with borrowed time.


The flag they raise

is dyed

in extract

like fabric

soaked in tea,

from every intervention,

every "humanitarian" calibration,

every precision strike

that births the very variables

they now calculate against,

every child's frequency

echoing through Westminster's acoustics

like feedback from empire's

amplified whispers.

 

This is the pulse of empire's mechanism

circulating liquid assets

through channels of influence

like irrigation through desert,

while we move

to their tempo,

resenting the displaced

instead of the displacement,

mourning the insured

while ignoring

the unaccounted

compressed beneath

the weight

of our collective

subscription.

 

Wake up, Britain

the adversary moves

through Westminster's corridors

like mercury through thermometers,

sits in City calculations

measuring margins

extracted from children's potential,

signs contracts

over liquid lunches

then indicates refugees

their signatures created,

calling them

the variable

while pocketing

the constant.

 

Listen:

Every projectile

    has a portfolio,

 

        every detonation

            a dividend meeting,

 

                every refugee

                    a transaction

 

signed in red ink

by those who profit

from the chaos

they call

market forces,

from the connections

they've severed

in efficiency's name.

 

The pulse continues

empire's mechanism

still circulating,

still extracting,

still fragmenting

everything integrated

into units

small enough

to trade.

 

But listen closer:

beneath the mechanism's hum,

beneath the calculations,

beneath the frequencies

something else pulses.

Something unaccounted for.

Something that refuses

to be extracted,

to be converted,

to be traded.

 

The heartbeat

of what remains

human.

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