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Whilst We Sip Tea

Silence cracks like concrete

flotilla activists swallowed

by Israeli detention centres,

their voices

erased

 

Greta

that fierce girl

who stared down prime ministers,

now allegedly pressed between concrete walls,

dehydration crawling through her veins

like the lies crawling through our newsfeeds,

whilst bedbugs feast on autistic skin

that once commanded world stages

 

Where is Starmer's voice?

British citizens vanished into detention centres

and our Prime Minister counts polling numbers

whilst human beings

dissolve

 

They want to ban Palestine protests

after the synagogue attack

as if grief only flows eastward,

as if Palestinian children

don't bleed red

 

We're supposed to swallow

this selective mourning,

this pecking order of pain

that makes some deaths front-page tragedy

and others

invisible corpses

 

The flotilla sailed

carrying medicine like contraband,

carrying hope like weapons

in the eyes of those who profit

from endless siege

 

Now their crews rot in concrete boxes

whilst we debate the weather,

whilst parasites crawl across young flesh

that once stood before the United Nations

 

This is the world we've built:

synagogues attacked,

Gaza bombed,

protesters silenced,

activists disappeared,

and politicians weighing votes

whilst children weigh their limbs

 

The Mediterranean doesn't discriminate

it swallows Jewish tears and Palestinian blood

with equal hunger,

but our media serves only selected grief,

portioned out like rationed bread

to starved hearts

 

And we sit here,

just sipping tea,

watching the world burn

one headline at a time

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