I am sure if we explain one more time that we are people
They will finally understand why this needs to stop
Oh! They will say, their eyes widening
Oh! How terrible!
We did not think of this happening to a person
We thought of this as one of those things that happened
We thought of it as happening in a story
In a group chat
We did not realize there were people in there!
Maybe something almost like people but not quite
Noisy frowns attached to something that we wanted
You are going to tell me that all this time
Crouched inside those statistics
Gritting their teeth behind pseudonyms
Peering out through the bars of hashtags …
Those were people? This is really awful
If this can happen to a person—
Why didn’t you say something?
Is that what you’ve been shouting all this time?
No wonder you’re so hoarse
No wonder you’re so upset
How do you ever stop screaming?
Something Like People
A poem
This article was originally published by
The Atlantic
and is republished here under license.
Leave a Reply