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"Do Not Call Us Paranoid"

by Willow Firesong

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There is another word for paranoid -
That word is survivor.

They do not call them paranoid,
The victims,
The ones who trust,
The ones who believe you when you do not believe in danger,
When you tell them they are safe.

You mourn them.
You bewail their fate,
You wonder
"How could anyone have known?"
But you do not call them paranoid.

I think I will take paranoid -
And all the epithets you hurl at me,
The abuse with which you vilify
My efforts to survive -
Over "the late, lamented" -
Victim.

To hear you speak,
So often,
The victims are the ones
Who could do no wrong.

Except, that is, to die.
Preventably.
Because they did not wish
For you to think
That they were paranoid.

They could have known -
The victims need not have been,
The warning signs were often there,
Ignored, unheeded
By those who chose the familiar illusion
Of safety,
Over the harsh, unfriendly
Reality newfound,
In which we all are mortal,
And not all of us are nice.

Sometimes we tried to warn them
To keep them safe,
To share with them the hard-won knowledge
That we nearly died to gain,
And gained to keep from dying.
But they heard you call us paranoid,
And so they would not listen,
For they feared to somehow lessen in your sight,
As if concern for their own safety were a defect in your eyes.

No, do not call us paranoid,
We are not.
We know reality too well,
And can no longer afford delusions,
Any more than trust.
We do not believe in safety in the face of danger manifested,
No matter how much you may tell us we are safe.
Nor will we waste our time in bridling at false or social dangers,
If the threat is not to life or limb,
It is not worth our time or worry.

It does not tittillate us,
As it seems to, you,
To seek out fear's illusion,
Hollow horror -
To scream in fear for fun.
For we have real cause for fear,
And do not seek to find it where it's not.

You can mourn us,
Lost to lunacy.
You can laugh,
And loop your fingers near your ears,
When we speak to you of what we know.
You can wonder "How could anyone believe
Such foolishness?"
But do not call us paranoid,
For it can gain you nothing -
Even if you do so, we shall still persist.
We'd rather be around to hear you call us paranoid,
Than not.

I know you see it as a weakness,
As a flaw in us.
We see it,
When we have the time to waste in wondering,
As a strength -
Like that of tempered steel,
Annealed in fire, and quenched in drowning fear.
If you think we waste our lives in caution, think on this -
We have them, still, to spend or waste as we see fit.
And others don't.
They were not so cautious.
You say "They knew how to live" -
We ask, "Why then are they no longer doing so?"

Yes, caution is a strength.
A strength, unchosen, that we manifest,
Rather than be rift apart from you
By death. And so we wonder
How can we be so meaningless to you
That you would choose illusions over us,
That you would not somehow find within yourself
That strength we have been forced to find
To keep ourselves together -
Bodies with our souls,
And both with you.

We will not call you paranoid,
At the last,
You ones who trust,
You who believe when we can no longer believe,
When you tell us we are safe.

We will mourn you,
We will occasionally take time to bewail your fate,
We will wonder
"How could anyone not have known?"
But we will not call you paranoid.

We will just miss you
And go on.

Tuesday, 22 May, 2001

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