Something Like People

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?