numbers

people are not numbers
don’t reduce
my friends to math
my brothers and sisters
to clicks on a keyboard
they are people, living and breathing.
I stand against this blasphemy.

Recocnize individuality
not insignificance
it’s about spirituality
not statistics . . .
everyone has a face
and everyone has a word
we must shout it from
the mountain tops
let it be heard, let it be heard -
all these people have voices
don’t you silence them with
your scribbles
on the paper of the numbers
you want them to become
so that we’ll all disappear
and the whole world will
be numb.

We cannot stand by
and comply
with the wishes of the
calculator and the spreadsheet
and the corporations and the congress
who all want to steal our souls
who all want us to become
nothing more than
a click and a clack
into a datasheet, dead to the world.

I refuse to go down without a fight
My sisters, my brothers
Stand to your feet
We can’t let them take it from us
if we only stand together
living every second
breathing every breath
like his face, her voice
are all tellers of their story
and this story keeps on going . . . and going
it’s the story of humanity
its why its so important
that we don’t black out the faces
and we don’t block out the voices

not just figures and data -
the currency you deal in is flesh and blood
yet we are all of the same flesh and blood
we all cry the same tears
we sweat the same salt
but how dare you smear it all together
into groups and charts
that exist only in your blackberry
in the pocket of your suit

no -
the space where any child of god draws a breath
is sacred

I stand against this blasphemy.
this urge to conquer, name, perscribe
this need to seperate the cause and effect,
the bombs and the broken
the laws and the lovers
the bottomline and the barely surviving
the fences and the families
blasphemy is disassembling the world
making it what you want,
you fancy yourself gods

How dare you ignore what makes us all the same
we’re all living and breathing and loving and dying

everyone has a name
and every name has a story
and every story has a voice
Don’t ignore this valuable reality,
don’t ignore this essential choice -
to tell one's story as one knows it.

people are not numbers
don’t reduce us down
to numbers on a paper
that will perish in the jaws
of an office paper shrewder somewhere,
adulterated, used, dirty.

cause everyone has a chance to let someone
tell their story
and that’s why its so important

to not black out the faces

and not block out the voices.