300 samples of ash.

A shred of red cloth, a single bangle around a wrist
A single wrist lies clenched in a fist.
That fist never knew that it would make the list
Of those who burnt down in a factory fire.
That wrist never knew that the last it would see would be the orange of flame, enveloping every corner surrounding it.
That wrist never knew it would be victim to a box of matches.
That wrist never knew, it would be one of the 300 different kinds of ashes.

Today, we mourn.
We mourn  300 lives lost.
We mourn 300 dreams burnt to dust.
We mourn 300 voices that screamed for help and suffocated in a cage, safely bolted with locks.
More so,
We mourn our irresponsibility.
We mourn our insensitivity.
We mourn our corrupt minds and hearts and system.

One said it was a fuse blown
Another said it was plotted by an unknown
One said it was revenge to 9\11
One even said 'oh, don't worry, they're probably in heaven.'
My question is, was crossing hellfire the only path yo heaven?
And everyone knows the answer to that.
The careless government, the lazy fire fire fighters, the cruel factory managers, the ignorant crowd before me, and ofcourse, myself.

If my voice shakes today, its not because I'm nervous.
Its because I know I could've been one of them.
And I will be, one day,
Unless,
We stop pretending we are helpless.
We have the mess of 300 different ashes to clear today
We have 300 tragic stories to hear today
We have the burden of 300 families to bear today
We have 300 sorrows to share today.
All we can do is pray today,
Donate what we can,
And I dream in vain, that their grief could wash way with rain
And I hope, today, that we may never witness hell on earth again. 

Untitled.

He slouches in his leather couch big enough for three
Fingers loosely grip a cigar
His feet are up on a footstool
The air conditioner cools
The room enough to frost the crackling fire in the fireplace.
He drops the ashes in a bowl of used matches when outside a car crashes into pieces and he scratches his head and says 'That's six dead today.'
Not a wince on his face, not a tear in his eye
he doesn't bother to lean back and look out the window
to check if he's alive
and with the emotional range
of a tea-spoon says
'I wonder how things will change'.
You talk of change? YOU talk of change?
You sit in your furnished office debating, contemplating, your phone vibrating in your pocket
CONGRATULATIONS! You've made another miillion!
Great, now you're celebrating.
But what about the billion
on the roads
who knock on your car doors and you hand them four
Coins thinking you've given em more
than they deserved?
So you'd hand her a crumpled ten and her mother will be well again and her father wouldn't try to sell her again and her days would never be hell again?
Well, let me tell you that the next time you yell at her again when she asks for more, honey, she's not asking for your change, she's asking for you to change.