Going Into a Picture

Tiananmen Square ‘89

Who am I in this scene?

Am I the man or am I a tank?

Do I make stands or do I take them?

Am I the oppressed or am I the oppressor?

Am I the man?

Am I one standing out of the crowd?

Am I defiant in defending my beliefs?

Do I feel an inevitable battalion coming after me?

Do I go along in life without companions,

Have the courage and strength,

To look coldly at my enemies,

Unfazed and unwavered by the bevy of consequences?

Perhaps I’m a tank.

Am I one in an army of many?

Am I powerful and bloodthirsty?

Do I dare run this man down?

Do I take orders from a higher power,

Conforming out of fear and necessity,

To persecute those straying from the pack,

Apathetic to whether or not I’m doing the right thing?

The fact is that I’m both, we’re all both.

In this world of 7 billion and counting,

It’s not possible to be alone in any cause,

Nor is it to fully share one either.

What we see here is merely a glimpse,

No one truly knows what happened before or after,

Because a picture is a single scene,

In the multi-act production that is the world.