PEELING PAINT

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Close-knit,
A group,
Together,
A unit,
Functioning like threads in a cloth,
All playing an important role,
All holding firm,
Individual threads sitting next to each other,
Holding onto each other,
Leaning on each other
Giving rise to a mass of threads,
Different threads embracing each other is what we call cloth.
Whenever a thread comes loose,
The whole group is threatened,
Other threads in no time begin to unravel,
The unit is compromised,
Slowly, it falls apart.


People are no different from those threads,
People are just like threads in a cloth,
Only differences are,
We can walk
Talk,
Breathe
And reason.
Walking,
Talking,
Breathing,
Reasoning,
These are the things that make us human,
Does being human not make us all family then?


What is family?
Family is more than man and wife,
More than father and child
Certainly more than mother and child,
Those only form a minute portion of the bigger family,
The human family.
But we’ve all grown apart,
Into nationalities,
Ethnic groupings,
Races and colours,
When did we stop being family?
When did we become squabbling groups of people
Affectionately called sovereign nations?
In becoming nations,
We only seek the well-being of a few,
Ever wonder how come there’s so much unrest in this world of ours?
Too many groups of people seeking interests,
Interests they feel best suit them.
Black, pink, white, orange or yellow,
Are we any more human than the other?
Colours only help us trace genetic lines,
Our roots,
Our shared heritage,
An ancestry that proves that we’re all family
Dating back to prehistoric years,
Why then should colours and boundaries be divisive?
Shouldn't these things rather make us appreciative of one another?


Gone are the days when we shared huts
And lived next to each other.
You’re right, we do have neighbours today
But all we do next to them is exist,
We’re there because our land sits next to theirs,
All we seek to do is live on our land and nothing more,
We’re islands with walls around us for good measure,
High time we began living next to each other,
Let’s not just exist next to each other
As though passengers on a greyhound bus
Headed for some remote area.
Gone are the days when we cooked together,
Ate together,
And did so many other things together.
Now all we do is grin at each other,
Hide behind tall walls serving as barriers and moats,
Demarcations that only divide us the more,
Nationalities,
Ethnicities,
Races,
Why all these man-made divisions?


We’re at war with each other,
Seek further advancements in weaponry,
Just so we can kill each other more effectively,
Live in upper classes and lower classes,
Welcome to the age of human classes,
We use each other as guinea pigs all in the name of globalization,
What is globalization?
Just a term that endorses selective application
Of the ideals of family and human feeling.
Third world,
Second world,
First world,
Aren't we all living in the same world?
How many worlds can exist in one world?
Do we live on separate planets collectively called earth?
How can a first, second and third world exist on one earth?
Please someone do tell me how,
For I haven’t the slightest idea how.
Why do we seek to further distance ourselves from each other?
How sad,
We were family once,
Back in the Stone Age when we wore nothing but rags,
And roasted venison over naked fires.
What changed?
Are we any less human today than we were yesterday?
Funny, thought we did not get to choose family,
Guess we found a way around that,
We propagated races,
Demarcated land giving rise to nations
And killed the human society,
Abolishing the human family,
Today we sit back unconcerned reveling in trivial technology
While the greatest human tragedy unfolds,
We slowly erase that which unites us as human.
Instead of focusing on what divides us,
Can we not choose to hang onto what unites us?
Being human just might be the worst tragedy of all time,
Why?
Because we keep looking at each other as though we’re different
When in truth, those differences only reside in our heads.


Let us become family again,
Nothing stops us from doing so.
Break down the walls you’ve erected in your heads,
Hearts and minds,
They’ve only pushed us further apart
Alienated us thus far
And projected us all as different,
Dissimilar,
With nothing in common.
But I beg to differ,
We do have something in common,
Being human, can we have anything greater than that in common?
All problems in our world today are deep rooted in human being,
Is it beyond us to find solutions to problems we’ve created?
We shall know no peace in this world,
We shall forever remain squabbling groups of people
Fondly called nations
Until we begin to look at each other as brother and sister,
For deep down,
We are brother and sister,
Deep down,
We’re all distant relatives.
Nothing more than a huge concrete wall doused in different colours of paint,
How different can we be?
Aren't we more similar than different?