It’s my life. I’m always livin’ on a prayer — then I met you.
Alas!
You give love a bad name, they said. You are wanted dead or alive — on a bed of roses. Angry officials, shouting from their high chairs. Pointing fingers. You tainted love’s pure name, they said.
But what is love, you cried back.
Is love pure?
Or can you find love in the darkest alley, in the dirtiest ditch, in the eye of girls selling their bodies under the dim lamps of Las Vegas?
Can you find love on a mother’s cold dead eyes, while her three-year old baby washed ashore on Turkey beach? Can you find love on the eyes of seventy-one immigrants, rotten away and nearly forgotten by the media, on a roadside at Austria?
Can you find love on Kim Davis, when she refused to celebrate love of loving people?
Is that love?
Or can you find love through Brandon’s cold camera lens, as he captures the stories of humanity on his Humans of New York? With thousands and thousands of cold texts, typed from shiny smartphones and gadgets. Each word, laced with heat of passion. Passion of humanity and better future.
“Have a nice day,” I told you, “I’ll be there for you,” even when you’re on a runaway.
Thank you for loving me, and giving me a glimpse on blaze of glory. It’s beautiful. Really beautiful.
Even though it leaves a bad medicine taste aftermath on my tongue. But the beauty is there. I am drowned.
I will never say goodbye to you. Never.
Though this ain’t a love song, I know you want to make a memory. I know you will.
Oh, I’m sorry. This is a love song. This is a love song for me, for you, for all of us. For anyone who care to listen. Under the screams of injustice, the bloodbath of religions and wars, the salutations of tyrants and dictators — this is a love song.
You told me once, “we weren’t born to follow.” You laughed, “are you seriously going to follow these people — with blood on their hands. Those innocent souls, their bloods laid bare on these dirty politicians yet nobody cares! Nobody pointed it out! These people who equally killing thousands of souls, making hundreds of people wishing to die even before Death giving them a visit, actually have a nerve to talk about humanity and social justice! Ha!”
In these arms, we have weapons. The blood is running rampant, pulsating with life. We are leaders.
What about now, I asked you. Because we can. We can be leaders. We can be the heroes of our own stories.
Hallelujah!
You and I. Our freedom. Our life. Our rights.
My freedom. My life. My rights.
Are born to be my baby.
It will be born to be your baby.
It will be born to be younger generation’s baby.
— Kuala Lumpur. September 2015