I Will Not Be a Footnote
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Dr Ranbir Laishram
I will not let my generation be a footnote.
We live between whispers and shouts—false narratives spreading like oil across timelines, slicker than the truth.
They trade blame like currency; every scroll becomes a marketplace of outrage, every like a verdict without trial.
Violence drums on, steady as weather we are told to accept.
But our real fight is endurance: the stubborn act of staying.
To breathe when breath is priced, to name ourselves before someone else does, to hold a single thread of morning while the night pulls at the seams.
If we fail to survive, they will fold our lives into the margins, rewrite our sentences in other hands, and turn our faces into smoke.
Endings belong to those who write them, so we must keep the story in our own mouths.
We pass a small flame palm to palm through rumor and ruin.
We teach our children how to carry light on their backs, and teach our neighbors to speak the names of the lost.
We speak loud enough to disturb comfortable silence, soft enough to protect fragile hearts.
This is preservation, not martyrdom. This is work, not waiting.
We refuse erasure. We will rewrite the margins into maps, so our grandchildren know the way home.
I will not let my generation be a footnote.
I will not let my breath be the last sentence of our homeland’s integrity.
I will not let my generation be a footnote.
We live between whispers and shouts—false narratives spreading like oil across timelines, slicker than the truth.
They trade blame like currency; every scroll becomes a marketplace of outrage, every like a verdict without trial.
Violence drums on, steady as weather we are told to accept.
But our real fight is endurance: the stubborn act of staying.
To breathe when breath is priced, to name ourselves before someone else does, to hold a single thread of morning while the night pulls at the seams.
If we fail to survive, they will fold our lives into the margins, rewrite our sentences in other hands, and turn our faces into smoke.
Endings belong to those who write them, so we must keep the story in our own mouths.
We pass a small flame palm to palm through rumor and ruin.
We teach our children how to carry light on their backs, and teach our neighbors to speak the names of the lost.
We speak loud enough to disturb comfortable silence, soft enough to protect fragile hearts.
This is preservation, not martyrdom. This is work, not waiting.
We refuse erasure. We will rewrite the margins into maps, so our grandchildren know the way home.
I will not let my generation be a footnote.
I will not let my breath be the last sentence of our homeland’s integrity.