“I urge you to listen.
I beg you to pay attention
for these are the most important words
I will ever pen:
Do not succumb to the half-life!
To the indifference and apathy of those cool
and aloof individuals. Nothing affects them,
their lover cries out desperately for affection
but they shrug their shoulders—for they are always shrugging—
and transcend the messy drama of the human situation.
O this transcendental invincibility—I tell you: the shit
of the bull! We are not gods. We are human.
Even Christ chose immanence
so He could feel as the people felt,
suffer as they did.
You must revel in your neuroses,
your sensitivities and sensibilities.
Burn your excitable character, do not extinguish
this fire. Stay within.
Taste the immediacy of living.
Be in life with others.
Do not yield to the hypocrisy
the world demands!
Do not succumb to the shadows,
to the half-light, to the half-life.
We are not gods.
Be human.”

Kamand Kojouri

“I am not separate from you, my neighbour.
If you are my enemy then I am my own enemy.
If you are my friend then I am my own friend.
Today, I have stripped off my masks
and come to know myself.
I am Christian. I am Jew. I am Muslim and Hindu.
I am European and African. Asian and South American.
I am man. I am woman. I am intersexed.
I am homosexual. I am heterosexual and asexual.
I am abled. I am disabled.
I am all these things because you are,
and you are all these things because we are.
I exist in relation to each of you, this is what gives my being meaning.
Why must I label myself like a bottle of wine?
When I am the bottle, the wine, and the drunkenness.
Why must I label myself at all?
When I am the flesh, the light, and the shadow.
When I am the voice, the song, and the echo.
Tell me why I must label myself
when I am the lover, the beloved, and love.
I am not separate from you, my neighbour.
And you are not separate from humanity.
We are all mirrors, reflecting one another in perpetuity.”

Kamand Kojouri

God is not dead—She has forsaken us.
We wipe our angry, hate-filled tears
after another shooting, as a man
polishes his gun outside a mosque.
All those stolen lives—we scream
for justice! But God has quietly left
our temples and churches.
She will not return, for what WE have done
is much worse. We have murdered
humanity.
God has deserted even the devout of us
who save our love and compassion
for those good and righteous, as we abandon the bigots
brimming with hate. Yes, those least deserving
of love, but the most in need of it.
God’s agony rings in our hearts. She wails for the future
shooters. Though we reject them,
God greets these cracked and confused creatures—
the least deserving of compassion but the most in need of it!
These suggestible souls who are susceptible to the systematic vitriol
spilling from cult leaders and politicians, brainwashing them.
We’ve read their spiteful tweets, but when we pass
them in classrooms, in trains and markets, we dismiss
those seemingly small opportunities for kindness.
We don’t know—and how ignorant we are—
that every time we ignore them,
we sharpen our daggers
and stab humanity in its pink raw flesh,
not in dark alleyways. No, we do this openly
in broad daylight, for hating them
shows how loving we are. For condemning
them proves how moral we are.
But every shooting illumines
the failure of our collective duty to love
as God loves, to be compassionate as God
is compassionate.
Your prayers heal, yes,
but for God’s sake, let God be.
I say: First,
resurrect your humanity!”

Kamand Kojouri