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 two-spirit.
I am gay. I am asexual. I am straight.
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 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 devoutest of us—
those who hoard our love and compassion
only for the good and righteous as we abandon
the bigots brimming with hate.
Yes, they are the least deserving of love
but the most in need of it.
God’s agony rings in our hearts.
She wails for the future
shooters.
And 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 susceptible
to the systematic vitriol spilling
from demagogues and cult leaders,
brainwashing them.
We read their spiteful tweets,
yet when we pass them in classrooms,
in trains and markets,
we dismiss those seemingly small, nameless
opportunities for kindness.
We don’t know—and how ignorant we are—
that every time
we ignore them,
we sharpen our daggers
and butcher humanity in its raw flesh—
not in dark alleyways, no, but in the light of day.
Because hating them,
shows how loving we are.
Because condemning them,
proves how moral we are.
And every shooting illuminates
the collapse of our collective duty
to love as God loves,
to be compassionate as God
is compassionate.

Prayers heal, yes—
but for God’s sake, let God be.
First,
let’s resurrect our humanity.”

Kamand Kojouri