The advocate for New Zealanders mental health
BY Karlo Mila

Zeitgeist mental anguish

• 3 min read

The sensitive ones are going down.

The ones who feel the Gaza Strip 

searing 

in the nerve endings 

of their neck.

Panic attacking.

Hyperventilating with the inhumane.

 

Beating hearts bombing

human body synching

with the unbearable,

flight, fight,

freeze.

 

1 in every 65 children 

in Gaza are dead.

13,000,

57 died from hunger 

since the blockade on March the 2nd. 

 

The sensitive ones are going down. 

 Nervous systems, nervous, 

reacting, contracting, 

suppressing, depressing,

collapsing.

 Anxiety high,

falling into depressions

from which we cannot rise. 

 The sensitive, the special ones, 

are back on the meth pipe, 

back on the bottle,

heading hard into their own hell.

 The young are departing by their own hands. 

The old ones are slipping away in their sleep. 

 And Bob Marley’s son, 

pro-Israel, sings here with no irony,

“Could we be loved?”

 Who have we become? 

When even freedom songs

become laments 

of hypocrisy. 

 Our politicians, 

seeking election,

fuel racism 

with every inflammatory 

word 

finding kindling 

in kindred racists,

referendums on Te Tiriti

anti-co-governance

in the name of unity.

 

For us,

it’s a forest fire out there 

raging.

Natives are the first to go. 

Brown bodies 

marked 

as moving 

political targets.

 

And all those who chose 

to work within the system

to change it,

are in the firing range,

nervous systems burning.

 

The sensitive ones are going down. 

 

The special ones, 

are backpedalling out of the world,

are re-entering the psychiatric wards

descending back into madness. 

 

Our beloveds, 

our broken hearted,

are choosing to leave, 

 

so they don’t have to feel any of this. 

 

They cannot stay. 

 

For those of us who can.

 

For our beloved trans whānau,

takatāpui, our young men,

our women, our tamariki,

our sensitive ones. 

 

We are called to be 

the sane, 

the sober, 

the stayers,

the holders, 

for all those who 

just.can’t.right.now. 

 

We will be the new normal.

 

For all our wounding,

for all our fear, 

we will not operate from there. 

 

We will still ourselves 

enough to feel steady. 

 

We will resource ourselves 

enough 

to have something to offer.

 

We will stand 

with those who are suffering 

on every side

in ways 

that do not betray

justice. 

 

And for,

and from,

all depression

we will rise.

 

And for,

and from,

all anxiety

we will soothe.

 

Even if it just means choosing to stay,

choosing to pray,

choosing today,

to be-here-now. 

 

Because the sensitive ones are falling. 

 

We must make our own 

slow-paced way, 

along the long arc of justice,

up that steep incline,

marching 

peacefully,

following the feet

of giants who walked before us. 

 

We must break open 

and open 

and open, 

until we see the soft eyes 

of the other,

and truly look. 

 

We must hold everyone we love tight, 

and love everyone we fear,

more,

than we think we can. 

We must create a world, a country, a city, a community - that you want to live in,

That welcomes you and your suffering, you belong here.

We will hold and help you

we will see ourselves 

in you. 

Your suffering 

is my suffering. 

I am you.

And you are me. 

We are one. 

Because the sensitive ones are falling. 

 

And, I,

 

I,

 

I,

 

am a sensitive one.

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