By Peter Versteeg –
One day, we also took
to the streets to protest
against atrocities in a rather
distant country
We were only a few
as nobody seemed to notice
There were no cameras
We did not shout
loud enough to drown out
what everybody else was
crying about
Some of us tried social media
but we lacked friends as
they had dumped us after they
started shouting sexy slogans
and wearing fruity pins
Some of us suggested to occupy
at least one room of the university
When we settled in, it looked like
we were having a conversation
Some of us tried harder and talked
a bit louder
not sure whether we were embarrassed
or just annoyed that nobody seemed
to care
And we just kept saying to ourselves
we were okay, it just was
the right time for some children
to be burned unseen
Peter Versteeg teaches at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the VU.