Why are you afraid?

This poem won 'Honorable Mention' in the New Poets competition at Allpoetry.com

By Shevlin Sebastian

Why is the powerful Leader

So afraid of the creative people —

the poets, painters, and writers.

These guys have nothing

Except the tools of their arts.

Brushes, paints, easels and canvases,

Words, sentences, paragraphs.

So why is the Leader

Who has the Army, Navy and the Air Force

At his command,

Who has the intelligence bureau,

And the shadow police

Monitoring the population

24/7

Why is he so afraid of the

artists?

Why is he so scared of criticism and protests?

None of these artists or protests can dethrone the leader

So why?

The answer is simple.

The leader lies

All the time

When you lie

For some unknown reason, you feel afraid

Of the Truth

Because the utterance of

Truth

Can shatter the edifice of lies.

Hence, the severe response

To the truth-teller

The leader fears

that his rule can collapse.

And as history shows,

it does.

To build something enduring

Truth and love have always been the cement

While lies and hatred are the sand

Porous and weak.

So, dear leader

Tell the truth

And you will not be afraid

Of anybody

Always remember

What the Nobel Prize laureate

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said,

“One word of truth,

Can outweigh the whole world.”