Nobody hears, so we yell at each other and we make noise and we’re loud, and we fight when we drive, when we go shopping, when we eat dinner, and we speak loud, we speak all the time, we speak nonsense sometimes, still nobody hears, because our parents don’t know how to listen, and our teachers and our doctors and our leaders are trained to mute us, and friends are too busy, and strangers don’t care, and the rich are unbothered.
Nobody hears, so we speak through our eyes, we speak and we hyperventilate, we speak through panic attacks and meltdowns and psychotic breakdowns, but still they ignore us like they ignore wars, and pandemics, and climate change, and awkward truths, and they send us to therapy if we get too loud, because we are expected to ignore everything that should be forgotten.
Nobody hears, because our words don’t matter and sometimes we even forget them, but history hasn’t yet ended, so we scream over rooftops, we scream all the time, we never get tired, and we never give up, and we never run out of air, words, hope.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of "We Fade With Time" by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work has been selected for the Best Microfiction anthology 2024 and Wigleaf Top 50 and can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, New World Writing, Cotton Xenomorph, and others.
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