Illustration: Osheen Siva
Instruction: Find two other people willing to read this poem aloud with you in a public place. Where will you read this poem aloud? This depends upon the country or region in which you are reading this poem, and how dissent is regulated within this country or region. Perhaps you shout this poem. Perhaps you whisper it. Perhaps the performance lasts five minutes. Perhaps the performance happens every day and lasts for many years.
You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here. You can’t survive here.
Note: This poem was written in response to On Venus, artist Patrick Staff’s installation at the Serpentine Galleries in London in early 2020. Reading the instructions, I realize it is no longer possible to gather with those two other people in a public place. Dissent, vulnerability: who gets to survive? There’s no performance, but there is a country and there is a region. Days, but also months.
