Big Brother

I’m told it’s patriotic

when a billion is owned by one

and the rest of us are leased back

to ourselves

in monthly instalments.

Different flags.

Same invoice.

My elder brothers in government

call this democracy.

I believe them;

not because it makes sense,

but because disbelief

has a higher cost of living.

Doubt doesn’t get healthcare.

Scepticism isn’t invited to weddings.

Questions age poorly

around dinner tables

where silence is inheritance.

So I nod.

I vote.

I regurgitate the correct outrage

on the correct days.

Globally informed.

Locally obedient.

When people burn in my neighbourhood,

I turn up the air conditioning in my room.

When people burn elsewhere,

I peddle opinions and call it geopolitics.

Fire and ash travel better

once they cross borders.

I’m a hopeful patriot.

Hope is renewable energy;

it powers denial indefinitely.

They tell me rebellion is necessary.

They tell me revolution is inevitable.

They tell me history bends

because brave men push it.

And I almost believe that too.

Because the greatest trick

the powerful ever perfected

was convincing the powerless

that resistance

was their idea.

Every revolutionary you admire

was anticipated.

Budgeted.

Positioned on the board

long before they learned

the word freedom.

You think you chose dissent.

No.

Dissent was made available —

like a menu of exotic delicacies

with limited options

and excellent optics.

They love a good game of chess,

my real big brothers.

Old money.

Quiet surnames.

Countries mispronounced

by their own citizens.

And a good game of chess

doesn’t need resistance.

It needs opposition;

a losing side 

with its demise scripted in bold

carved off a stone's heart

that truly believes

the board can still be flipped.

Because nothing tastes sweeter

than inevitability

disguised as suspense.

They don’t fear rebels.

They curate them.

They allow your marches

because the road is already fenced.

They allow your chants

because throats give out before walls do.

They allow your anger

because anger has a shelf life,

and rage always dies before anything else does.

They give you just enough victory

to keep hope breathing,

and just enough defeat

to keep you coming back.

Revolutions aren’t crushed anymore.

They’re prolonged.

Because a rebellion convinced

it’s still winning

will never notice

when the game has already ended.

Look closely.

Your heroes are branded.

Your martyrs are merchandised.

Your slogans fit perfectly

on factory-stitched T-shirts

made by hands

too tired to scream them.

Your outrage keeps the wheels turning.

Your dissent teaches them your limits.

Your anger is harvested,

measured,

and sold back to you

as the illusion of impact.

Even your radicalism

comes with terms and conditions, 

terms and conditions that have been bought and paid for, 

long before you had woken up to the idea of revolution.

The air you breathe is sponsored.

The news you consume is curated.

The language you protest in, is pre-approved.

Even the spine you think you grew

was manufactured

from recycled myths

about courage and change.

You’re not free.

You’re on temporary custody of conviction;

allowed to hold on to your ideals,

but never move them.

And change?

That’s the bedtime story

they tell children

and nations alike.

The belief that your questions

could topple governments,

unnerve billionaires,

or interrupt men

who buy continents

like weekend properties —

it’s adorable.

They let you ask

because the asking

is the containment.

You, me,

the governments, the oppositions,

the flags, the funerals,

the revolutions broadcasted live —

all pieces

on the same board.

Governments aren’t the puppeteers.

They’re the strings.

Corporations aren’t villains.

They’re infrastructure.

Democracy is the illusion

that makes the cage feel participatory

and the strings seem optional.

And me?

I’m not resisting this.

I’m narrating it calmly

because I already paid

for comfort

with silence.

Selling out isn’t corruption.

It’s adaptation.

It’s surviving

without the inconvenience

of a conscience

that demands structural change

instead of symbolic wins.

I didn’t lose my spine.

I rented it to the highest bidder.

So I could walk without crutches, 

so I could sleep and wake up too, 

so I could be an absolute nobody, 

away from the dying somebodies lining up to their graves.

This isn’t betrayal.

This is efficiency.

And if this unsettles you, 

good.

That discomfort

is the last square on the board

where you still believe

you have a move left.

But the game doesn’t end

with checkmate anymore.

It ends the moment you realise

you were never playing against them —

you were playing the role

they wrote for you.

And the most elegant revenge

was never crushing you.

It was letting you believe,

right till the end,

that you almost won.

And remember,

long after your bones turn to dust

and the echo of your voice dissolves into soil,

I will still be here, breathing quietly,

penning the elegy you never lived to write,

filing your absence neatly

under the rubric of “history”, 

where every scream, every hope, every spine

was priced, purchased, and accounted for

long before life traced its route from seed to self.

That’s how democracies survive:

the marrow of the many

extracted, harvested, and stitched into the bones of the few.

That's how democracies sustain:

not through equality, but human trafficking.