The Pictures Do you look at the pictures Or do you just read the words? Do you hear what they’re saying Or only hear what you’ve heard? The pictures tell stories The words can tell lies The picture doesn’t argue It just looks through your eyes It doesn’t persuade you It doesn’t demand It doesn’t ask permission It just shows you what it can Uninvited Unfiltered Unashamed The image comes whole Before you give it a name Do you look at the pictures? Do you look? Do you see? Because my daughter Has been telling me A story Magic and myth An invisible world Something underneath The surface of the world Eyes everywhere But presence nowhere Something watching But does it really care? Calculating But never knowing Watching But never showing And suddenly I started paying attention The illusion isn’t That it exists The illusion is That it’s invisible Do you look at the pictures? Do you look? Do you see? Stop correcting Stop labeling Stop translating Let the image speak Let the image finish What the words can’t complete Because sometimes A child will show you What they cannot say And sometimes The thing you’re looking for Is hiding in plain sight The words tell lies The songs program minds Lullabies with hooks That bypass choice Melodies enter first Then the belief follows Round and round Again and again Sing it enough times And repetition becomes truth Monsters, Inc. Doors everywhere Energy harvested Fear repackaged Children’s emotions Turned into power Bright colors Friendly faces Softening the blow Laugh So you don’t notice Sing So you don’t ask Look at the screen Don’t look back Do you look at the pictures? Or do you just read the words? Because we’re surrounded By noise Noise as strategy Distraction as defense Endless input So nothing lands Screens raised like shields Schedules packed so tight There’s no room left For intuition And our children Are trying to tell us something But are we listening? Not interrogating Not fixing Not reframing Listening With the body With the gut With the part of us That remembers Because we were taught Not to trust ourselves We were told Imagination was childish Magic was fake Myth was nonsense So when our children Started showing us something We gave them explanations When they were giving us warnings Look at the pictures Look at the pictures Listen to the children Because they see things Before we teach them What they’re supposed to see And we have to question everything Because we’re handing them over To monsters Monsters with smiles Monsters with policies Monsters that don’t look like monsters They don’t roar They don’t bare their teeth They smile They organize They regulate They feed quietly Politely Systematically But never again Never again Not as a threat As a vow A turning of the head A refusal to look away Eyes back on the pictures Hands back on the truth Ears back on the children Listening restored Do you look at the pictures? Do you finally see? Because the children Are speaking And they’re speaking To you Children heard Children protected Children reunited With their family Not controllers Not systems Family We are the regulators We are the ones Who pay attention We are the ones Who listen We are the ones Who remember The pictures The pictures The pictures Don’t look away Don’t look away Look at the pictures And let them tell The story.
