Democracy

What Does Democracy Mean to a People?
Adena M’lynn 2025 (spoken word) 
Writers workshop 2025

Democracy—
ain’t just a word tucked neat in a textbook,
it’s breath in the lungs of the unheard,
it’s a seat at the table for the kid who always stood outside the door,
it’s knowing your story matters—even if the world says it don’t.

To a people,
it’s power without permission,
it’s protest without prison,
it’s building something real with nothing but hope
and the bones of those who dared to dream before us.
It’s choosing leaders, not surviving rulers.
It’s being seen. It’s being counted. It’s being human.

And when it works—
when it really works—
democracy becomes more than a system,
it becomes a mirror,
reflecting back a people who refuse to be erased.


How can so many not see the evil before their eyes?

It walks among them—dressed in suits, cloaked in law, wrapped in flags, smiling wide behind polished podiums. It speaks with calm voices on evening news and shouts from pulpits that once preached love. It’s not hidden. It’s loud, proud, and bold. It bans books, cages children, erases history, mocks the suffering, and twists faith until it no longer resembles truth. And still—so many do not see.


Maybe they won’t see. Maybe it’s easier to sleep when the nightmare belongs to someone else. Maybe it’s safer to believe the lie than to question the comfort it buys. Maybe they’ve traded their conscience for a counterfeit version of peace—one where they are never the ones in danger.


But for those who do see—the air is thick with sorrow. We want to scream, to shake the world awake. Because we know what comes next. History told us. Our ancestors lived it. The silence of the many has always been the cloak of the few who seek control. 


Evil does not hide. It thrives on distraction, indifference, and fear. It counts on good people doing nothing—just long enough for it to take root.


So we must ask again, and louder each time:

How can you not see?

And then we must keep speaking—until they do.

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