Waging a War on Forgetting
Heather Ann Pulido
My lover laments the collective forgetting
of wars and genocides around the world.
No one is talking about Ukraine anymore.
The public has moved on from Gaza.
I tell him, there are even more
atrocities that are so underreported,
they didn’t even get a chance
to be remembered.
In November, a Congolese man
set himself on fire to get people to look.
One child in Sudan dies of hunger
every two hours. Who is even counting?
It’s been 1589 days since I called
my ex-lover because my mother
was having a heart attack.
I knew I should've been a doctor.
Life goes on even if your
heart stops, even if your heart
of hearts stops. Look, I am still
an orphan, 1589 days later.
Heather Ann Pulido
Heather Ann Pulido is a Kankanaey-Ibaloi and bisexual author from Baguio City, Philippines. Her work appears in Roi Fainéant Press, streetcake magazine, The Hooghly Review, and other badass magazines. She is a poetry editor at JAKE and has been nominated twice for the Best of the Net. Connect with her on X/Twitter at @heather_tries.