For Those Who Wont Go Quietly
Praise for the Maligned, the Disrespected, and the Ignored
They will not write your name on a monument.
They will not say thank you.
They will not say you were right.
They will call you many things—reckless, traitor, pessimist, problem.
But I know what you are.
I’ve seen the shape of your courage.
You wouldn’t bow.
Not to cruelty, not to power, not to the silent agreement to look away.
And that’s everything.
We live in the age of theater and cruelty.
An age where the greatest sin is not evil, but disregard for humanity.
Not violence, but refusal.
Refuse the lie, and you’ll be made to carry its shame.
Break from the script, and you’ll be marked as the villain.
Tell the truth, and you’ll be called a threat.
There is a price for remaining human when the fascist system depends on forgetting what that means.
You’ve paid it. Some of you are still paying it.
So this is for you.
This is not a prayer.
This is not a sermon.
This is not permission, or absolution, or a plea.
This is a recognition.
A litany for the quietly brave.
I.
They will call you angry.
I call you alive.
Anger is the bruise truth leaves when it slams into injustice.
You felt it. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t pretend.
You let your rage crack the silence.
II.
They will call you broken.
I call you bearing.
You carry what they would not name.
You hold what others throw away.
You feel everything, and that has made you heavy.
But never hollow.
III.
They will call you ungrateful.
I call you awake.
You didn’t confuse survival with justice.
You didn’t mistake comfort for kindness.
You saw what was rotten under the floorboards, and you didn’t look away.
IV.
They will call you divisive.
I call you loyal—to truth, to the wounded, to what should have been.
You refused to worship unity built on silence.
You refused the cheap peace of pretending all is well.
You loved too much to let the lie live.
V.
They will call you extremist.
I call you early.
You stood at the edge while they sat at the center.
You warned them. They laughed.
And now, as the fire reaches their door, they’re asking where you went.
You didn’t vanish. You just stopped shouting to people who loved the quiet of denial.
VI.
They will call you too much.
I call you whole.
You didn’t shrink for their comfort.
You didn’t perform palatable pain.
You didn’t bleed quietly enough to be beloved.
You were never supposed to.
VII.
They will call you bitter.
I call you betrayed.
You gave, and gave, and gave.
And they made a theater of your pain.
Bitterness is not the rot of the soul.
It is what grows when love goes unhonored.
VIII.
They will call you negative.
I call you necessary.
You stopped dancing in the burning house.
You stopped applauding the emperor’s new clothes.
You said the thing that broke the spell.
IX.
They will call you dangerous.
I call you daring.
You carried fire in your mouth.
You were not made to be ornamental.
You are what happens when conscience survives propaganda.
X.
They will call you a problem.
I call you the signal.
The canary. The tremor before the quake.
You weren’t the problem.
You were the proof that one still existed.
XI.
They will call you a traitor.
I call you the last patriot left.
You stayed loyal to what they pretended to be.
You refused the costume. You remembered the contract.
You kept your oath when they sold theirs for applause.
XII.
They will call you weak.
I call you wounded—and still walking.
They think strength is not breaking.
But you know the real test is to break and choose to keep going.
To stitch yourself together with thread made of fire and memory.
To speak, even with a voice that shakes.
XIII.
They will call you a fool.
I call you free.
You saw how they bowed to spectacle.
You saw how they drank from poisoned wells.
You saw how they mistook cynicism for wisdom.
And you said no.
XIV.
They will call you alone.
I call you unbought.
You walked away from the stage, from the script, from the circus.
You lost their approval and found your own name.
XV.
They will call you failed.
I call you faithful.
Faithful to what matters.
Faithful to what endures.
You were never trying to win the game.
You were trying not to become the thing you were fighting.
XVI.
They will call you forgotten.
I call you the memory that will not die.
You are the ember beneath the ash.
The breath that keeps the story alive.
The one the future will remember,
when it wakes up and asks,
"Who stood when we bowed?"
Epilogue: The Quietly Brave
I know some days you wonder if it was worth it.
The silence from old friends.
The smear campaigns.
The closed doors.
The long nights.
The fear.
I won’t tell you it didn’t cost you.
It did. It does.
But I’ll tell you this:
There are people breathing because you spoke.
There are lies that cracked because you didn’t laugh.
There are children watching you and learning what integrity looks like.
And somewhere, someone just like you is holding on,
because you showed them it’s possible.
You didn’t sell out.
You didn’t shut up.
You didn’t give in.
You wouldn’t bow.
And there is a kind of grace in that—
a secular, sacred kind of grace.
Not the kind they put in hymns,
but the kind that lives in scars,
in splinters,
in sleepless nights,
in the steady heartbeat of a soul that wouldn’t close its eyes.
You are not alone.
You are not crazy.
You are not wrong.
You are the quietly brave.
And we need you.
Further Reading:
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It may be from a science fiction movie, but "Never give up. Never surrender."