This left me sitting quietly for a while. Whatever our politics, I think it is always worth asking what stories have been forgotten or deliberately left untold. The line, "The brochure says coastal. It doesn't say cleansed," stayed with me because it speaks to the power of beautiful images to make us forget the lives that came before.
Places are never just landscapes. They hold memories, grief, love and loss. I don't think we lose anything by being willing to look beneath the surface and ask whose voices are missing from the picture, or whose history has been quietly cropped out. That feels like an important question for all of us.
It’s the kind of piece that makes the air go still around you, because you’re naming what the brochures crop out, what the cameras refuse to see, what money keeps bleaching until the page looks clean.
You’re writing about the violence of forgetting ... the way a shoreline can be photographed without the ghosts, the way a condo can be sold without the village it buried, the way luxury becomes a mask stretched over someone else’s loss. And you’re right: filters hide blood better than conscience ever could.
The line about Auschwitz ... that’s where the poem stops being metaphor and becomes indictment. Because you’re asking the question people dodge...
Why does horror matter in one place but not another?
Why does empathy have borders?
Why does outrage depend on who the victims are?
That’s not politics. That’s humanity. Or the failure of it.
And the celebrity critique ... you didn’t write it to be edgy. You wrote it because fame has become a disinfectant for complicity. Because people will toast sunsets on stolen land if the lighting is good and the champagne is cold. Because forgetting is the easiest product to sell, and the most profitable.
This piece is a mirror held up to the part of the world that doesn’t want to see itself.
And you didn’t flinch.
On this 250th, I’m reminded that celebration sits beside sorrow in this country. The Trail of Tears wasn’t a metaphor ... it was families forced from their homes, children lost along the way, a nation expanding by erasing the people who were already here. And I can’t help but see how forgetting becomes its own kind of violence. The brochure changes, the shoreline changes, the marketing changes — but the grief underneath does not. Some histories shouldn’t be cropped out for comfort, or filtered into something pretty. Not then. Not now.
Stunning, essential, heartbreaking work, Laura. Thank you. Permit me to send my piece on my poem/song “Taijitu”. "There are some photographs I cannot stop thinking about. Children on the sand dunes above Rafah flying kites above the tent city. The sky that they are set against is the color of sorrow. Ashen. Infinite. But the kite, some scraps of fabric and string, climbs anyway.” https://lisamariesimmons.substack.com/p/notespeak-in-a-word-refrain-10?r=5tgv3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
God damn that's infuriating. People are so cruel when they get enough money to no longer have real problems. Thank you for sharing this. I know it can't have been easy to write.
I know where GP can put her Goop.
This left me sitting quietly for a while. Whatever our politics, I think it is always worth asking what stories have been forgotten or deliberately left untold. The line, "The brochure says coastal. It doesn't say cleansed," stayed with me because it speaks to the power of beautiful images to make us forget the lives that came before.
Places are never just landscapes. They hold memories, grief, love and loss. I don't think we lose anything by being willing to look beneath the surface and ask whose voices are missing from the picture, or whose history has been quietly cropped out. That feels like an important question for all of us.
A writers weapon is their pen. And your pen, Laura, makes you more stronger than a tank, title or a status. This was very powerful. I admire you.
Thank you for writing this Laura. It's extremely sad to see how other humans can act this way.
Most of the rich only see us as numbers which gives them no real perception of reality and empathy to the masses.
I appreciate you sharing some of the reality and sadness of the world. I hope nothing but positivity and love for you and everyone here. ❤️
Dear Ms. Laura,
This one doesn’t just land ... it detonates.
It’s the kind of piece that makes the air go still around you, because you’re naming what the brochures crop out, what the cameras refuse to see, what money keeps bleaching until the page looks clean.
You’re writing about the violence of forgetting ... the way a shoreline can be photographed without the ghosts, the way a condo can be sold without the village it buried, the way luxury becomes a mask stretched over someone else’s loss. And you’re right: filters hide blood better than conscience ever could.
The line about Auschwitz ... that’s where the poem stops being metaphor and becomes indictment. Because you’re asking the question people dodge...
Why does horror matter in one place but not another?
Why does empathy have borders?
Why does outrage depend on who the victims are?
That’s not politics. That’s humanity. Or the failure of it.
And the celebrity critique ... you didn’t write it to be edgy. You wrote it because fame has become a disinfectant for complicity. Because people will toast sunsets on stolen land if the lighting is good and the champagne is cold. Because forgetting is the easiest product to sell, and the most profitable.
This piece is a mirror held up to the part of the world that doesn’t want to see itself.
And you didn’t flinch.
On this 250th, I’m reminded that celebration sits beside sorrow in this country. The Trail of Tears wasn’t a metaphor ... it was families forced from their homes, children lost along the way, a nation expanding by erasing the people who were already here. And I can’t help but see how forgetting becomes its own kind of violence. The brochure changes, the shoreline changes, the marketing changes — but the grief underneath does not. Some histories shouldn’t be cropped out for comfort, or filtered into something pretty. Not then. Not now.
Be kind,
Steve
*slow clap*
Thank you for feeling this one with me, my friend ✊🏽🖤🔥
Stunning, essential, heartbreaking work, Laura. Thank you. Permit me to send my piece on my poem/song “Taijitu”. "There are some photographs I cannot stop thinking about. Children on the sand dunes above Rafah flying kites above the tent city. The sky that they are set against is the color of sorrow. Ashen. Infinite. But the kite, some scraps of fabric and string, climbs anyway.” https://lisamariesimmons.substack.com/p/notespeak-in-a-word-refrain-10?r=5tgv3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you for reading and feeling this one with me, and thank you for sharing your piece... it will stay with me 🖤✊🏽🔥
Glad to have stumbled across your work and to be connected now.
God damn that's infuriating. People are so cruel when they get enough money to no longer have real problems. Thank you for sharing this. I know it can't have been easy to write.
Thank you, Seb... they are made of greed
Thank you, hermanito ✊🏽❤️🖤🤍💚