We die in the hundreds when the bombs fall, in the thousands when the armies cut through. We dig the mass graves then fill them, falling unmarked and unrecorded into a nameless dirt hole. We are statistics in the headlines, less the soldiers or the prize than another battlefield, churned up into nothing.

We are the ones who did not escape the rising waters, who died trapped in our cars when the wildfire jumped the two lane road, who stayed on the mountain until the mud came boiling through our living rooms. They’ll dig us out, some of us, but not all; our records are lost, our families dead, unmourned and unmemoried.

When the riots come, we are caught crossing the street, looking the wrong way for traffic until the crack of the police sniper chases the bullet over the head of the crowd and arrives too late for our ears to catch it, our brains to parse it. We die unknowing.