This morning, I lost 37 followers within an hour. I also noticed that I wasn’t following some of the writers I definitely followed recently. What’s going on?

I read a story the other day from a writer who was mysteriously no longer following people he had previously followed. I would like to tag that story here but unfortunately, it has disappeared from my reading history.

Has anyone else experienced this? Followers are more important on Medium now than ever but it seems like more glitches are happening to impact followings. When I follow someone, it’s because I was lucky enough…

in the years of darkness, they
lay restlessly,
left covered up and passed over.
unjustly, their pasts and futures were buried,
muddied by black soil suppressing the stories
in their blood.
nothing stays hidden
and innocent victims don’t lie peacefully.
truth has a way of reaching through
earthen darkness towards the light of a new
day of reckoning.

© Rachel Ramkaran, 2021

This acrostic poem was written in memory of the 215 children who were found in an unmarked grave at the Kamloops Indian Residential school in Canada. …

On June 6, 2021, a group of Indigenous activists and allies in Toronto successfully toppled a statue of Egerton Ryerson, beheaded it, and cathartically cast its remains into Lake Ontario.

The statue was a monument to a Methodist minister who was influential in establishing the racist, white supremacist Indian residential school system in Canada — a system that separated Indigenous families, stripped people of their cultures, and abused children. …

Grief draws lines on your face.
Softly at first, like a rough tracing of a map —
faint enough to be rubbed away, leaving a ghost of an etching.
And with each new wave of despair and hopelessness,
those outlines get filled in, added to —
a chart of your journey through life, not necessarily time.

Grief tells stories in your eyes.
Complex and winding tales of the moments that hurt
you, the little joys that pulled you through.
They arise in the way you blink back tears and lower your gaze,
the way you squeeze your lids shut. …

Madison made her way clumsily from the garage towards the kitchen, her arms full of old newspapers, paint, and a dusty dodgeball.

“Dad, would it be okay for me to use this stuff for a school project?” She asked her father, Curtis, who was enjoying his morning coffee at the table.

“Let me see what you’ve got there,” he said.

Madison unloaded the junk on the kitchen table and Curtis put down his coffee to rifle through it. “Holy moly,” he mumbled. “These newspapers are old, eh? I guess we won’t have any use for them kiddo. You can go…

He made himself into graphite,
a crumbling thing
Mere sheets of a man
trapping too much air
to withstand pressure
but how he could take the heat
Temperature rising,
electricity bolting
as he flaked away into
tomes of words,
which finally burned
Flames fanned were
the constant rage of a man
who, in the end, was
insoluble
yet
erasable

That might be a relief
If only what was rubbed away
didn’t leave such a wretched mark

Rachel writes poetry to process life experiences, unpack social issues, and find beauty in the world. Sign up for her monthly newsletter to stay connected and receive editing and creativity tips, captivating stories, and more.

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