Local Social Network for the Arts Community in Central Valley
Difficult to write when the fire is
burning out of control.
Difficult to speak.
I would rather scream,
guttural,
unhinged at the jaw,
mouth agape,
swallowing entire cities whole.
With a knee to the neck,
arms and legs pinned down,
beneath the weight of violence,
blatant disregard to the value of
a human life,
and criminal abandonment,
the soul of a community
beaten and belittled every day,
will eventually fight back,
in a last ditch effort to survive.
To survive,
among death and destruction,
in all four directions,
to survive,
in a city that says,
“why haven’t you died yet?”
It is not the rage of the people that has laid waste to the landscape.
The dead of body,
dead of spirit,
piled high on the funeral pyre,
long before the grief of oppression took the streets,
long before the first hand threw the first stone,
he who is free from consequence
has long been kicking down faces and breaking down minds.
I am in pain for the children of the uprising,
ashamed of my neglect,
that I ,
their mother,
could not raise them to feel free to voice their pain loud enough ,
to fortify their words strong enough,
to elevate their minds high enough
above the hands that stole from them their humanity,
making our children,
more priceless
to prisons,
than to their own neighbors,
that see human beings ,
as disposable wreckage,
to be swept off the streets,
along with the rubble.
We are outraged,
but we will not come with bricks in hand.
We will come united.
Launching truths heavier than stones
and not one wall
that shields racism and greed,
will stand before us.
When the tear gas clears nothing of these monuments to slavery will remain.
Our minds are free,
our voices,
unshackled ,
and united rise above the din of so much hate.
© 2021 Created by Victor Ramayrat.
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