I live in a place

       

Eyes pop open, and you don’t expect to see. Voices grow louder and you’re surprised to hear. You’re here but never were asked to be. You sob the unfairness of your bringing, to only entertain the throng. Joyful smiles ignore your tears.  The quiet gains power, and silence you down … you’re weak and it’s strong… you can’t move, you can’t speak, you can’t walk, you can’t run… you can’t go back. You’re in the place…

You act sturdy in the face of fear, in the warmth of loving arms… you get used to the puzzled whispers you can’t fully figure out…You make your own melody from the surrounding shouts. You’re in the place, you breathe the place, your heart quivers in a hurried pace. You can’t understand what you don’t know. They trap you in doctrine because the truth… no they don’t want you to know. You learn to smile because they ask you to smile. An act of showing teeth with a mouth opened wide… but they never tell you that sincere are the smiles beyond the mouth. They tell you blue is not red and red is not blue…  but what is color if you really think it through. They tell you’re white, and white is pure. They scare you in the night, and black becomes evil, Ô the mighty lure. What is color if you really think it through? What made me shun away from my brother and divided us into two.  What gave me status, power, but I didn’t want to. I live in a place where a rainbow all together forms white… where every color is ignored until it turns to light. You’re different, you’re blind; your eyes can’t see but opposite does your mind. Unsullied is your mind when not thrown in the clump. But dogma Ô dogma why don’t you set me free. I , I’m not you and you are not the God of me.  I live in a place where you can’t enjoy eating if you can’t see the hungry. I live in a place where sharing makes people very angry. No two people think alike, no two people breathe alike, no two people speak alike,  no two people walk alike, no two people dream alike. But I live in a place where the law is one, theirs but never yours.  Forced to walk under the hoof of a society that saunters merrily across the broken hearts; that swims through the rivers of tearful eyes, and bleeding veins.  I hate you, you’re not like me.  That’s how the place wants you to be.  Building walls and castles of semantics between you and me. God, Allah, Buddha, Krishna… and different grow the names… Both you and I seek shelter through the foggy gaze.  Battle fields imposing their woes.  You walk in scurry steps to hide and beseech your lord. I live in a place where I’ll fight you if you implore else than my God.

You’re different, you’re alone. Either you join this pandemonium or this is not your home. You like boys, I like girls. I live in a place where you’re lynched even if you like none.  Money, wealth, status, car, house . . . Either you get yourself one or turn to a harlot or a spouse. 

Eyes popped open, today you’re struggling not to see. Loving arms have already sent you free… voices grow louder; you can’t bear to hear… whispers now make sense, but your mind can’t agree.  Your strife abruptly begins. Against the place, against dogma, against doctrine, against law…  never bow, and never hold your head so low. Small are the birds but look how they grow. Face the mountains, fluttering against the wind blow. Raise, this is your time to glow, momma bird told her son at the last melt of snow.

I am not you, and you are not me.  Let’s join our hands and live as you and me.  Let us live in the place but the place in us won’t be.  Brethren of mine, I am tired of being aloof. Brethren of mine let us live under the same roof, let us remove that rifty hoof!

We might live in the  place, however this time let us dictate the pace.

” I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight ” – Malcolm X