Disturbance

An arrow, a gun a knife.
Armed voices echo in disturbance
A just uprising — is it so?
Toned, policed. Frozen.
Tell me, is this the way to peace?

The road paved with blood.
Anger like the raging seas
No longer calm at the surface
bubbles and surges from the depths of memory
and yet I stand — seemingly undisturbed.
tamed and tainted by the history of my people
the colour of my skin
white and therefor evil.
No longer safe and not asking for it.
The pain of ancestry pulses; old wounds ooze infected yellow liquid.

They do not see. Blinded by their own pain
No longer with medicine.
For it was stolen.
By someone with skin like mine.
Fever rises, sickness takes us both.
Hatred.

Is this the path to equality?

If it is, God show me the way.
For the fragility I feel on the outside
is no match for the courage in my heart which sings,
Stand.
Stand and feel, but do not let them tell you who you are.
Only you can do that.
The third arrow is yours.
Do not let their arrows of anger force you into self-distain.
For that would be to move away from love
Making it all worse.

Their pain is theirs to feel
As is mine
I meet both with compassion
Sometimes a firm hand that says No, enough.
We are not this and this is not the way.

There is great power in sovereignty.
Care.
an eye for an eye does not justice make.
So still I stand, going blind
Finding new eyes to see.

Something deeper senses the turning of the tides.
A harsh wind forces me to press my feet securely into the earthen floor.
Tiny soldiers stand at attention
on edge of skin.
I sink deeper — pleading for truth.

The only compass now is my heart.
Let it beat
an eye for an eye
does not justice make.