Disturbance

An arrow, a gun a knife. 

Armed voices echo in disturbance

A just uprising - is it so? 

Toned, policed. Frozen.

Is it so that this is 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 seep 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

And that's besides the point

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. 

The wind reminds me of earth beneath my feet. 

Tiny soldiers stand at attention

on edge of skin. 

I sink deeper - looking inside for truth.

The only compass now is my heart. 

Let it beat

an eye for an eye 

does not justice make.