Rage
By Lorna Munro
Published 12 February 2021
I'm gonna scream
The next time I see
A road sign
That defies
The first language and bloodline
Of a space now occupied by
Ignorance
Sometimes
Be deliberate
With those statements
That you make
You cant get rid of it
Once your mouth has made the mistake
Get over it
Once your soul has been misplaced
Honor it
Cant go back
For the hell of it
Place yourself before the rat race
I hate the smell of it
Complacency is overrated
Never offered.....
But assumed
When you assume shit you make an ass out of you....
I was once a child too
I had a dream
About my brother
Standing on a deserted cross track
Looking into the horizon
Not knowing but waiting for something
He never looked back
Looking down the line
Was he waiting for something to happen?
Or was my black brother waiting to die?
I sat
As tears leaked from my eyes
I sat
Down near the waters edge
And I read
A letter to the future
A novel idea at the start
Keeping young minds busy
Finding words
From their own hearts
Then
The wind picks up all the stuff I wish I could say
And dumps it like a tree in a storm
Far away from where it was born
Or birthed
Created to obscure a drive way down that winding road
That road is my throat
I felt regret bubbling up in my stomach along with my own teenage angst
Doubts I once held
Reminded by another's experience
Placed back on a shelf
No. Not that one today
I swallow my own words
Rebelled against being able to express our cursed selves
Downward still
The destination is a river
Never quite the same as I left it
Enveloped hopes never opened or acknowledged
Its just a shame that they felt it
I followed them down a track
We came back
Changed humans
In fact
What change did I see in myself?
Nothing but a child disappeared
Come woman revered
A stone statue of the past
Turning pages back to the start
Becoming whole again
Standing ground
Mind body and soul again
I found an ancient meeting place
In the back of my mind refusing to be erased
Stained
I hope that hope shall never go away
Drained
I hope that my face stays the same
Chained
By blood to my ancestors name.
Retained
I hope I have the strength to break through the cage
Maintain
The situation that stayed
Embrace
The Rage
That made us this way