My hands freeze. They fail to create. To pick up a pen. To write. To bring me breath and life as the only way I have ever known to find it. The world burns. History shakes. And these wild tides form the new world. The new tomorrow. Moving the shoreline to the next mountain.
I don’t have words, or vision, or energy.
2020 was supposed to be the next leap in change and challenge in life. And my dear god, has it ever been that.
Burning. Everything is burning and people are dying. In hospital beds. In the streets. By viral infections and viral hatred.
“I can’t breathe.”
It will be the title of this chapter of history. As respirators are sparse. As knees dig into throats of frightened, complying men.
Breath.
Inhale.
Breathe.
Breath.
Life.
It is what we are all due. In a year that seems so intent on taking it away. Of seeing us pale and purple, until we are still.
When the violence placed upon the people is acceptable.When the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness only belong to the chosen. The ones who look the role. The ones who can afford to purchase it.
Humanity is screaming.
In the broken glass.
In the tear gas.
In the hard pavement cutting into their cheeks.
Humanity is screaming.
Begging for air.
And ‘they’ blow smoke in the faces of the pleading.
Humanity is screaming through centuries of time. Through endless circles of oppression and greed. Turning and turning. A wheel crushing the bones of the men and women forced to build the road from the bodies of their ancestors. Sealed in the tears of the poor, sick, and dying, who have no further value to the establishment of fortune.
‘They’ start to rattle and make threats when the road of bodies begins to stand up and derail the train of bullshit.
When the road demands to be seen as human.
When the road *isn’t* a road.
Life is heavy. Heart is bruised. People rage and take to the street. A civilian army armed with the screams, the last words, the beggings for life to fuel their bodies with courage. Take a stand. Demand to be seen. To be heard. To be allowed to live.
The buildings burn as crosses. Sanctify your pain. Let it pierce the night like an arrow of awakening.
I am no one. My voice is empty and meaningless. My words will not shake mountains, will not wake titans, will leave not a ripple in time. I will fade into nothingness. My bones dust in the ground. No one will remember me.
But I speak.
Because we all must.
Because we can still draw breath.
#blacklivesmatter period.