Unforsaken

Full of hatred, discrimination,

buzzing from the power

of your guns and tasers –

you make judgement calls

as though you have the right

to say who lives or dies.

****

I see you,

we see you,

as you pick off our Black

friends like your ancestors did.

****

You stomp through lives

like you’re above all others.

You kneel on necks,

choke-hold innocents,

ignore pleas for help,

for a simple

breath.

****

The cycle goes on

without you learning.

You screw up the balls of paper

that scream this world’s true

history; implant it with lies

that paint you as the best,

the only, the supreme.

****

Your statues of Jesus,

with his lovely peached skin:

He was Yeshua, brown

and loving of all.

Princess Andromeda,

depicted as white:

a native Ethiopan

she glistened with black beauty.

****

Centuries of blood shed

as you stomped across the globe

sticking flags in the earth

like you did to the moon.

But as you landed on far-flung

shores, welcomed by Natives

you pierced their trust

with swords, muskets and arrogance.

The land wasn’t empty,

you stole it with audacity.

The gall of it all – you stood

on the bones

of children,

erased them,

secluded them,

murdered them.

****

You stand on those bones,

dehumanise their pain.

You crush their hope

like weeds in the cracks

of your concrete patio.

But they are wild roses,

and we are their thorns.

Their roots have entwined

beneath the soil of the dead.

****

Summer has come,

the flowers are erupting,

blossoming, alive.

****

Copyright © 2020 Hannah Edge. All rights reserved.