An Invitation
Do we follow the blueprint of movements before us
Or is there an invitation
to a wider reckoning?
Now more of us have skin in the game
What we could only sympathize with before,
we now have a lens to empathize with
through our own visceral experience
What it is to suddenly combust
into a ball of tears out of nowhere
again and again, shaking
Because my body knows a fear
my mind has not yet
wrapped its head around
What it is to lie in bed
and suddenly recognize that
this is the shape my body might take
if I were here, without a life to my name
What it is to wonder
how you are supposed to go to work
under these circumstances,
and yet want to push forward on your goals
because you don't want them to have stolen
even this day from you
What it is to wake up days in a row
And just cry a little
What it is to oscillate
Between okay and not okay
Between joy and terror
Between connected and alone
Between feeling and numb
Without anyone knowing
Of the 5 incidents
of racism I experienced
from strangers on the street
since returning to the US in 2017,
4 of them since the start of COVID,
3 of them instigated by Black people
All of them with a person of color present
Only one started by a "white guy"
Will we shy away from the complexity,
Or accept its invitation
to a wider reckoning?
We are not innocent
of our own racism
as a people group
We are hateful
and scared
In more ways than one
behind closed doors
siloed in our own communities
But now we have how many more
generations, and cultures, and lenses
awakened if we so choose
to call on the side of wisdom
we are a people in pain
and yet
we are a people in power
The boy who did not know
how to ask, “Can I play with you?”
instead poured water on us,
until one of us asked,
“Do you want to play with us?”
The ground shifts again
beneath us, and asks
for a greater awakening
Wake up
Wake up
Wake up
The sun and the meadow
and the butterfly
are waiting
For us
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