Color of Our Pain

People of color have known pain for a long time

For some, the pain pushes them in a forward motion

Taking no compromise for freedom

Whilst others become paralyzed from within

Numb to any need to escape it

Living with the threat of violence against us

With no cause, is brutality

Mental cruelty that waits for the physical abuse to begin

Instead of waiting, let yourself be completely undone

Scrub away all of the fallacies taught

Open your scars and let them bleed out

Until you see the world around you as it truly is

Take your first steps with eyes wide open

Breathe in the anguish of it all

Let it soak through to the marrow of your bones

Marinate in its thick corrosive ichor

In time it transforms into a seed

Plant it in your sisters and brothers of brown hue

Spreading like the Santa Anna wildfires

Burning down the false power, the pale gentiles have built

In the end, we shall stand atop the mountain

Looking out over the vast mounds

Of their burnt and desiccated corpses

Seeing the color of our pain blow away

Like tumble weed on the dawns breeze