Poetry
Our Pain
Exhaustion from centuries of injustice.
My voice.
I don’t need it to be loud.
My vocal projection can be as silent as me and my sibling at the dinner table While one of our family members gossips about the waiter;
“I wish we got the Pinay waitress, why did we get the black guy?”
The insensitivity urges me to wake up my voice from it’s hibernation,
While my mind urges it to hit snooze for the hundredth time
So that my response doesn’t offend.
America can’t expect us to keep hitting snooze and sleep through the violence, Hoping that our dreams of unity and fair treatment
Will magically become a reality
As if a genie will grant us our wish.
Everyone from the people in power
To the people in MAGA hats
To those who put on a blindfold when race is involved;
Don’t expect us to continue taking blows to the face
Without us punching back.
Yet the moment we do, we’re the enemy.
We’re antagonized for defending ourselves.
