Photo by geralt via Pixabay

Assault by Number

Ré Harris
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

After trumpish hate rallies,
replete with scrunched little minds
cheering the sniveling bully in whose trust
they’ve risked all our fates,
we of inclusive, expansive, intelligent thought
are still left in this circle by the powers that be,
implicitly removed,
facing in from the trauma
of being reviled for no sane reason.

Too often we ignore the scope of our circle,
too often spit insults or throw rocks at each other
instead of at the ugliness,
checking position from hazy front to imperceptible end,
mistaking the circle’s ever-widening diameter
for a straight line that will move us forward
to healing, if only we can convince
the inconvincible numbers outside
that we’ve always been a part of society’s whole,
not new kinds of people,
not invaders at the margins, but humanity, tired
of explaining the obvious over and over — 
that we’ve been beautifully, indelibly
intertwined
in all society has ever been
since humankind began,
always an integral part of human life on Earth.

It’s our impossible job, you know,
to remain polite and focused
as we resist
the willingly and purposefully blind
who focus against us — 
those who deny the small-minded, cowardly goals
of their thorn-filled hearts,
yet embrace the privilege
to shove those they other aside and
thrust us in line, assigning us numbers that mean nothing,
leaving us to wait interminably
for historically oppressive people to understand
that justice with decency towards all
is a worthy goal.

Our number hope to work together
as time drags on.
But our untended wounds fester,
and at times we catch ourselves up
in the anger hatemongers have sown
and throw the kinds of barbs at each other
that haters have aimed at us.
We risk the loss of our hearts
as we toy with the cruelties they’ve pierced into us,
and use those terrible things
among ourselves.

We’ve been pushed and legislated
into this ridiculous shape,
but we can straighten it out if we remember
we’re not a circle at all,
but numbers interspersed
among them as they make moves
in the dangerous game they force us all to play.
Let’s not play by their poisonous rules.
We can make our own, keep our hearts, and win.

Written for the Resistance Poetry prompt, “Take a Number Please”

Resistance Poetry

Verse as Commentary

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