Pretend I'm Screaming This

Bleached Roses

When you're a child, and you're sitting in your own designated spot on the carpet of your first ever class at the age of five,

They ask you what you want to be when you grow up.

And the kids around you will say superhero, or astronaut or princess.

But they'll always be that one kid who doesn't know what they want to be and the teacher will always say exactly the same thing.

"You can be anything you want to be".

To all the children out there, you are being lied to.

Because yes, you should be able to do anything you damn well please.

Yes precious little black girl, of course you can be the most esteemed scientist in your field, but first you'll have to convince them that you're not a member of the janitorial team and this is actually your desk.

And yes, scared little boy, you can be gay or transgender, but first you have to pray that your family doesn't disown you.

At what point do we tell that little black boy that of course he can be a policeman, as long as he doesn't get shot by one first at a rally to protect his human rights.

Take off those rose tinted glasses that gave you the illusion that your country's flag ever had more white in it than any other colour.

We are the ones that have been bathing in red and marching for blue.

And when you hear the word victim screamed at the top of your lungs.

Don't hear it as a cry for attention, hear it as a cry for help.

From someone whose just had the duct tape ripped off after years of being kept silent.

I see black pigments cracked with scarlet and a rainbow wall splattered with red rose buds.

I'm surrounded by bouquets of silver coins left for those whose roots were planted in the dirt of equality but grew to become suffocated by the cyanide of oppression.

Why are we left terrified to step off our front porch because of how we were born?

Why are we more scared of those who are meant to be protecting us than those who we are running from?

Why am I still smiling in the face of homophobic jokes and sexist remarks as if they are still funny?

Isn't it funny how the ones suffering are never sitting in the big seats but put on a plastic stools and told to colour inside the lines?

I'm so sick of doing dot to dots with white crayons and colouring in the grass green.

I want to scribble the sky every colour of the rainbow and make the waves stain the shore with shades never seen before.

I want to blend every paint together and pour it over a map of the world and pass it around on a silver platter.

I want to watch them cut it up with their finest knife and fork and choke on how good it tastes.

Float amongst the reeds sprouting from the lake where every drop represents a martyr of their own kind, shot for their beliefs of basic human rights.

Let their blood fill the cracks in the pavements on Downing Street and filter down the steps of the Supreme Court.

Let the politicians stroll barefoot along the crimson concrete and tell us again how its just the media.

Because yes we heard you loud and clear,

But you've turned off all our mics for us to respond.