Shades of Blue

Depth.

Bitter, Twisted Lies

Life on Earth could be so beautiful. I've seen it in the eyes of a mother holding her new born baby; heard it in the laughter of children playing; felt it in the warm sunshine on a summer day. Only it wasn't. Atleast for people like me, who had long forgotten what freedom felt like.

In a world where the governments claimed that every life mattered, every hour a child died. Journalists and reporters who promised to deliver the truth and stand beside people, made every attempt to obliterate African-Americans. Politicians who declared to stand against inequality and poverty, never knew anything less than wealth and full bellies. Every one of them claimed to care about us. and we thought they did, so we waited. For a kind, white foreigner to save us from this tragedy. But they never came. The reality of their twisted lies came with undeniable consequences.

Every time I closed my eyes, her image would haunt me. The look in her eyes when the soldiers raised their guns to her head; defiant, brave.... The innocence and vulnerability had long ago been replaced with something stronger. Ever since our parents had died, my little sister had matured faster. The light in her eyes, like mine, had turned to a dying ember. But as she sat there, tiny ankle twisted at a strange angle, teeth gritted in pain, looking straight into the eyes of the three gunmen, I could see a sliver of the little girl who played hopscotch with me, who screamed in laughter as I tickled her, who listened with wonder in her eyes as I told her stories. A gun fired in the distance, and my sister dropped dead. Her eyes glassy and wide open. Blood pooled around her head. The warmth leaving her lifeless dark-skinned body. There was nothing I could have done. Or maybe there was.... I could've died with her but I was forced to watch her die alone instead. My body became numb and I lost consciousness. My own body had lost so much blood, from the injuries sustained from the rainfall of grenades. But her dead body was the last thing on my mind. Broken and bloodied. Face blackened from burns.

Somehow, I woke up two days later in a temporary underground bunker, covered in scraps of clothing that served as bandages. Alongside others who were also injured, and a few who were surprisingly unscathed. Some may say it was a miracle I was alive. A blessing. But to me it was a curse. A curse to be alive and breathing while my entire family rotted away in random places. A curse to be born in a world where you were discriminated for the melanin in your skin. Like you could control it. A curse to be told you matter when all you hear are bombs exploding, guns firing, people screaming in agony.... So we live in poverty. Going out at night to steal scraps of food from garbage. Living in fear had become the norm for us. 

Someday, this world will be beautiful. But to say this world will be beautiful, that humanity will replace the bullets and grenades, that love will overcome all the heartbreak and loss, that black will be a colour of beauty and happiness, would be to believe and place faith in words of pathological liars.

Bitter. Twisted. Lies.