I decided to re-post this poem that I wrote last year, in October 2019. I believed it was relevant then; it seems even more so now. I truly wish it wasn’t.
Is it the colour of your skin?
Is it the colour of mine?
Is it the colour of your skin
that I can take for a sign
that you are set to harm me
that reprisal’s in your head
that you don’t care to know me
you just know you want me dead?
What of the colour of my skin?
What of the colour of yours?
How can an outer covering
be the start of many wars?
Beneath the skin we’re just the same
we breath, we live, we feel,
how can an outer cover hide
another form of real?
Reality just in the head
is never what is true
and if we think our real is yours
we’ll never see that you
demand that you be listened to,
have needs greater than ours,
we’ll never pause to think that you
would abuse an armed cop’s powers.
I had to write this today in response to the news of yet another person being killed – unprovoked, in her own home – by ‘law enforcers’.
I have been tearful since I read the item but I do find that writing can help me get out my anger, grief, and frustration.My thoughts and love go to everyone affected by such inhuman and inhumane acts.
These are the words that I posted with the poem in last year’s blog.
The image I have used for my header is one I made during Art Therapy back in the early 2000s when I was an inpatient in a mental hospital. It was made to represent my anger and confusion at being ‘different’ and discriminated against because of my mental health.
If you feel my words are worthy please like, share, and comment.
Thank you for reading.
Stay well. Stay safe. Stay alert to all around you – we are all very much the same under the skin. We all have needs and desires, hopes and dreams, weaknesses and strengths. All can show courage and fear, and all have the power to love.
Marilyn X
marilyn unmasked 