| Josie Mixon |
| Copyright 2007 Red Pulp Underground |
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Red Pulp Underground
| AWARENESS As you learn my story And hear the secrets of my past What is it that you see? What do you see? When you are looking at me Is it the blackened eyes that once decorated my face? Do you see my swollen nose and watch the trickling of blood When you hear my words of pain Can you feel its intensity as it rips in and out of my body And then feel it going into yours? When I speak of the footsteps of the dragons’ feet approaching Can you hear them coming? The boots on the wooden floor The strides of anger Can you feel throbbing in my head as it begs for relief? It can be felt for years and years and years What do you see? What is it that you feel? This person before you, is not the me I used to know This is not the me who sat up in bed and watched him sleep As I cried in silence so as not to wake him This is not the me who shed skin after skin after skin As I attempted to be somebody I didn’t know Only to find that in the end, I was still myself My stomach still remembers the impact of a crutch as it was jabbed into me My throbbing head still echoes the pain of rage My flesh has not forgiven my existence Look at me as I look now in the absence of abuse This is how I looked in its presence too It was I who brought out the dragons rage That lived below the surface of the wind It was I who invited the anger, the rage and the pain And it is I who stands before you on display It is not for my past that I stand here It is not vengeance I seek It is not pity and it is certainly not your consolation I desire I seek justice and I seek awareness For all, all that fall victim to the cycle of violence Look around you and do not be blind to the presence of pain Do not be deaf to the cries of my sisters Do not nourish the cycle of violence By walking away empty handed Walk away with heaviness in your heart Feel the tightness in your throat Feel your eyes swell up with tears As you squeeze the hand Squeeze the hand Of my daughter, my sister My son, my brother My mother My father And all of my brothers and sisters in arms Whose voice, Will Now Be heard |