Rally Cry

I don’t want to be another face
Another
Shadow walking
Through the race.
I don’t want the death bed of someone else’s
Dreams, with years replete
And empty of other people’s
Screams.
No
More. I want to be
The girl who etched the signs of
Freedom
On her skin, a soul burst
Like birds soaring
Searing the world with
Tears like blood.
Not a statue or siren
Of generations past,
Not the dark recordings inside of me
Tearing me from me
Telling me there is nothing inside of me.
I want to be free.
I don’t want to glaze my eyes
To choke in the vacuum
Waiting for white men in suits
To tell me what
I already knew
From pulpits glazed and guilded
In churches walled and wilted.
I want to fight
To throw punches and shout
Truth like a rally
Cry.
To set fire to glass houses
To shake and shatter
The whitewashed walls we build
While our brothers and sisters
And their mothers and fathers
Weep and worry and die and fight
I want to fight.
To touch heaven
In the face of a child
Walking down a dirt road
Carrying a big load
Wishing for a hand to hold.
I want to be that face.
I want to be the message and the media
To be words that are not
Drowned by the silence in the emptiness of the
Noise around us
As we burn bridges and build
Burdens for others to bear.
I don’t want more things
And books
And programmes
And more people telling me what it means
To kiss the feet of God Almighty
In the people that he loved
That we love
So little and
Hurt
So
Much. I want not
To be trapped
In the stupor of old dreams
I want their dreams
Their hopes and longings
Burning in my blood
Their prayers to the Saviour
Beating as my battle cry
As I sit in churches
Wondering when the fire went out.
No more seconds ticking
Like a candle in the cold
As the frost of the winter
Eats away at the fire
Inside of me. I want to stand
On life’s cliff and know that
I am alive
To have God’s love burst the world apart in me.
I want to be God’s love in me
Not asleep but awake to the scars
Of the universe in which
Love and hurt collide.
I want to be the explosion.
I want to be me.