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Advocacy / Mental Health / poem / poetry / policy

Exhaling: The Luxury

We wear masks half laughing
beying at the moon basking
in its light fighting to be our
authentic selves delving in
protests and street fights. We
fly kites communicating in
ways that seem archaic,
complicated, using emphatic
behavior when language fails
us. We leave trails, entrails, and
tails tucked between valor and
vice. We search for peace in the
daytime with flashlights between
flashing lights many of us meet
thuggin’ authority mean muggin’
our bodies that can’t comply on
command. Standing our grounds
may garner a trip down town if
you’re disabled, deaf, and live at
the intersection of Black and
Brown. Bad policy and
long roots of twisted legacy
pitting oppressed folks at the
bottom of the benevolence
tree. Billie sang of “Strange
Fruit” swinging in the
breeze. How many more
sacrifices have to be
made before the beast is
appeased and tamed making
us more famous for losses than
gains. Generational trauma and
cell memory call out for
reparations and a formal
apology maybe then we
can exhale and stop holding
our collective breath after
full rights and body
autonomy is a given in
solidarity we demand
nothing less.