Poetry

[Brittany]

VOICES

Words chiming like rivers of rain,
musical notes from the tongue,
when you're a poet and you know it,
strands of reaching hope drift down
and lift you up to the podium,
placing a microphone in front
of a confident set of lips
and saying "Stand up. Speak for us."

How many mouths are wired shut,
fingers trembling in anger and fear,
crouching behind a sagging door
and waiting for the next storm of bullets?
Voices ripped away by propaganda,
threats, lies, the artfully placed
trigger of rage, despair and false hope.
Silent screams rip holes in the heavens.

How many are there out there,
dying to stand up, to shout,
and waiting for the next silver tongue
to say the words in their aching heads?
"No one will listen to me."
Which malevolent gardener
planted that seed into the soil
of insecurity and programmed dependence?

Fancy words are silk paintings,
beautiful and easily destroyed.
Fancy words inspire the fragile heart
to continue waiting for the savior to come.
Where are the simple, brutal, amazing words
from the lips of a child who is starving,
a woman whose house was foreclosed,
a man stripped of every form of dignity,
saying the truth we all know so well:

We are tired of living in lies.
We are tired of senseless violence.
We are tired of being puppeteered,
manipulated, used as pawns,
wrenched and drained for all we have,
and made to bear the load of an elite
whose conscience has rotted from the inside out.
This is our world.
These are our children.
We see you for what you are,
and quite frankly, we've had enough.

Well woven words of rebellion are tolerated,
a fanciful distraction to halt the realization
that one speaker can easily be crushed,
but six billion cannot be ignored.
The time to wait for a speaker is over.
It is YOUR voice that matters,
no matter how smooth or awkward.
No matter what color, creed or background.
Without you, each of you,
each and every last one,
fancy words mean absolutely nothing.

The world needs voices more than ever.
Time to speak up.