I am Angry

There is a rage I feel, an indescribable undercurrent etched into the pathway of my

bones.

This intrinsic fury that I was born with,

my infantile fist clutched around it like my mother's umbilical cord.

The world has reinforced it, from the first time I was catcalled when I was twelve,

the first time I bleed for sins not entirely my own,

the first time I felt oppressed by patriarchy in my own home.

This rage is my closest friend, my most intimate confidant; I know it better than I know

myself.

I carry with me my feminine features, inescapable, an indicator to some that I am

less-than.

I am shrouded in the darkness of my skin, the harbinger of my certain doom.

For in this nation, any indication of my natural born designation becomes

subordination.

I cannot hide my blackness, my womanhood, these facets are ingrained in me .

Yet that is all they ever see, before they consider my humanity.

What a strange thing it is, to have human empathy and compassion in a time where lives

are snuffed out like the flames of so many fleeting candles.

What a strange thing it is to open my phone and see massacre laid out before my eyes

like a grim tapestry, to witness genocide and swipe away, still, from the horrors when

they become too unsettling. I walk through this world blind, my smile a facade designed

to hide the fury inside, the indignation. Who dared to make me a woman at a time like

this?Where my rights to my body are treated like playing cards, traded in the hands of

powerful men who sit and sweat in high towers built by slave labour.

Who dared to make me black? In this age where the blood of my ancestors has become

fertilizer for the corrupted soil upon which industry corporations and capital

monopolies comfortably sit.

I wade through rivers of red; my hands are stained because I am complicit in my own

creation.

I have implicated myself in my character assasination.

I know all the words I write with ink sustained by my tears cannot change my DNA.

But I am angry that I feel I have no say

in what the world does to women like me.

I am angry that I feel powerless to succumb to the rage.

I am angry that with each passing day, I find more horrors that I have to tolerate.

But my anger only subjugates my passions, it engulfs the flames already waned by my

inaction.

Anger is a futile mistress, fruitless in her indifference, but twisted by persistence

And so with deep insistence I implore you;

Do not ignore the burning in your chest, the scalding of your molten hot tears, the

nightmares when you rest.

I implore you to rise, open your eyes and do not chastise your anger,

Instead channel it to hunger, whet your appetite with your rage

For we are strongest together when we seek Justice, Goodwill and Change.