In an interview, when asked "What is poetry is to you ?" June Jordan replied "Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth".
and even when that truth endangers us, we must speak it anyway.
Because, what will survive of us is what we dared to say.
As Audre Lorde writes in A Litany for Survival, “it is better to speak / remembering / we were never meant to survive.”
This poem is written in that urgency.
This poem bears witness to the violence of occupation and systemic oppression.
The anger is directed toward power, never at a people.
It asks what liberation means when one hand claims it, while another is stripped bare
It grieves the silencing of dissent,
the erasure of black and brown lives in the global conscience.
Its hope is stubborn.
Its hope is stubborn.
Thank you for reading.
With love,
Phoenix
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Thank you for writing this 🫶🏾🕯️👏🏾🕊️🇵🇸