Silence

Our minds have been chained by the past.

We have endured selfless love and selfish lusts.

Time has broken our backs and has offered us herself

 as healing.

So many times we have trembled at the thought of separation,

trembled at the thought of

aloneness.

So accustomed to owning nothing, being nothing.

It has been my dream that one day we shall understand.

I shall never be accustomed to someone shutting me up.

I shall never smile in the face of death and ask him out on a date.

I shall never tango with an enemy as if he were a friend.

I shall never read hate and assume it's love.

Is it hard for us to be calm in chaos?

No!

Our oppressors have not stopped their oppression;

They have not obeyed their own laws.

From slavery into bondage;

What they intend, what they enforce, what they live

Has been my death, my cage, my silence.

We have been told to shut up in the face of fear.

We have been shut down in the name of fear.

Who really fears but the enemy?

Who really triumphs?

The oppressor writes the history book.

In it we are no more than dogs, no more than

chattel

Our voices have been silenced.

O! But what indeed is silence?

Our hearts beat,

Thumping our chests daily like the drums of our ancestors.

Our blood rushes through our veins, the river

Nile.

Our faces are coloured with the hues of the earth, melodies.

What is silence?

Silence is not shutting up or shutting down.

Silence is not submission to oppression.

Silence is not indulgence.

Silence is the point at which that drum that is our heart stops beating.

It is when the Nile of our soul dries up.

Silence is forgetting ourselves on the battle field.

We have survived hate.

We have survived apartheid.

We have survived murder.

We have survived journeys across unchartered seas.

We have survived attempts of oppression, but we still live in oppression.

I shall not let anything oppress me, but my people are me.

Our blood is one.

Our minds have been chained by the past.

We have endured selfless love and selfish lusts.

Time has broken our backs and has offered us herself

AS HEALING!

So many times we have trembled at the thought of separation,

trembled at the thought of

aloneness.

So accustomed to owning nothing, being nothing.

It has been my dream that one day we shall understand

And if we never do, that will be silence. That will be an inescapable oppression.

That will be our death.