Photo by Phoebe Harms
the world is
monochrome,
hushed silvers and the
palest gray you’ve ever seen chokes the air into
three categories:
us, them, and everyone else.
a muted breeze carries a
drop of color that
falls to the ground and bursts to life;
a mash of reds and blues and yellows and,
yes, everything
in between.
this is the cry of a people, whispered.
the world is
careful,
never fully supporting diversity of the soul over
conformity of the opinion.
rough words
sharpened to points and serrated edges and
torchlight carries the hymn of self-destruction.
their red, red firelight moves to raze path for the
black and white and gray to settle back in its
dug-out place, overlooking a
haphazardly dug mass grave.
there is the cry of a people, terrified.
the world is
frozen over in ice, begging to prosper under the weak
wintertime sun.
ashy stragglers of plant stems threaten to push past the
permafrost,
gray little things with no incentive to live.
is there blue water and yellow sun waiting for it when it
breaks free?
no,
no,
just miles and miles of the same
colorless wasteland that
they call pristine.
i call it
meaningless.
their so-called hard-fought land and values do not
stand a chance against the golden soldiers of love,
cannot prevail when we bleed
oh-so red when they cut
our painted skin.
you take our people, we take your illusion.
gone are the days of cowering in the dark corners—
we will stand under the light of one thousand sun showers,
just for a glimpse of a rainbow in the drying air.
this
is the cry of a people, determined.
the world is
this,
and it is the hope and the
strength and the
will to change.
and it is this,
the fight, and them,
the people, the warriors, the lovers,
that will prevail.
white paint may mute the colors of the
Rainbow,
but they will always be there,
underneath it all.
this is the cry of a people,
resilient.