The Forgotten, Broken and Erased
A free verse poem.
Compromise yourself into weakness. Compromise yourself into silence.
Compromise yourself into compliance. They demand you compromise yourself until you no longer exist. They do not forgive. They do not repent. They are the self-righteous ones. They are the ones who come for me waking me from my sleep.
Disturbing my sacred sleep, waking me from a peaceful serene silence.
Stealing a silence which I need, a silence that sustains me and fills me, they self-righteously march across my boundaries, unrelenting, they wake me from my sleep. They curse me. They condemn me. They shout epitaphs at me.
From a thousand miles away, they disapprove of my lifestyle.
They disapprove of my friends. They disapprove of my diet. They disapprove of me.
The love they preach to me is conditional. Conditional and unwavering.
It envelops me, caging me in, imprisoning me. They demand conformity. They demand appeasement. Appeasement or suffer their wrath.
Their condemnation is all-encompassing.
They condemn Jew. They condemn Muslim. They condemn Feminist. They condemn Homosexual. They condemn Foreigner. They condemn Hippy. They condemn Vegetarian. They condemn Wiccan.
They condemn Buddhist and Hindu. They condemn drug user, smoker, single mothers and alcohol drinkers. They even condemn Christians who believe differently than they do.
They attack us during the day. They attack us at night.
They attack us in our dreams. They attack us when we are awake. They attack us in the state between wakefulness and sleep. We are not allowed a moments peace. They are without mercy. They are unrelenting.
They attack our bodies. They attack our minds.
They attack us in groups. They attack us when we are alone. There is no where we can run to for sanctuary. They are monsters.
They lie without compunction.
They scheme to destroy us from every conceivable angle in the name of their God. They do not wait for his judgement upon us. They are sure of their righteous ways. They make the first move. They take us from our homes.
They place themselves above God.
They place themselves above the law. They summon demons to aid their self-righteous cause.
The world grows tired of fighting, they have given up on me, they have given up on themselves.
Our opponents are too stubborn and too strong. My freedom was wrestled away from me and tossed to these unholy monsters attempting to appease them. But they will not be appeased.
In our fear, in our blind and weakened state, on bended knee we come together and pray.
We pray for our silent broken voices to be heard above the angry condemning voices of those who oppress us. We pray for our plight to be known and understood outside of the lies and carefully edited propaganda of those who hunt us down for sport.
A glimmer of hope that tomorrow will be better is what gives me the strength to keep going, to trod forward into the twilight of another forlorn day.
