When tragedy struck
We took a breath
Quarantine in place
The worlds internal flame was set ablaze
The rituals of American society
Burning gasoline until our lungs were filled with toxicity
Ceased
Out came a cleaner world, one where animals could live in greater peace
Broken dreams, incomplete journeys
Sent home, no more glory
Mask on, mask off
Starting to lose our identity in an isolated swan song
After months, the truth popped
Keepin’ us locked inside
could not justify
systemic genocide
You gave people snuff for kneeling, said Kaepernick was too busy dreaming
And then all of a sudden
We lost a person to your knee
Asked for his mama and you forbade him to flee
He could not breath
A classic story of American Tyranny
The officer, systemically an avatar for so much more
Taking peoples lives out the door
The streets
Empty with fear
Had now been filled with justice
People fighting a system that had made many restless
Turn the camera onto me
23 year old Brown Boy
Remembering the times
Cops pulled me over, walking while brown
Baton wielder looking me in the eye
Losing my breath, unsure if I should let out a cry
Asked how I could ever live in my neighborhood
Thank God my Dad was in my house
They knocked, He told them I was his son
And the officers were shocked
Ready to sock me for being brown
In a town that wasn’t ready to move beyond its confederate sound
I was 17 then, to some a kid
To others a threat
I wasn’t ready to embrace the uncomfortable reality
That I was an American, but also a part of the enemy
Sigh
Breath in, breath out
Pranayama, find that inner spiritual cloud
Turn around to see a world burning while you’re looking for a clearing
And I breathe and breathe and breathe
Some inhale the nectar of breath while others suffocate from its lack
We’re a society on oxygen support, trying to save those that were damned
Fixing the architecture of God’s plan
An architecture designed for disaster
We hold the pieces and reconstruct an after
Not to be afterthoughts, but to create a new song
A song sung through the labor of broken hearts
Pandemic pandemic
Our isolation was already the virus
Already sick with a lack of connection
Mesmerized by automated relations
There’s no antibiotic for this sickness
There’s no magic pill
Healing can only be brought through listening
To hear the pain and loss in another’s heart
You can’t teach that through an exam or book
Its gotta be felt
One on One
Trying to be as present for the other as possible
Witness each other through the passage of time
Outside of stethoscopes, let us truly know the breath
Let us feel each other need to be fed
With love and a chance to break free of the loneliness
A first and last breath
This sigh signals something will bloom
The seeds planted by revolutionary martyrdom
Will sprout anew
Disaster is if a train is about to smash you
But like
If the train was small
And could go right through your face
And you have this beating heart
It becomes constricted
Ripping into
Endless Despair
Nothing can stop spinning, because nothing is in place
Pray to make sense of the day
Find yourself tearing into past days
Doing what if’s and what’s now
Someone heal us now
What’s the price of healing
What are we feeling
The future unknown but we keep the presence streaming
Author Bio
Dhruv Shejpaul is a writer and facilitator that seeks to bring restorative justice into the world. Interested in the intersection of spiritual metacognitive psychoanalysis and scientific inquiry, catch Dhruv mixing Pedgaogy of the Oppressed and The Bhagavad Gita on a marxist spiritual analysis. Radical empathy is the only way forward. Dhruv holds an MS in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and a BS from Penn State University. Find Dhruv on Instagram as @spiceislife48.
Tags
#spokenword #restorativejustice #1moreperspective
Image Credit
Semblance Studios. instagram: @semblance_design