This Blog Post: https://iridescent.photo.blog/2020/06/27/a-forbidden-breath/
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One last breathe .. that’s all it took .. a breathe, a archetypal thing , yet it lead me with a pulchritudinous smile to the peace I had never known on earth ….
I recalled looking on at my supposed enemy in the mirror , I searched for the Error they all claimed to see . But all i saw was the beauty my mother taught me . The tenderness that our people and our culture had .
But if so why aren’t we the same? I questioned , as every part of my brain tried to fathom a suitable answer .
I look at you while you held me down and reached for your gun , a cold chill ran down my spine , I wondered why you refused to see the warmth of my complexion. Why must it threaten you ? Aren’t we all of the same flesh and blood ? . Your once ocean eyes had now been penetrated with a sickly red colour ; the anger within you was raising , my struggles only provoked you further , to you it wasn’t enough to see me gasp for air … You’d rather we didn’t share the same air at all ….
my warm brown eyes which once looked like an endless pool of honey in this sunlight we’re now pulsating with crimson-red veins . I pleaded with you to let me go . I had done nothing wrong … But all you say was an inferior . Someone worthy of death . The darkness of my complexion was a viable excuse to sentence me to your own mapped out execution….
I heard gunshots , but this time they were penetrating me ,as they did to the others before who were also born with the “ curse” of having melanin . They saw a body trying to fight to live, but why should I fight ? After all I’m the one escaping a prison , one that was invisible to others . My wounds began to heal as though my blood was liquid magic … the pain stopped ….. I watched over my body , the bullets were now gem like pebbles soft to my soles , freeing me of a world that only sought to end me .
However this wouldn’t be the end.
My mother would be left with a black hole in her heart . Her child was gone … but a supernova would explode upon every street . Angry protesters who saw me as their equal . People with your fair complexion also went against you, and the morals that you so very thought were right .
They instead welcomed our people , our culture , our community , and raised their firsts along side us . Oh how that must have exasperated you .
Left to rot behind black subterranean walls, yet you still don’t know the pain you heavily inflicted on me and the many others before .
Kill us and we will rise
Our numbers are our power ,the more you kill the more we fight for our freedom .
Our body’s left to bleed , yet our souls live onwards .
Give us violence and we will find peace whilst fighting against you .
Our past will never dictate our future . Our days as serfs , bonds women and men are now over .
They lay to rest like our corpses which you so heavily despised .
– SAIRAH