Reckoning
By: Rachel Werner
Before I accepted the world left bruises.
I was taught to pretend;
To smile;
To thank—
Our daily persecutors.
….At school.
…On the train.
…In meetings.
…Before an altar.
Abuse is normative as a woman.
Who’s also brown.
And so tired of looking for a way out,
—the best distraction—
Is being an instrument others can use.
Until you see another Black neck being snapped on the news.
Realizing the next could be you,
—and already is.
A truth I always knew.
—but ignored.
Preferring attention as protection against the hell raging within.
His murder a siren for me too.
As piles of bodies in plain view,
grew in mass graves,
for our disposable kin.