A Hollow Throne and a Stolen Crown

I am tired.

Not the kind of tired that sleep can mend,

not the kind that coffee can chase away,

but the kind that settles deep in the marrow,

a sickness born of watching the world burn

while fools dance in the ashes,

calling it victory.

How many times must I scream into the void

before my voice is swallowed whole?

Before my breath is wasted

on those who never planned to listen?

The ink of history spills in blood

while they rewrite the pages,

pretending we were never here.

He sits atop a hollow throne,

built from the bones of the people he despises,

a bloated king in a stolen crown,

his hands dripping with rights torn from our grasp,

his mouth a gaping wound of lies.

And still, they kneel.

Still, they praise his name.

Still, they carve his words into their forearms,

branding themselves with his hatred,

as if cruelty is a blessing.

I have watched my sisters die

with his name on their lips,

not in reverence,

but in gasping, desperate fear.

I have seen children torn from safety

because he deemed them unworthy of kindness.

I have felt the air leave my lungs

when they scream at me on the street,

when their hands reach, unwanted,

when their laughter follows me home

like the specter of a thousand lynchings.

Do they think I don’t see?

Do they think I don’t know

that they would rather I disappear,

fade into the margins,

become a footnote in a history

they will deny ever happened?

I am tired of watching them win.

Tired of watching my existence debated

like it is something fragile,

something optional,

something they have the right to erase.

Tired of seeing their hatred wrapped in law,

their bile passed as policy,

their violence excused as tradition.

They call us too loud—

but what is silence

if not a death sentence?

They call us too angry—

but what is peace

if it means lying down to die?

I will not go quietly.

I will not bow my head.

I will not let them turn my rage into shame,

my exhaustion into surrender.

I will write until my fingers bleed,

until my words choke their throats,

until they see my name and know

that they cannot outlast me.

They will not outlive us all.

They will not drown our voices.

They will not erase me.

Not from history.

Not from this earth.

Not from myself.

I am still here.

And I am not done fighting.

Find me. Read me. Stand with me.

www.GemmaOrtwerth.com

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Medium & Quora: Gemma Ortwerth