In my chest there is a bird
Who's fluttering spurs all my words
A muffled song her sorrows sing
In ribcage trapped a fragile thing
My body is a birdcage

And butterflies, those wicked things
They dart around on razor wings
My insides now all ribbons be
My body is a birdcage

Translucent skin on hallow bones
And as time goes emptiness grows
A song once sung now no one knows
My body is a birdcage

Now windswept ribs begin to bleach
Sandshifted joints begin to preach
The heavens high a bird does reach
From what was once a birdcage

Why am I called "white"?
Why am I an absence of color
To be associated with purity
Flawless innocence
A clean slate

Why am I called "white"
When I have the blood of monsters in my veins
There is nothing immaculate about my heritage
Simply from a lack of pigmentation
My hair is braided with the ******* of masses
My eyes see the broken lives of the oppressed
My ears hear the echoes of homelands invaded
And my hands hold the books with the historic lies enclosed

Why am I called "white"
Compared, as if, to the paper
On which my people's crimes could be written
Repeating so frequently with so many new victims
But we are never called to justice
And the cycle remains unbroken
When we are addressed
We stand up from our thrones, screaming
"Unfair, cruel, why attack me?!
I don't understand, what privilege do you see?!"
We act like the victims, fed by the system
And we eat it up with our metaphoric silver spoons

Why am I called "white"
I've been stained from the years of hatred
Perpetuated by a people who claim guiltlessness
Just because they are a newer generation
What was once called subjugation
Is now appropriation
But both are used to deny culture and rights from nations
But I won't sit by and prolong this delusion that we are any better
Any more beautiful then any other one of God's creations

Memories of a place I know
Similarities in this far away view
I close my eyes and pretend its home
I close my eyes and I think of you

Pillows and sheets perfumed with your dreams
Together we fought and shadows we slew
I need your help to fight nightmares it seems
I close my eyes and I think of you

They see a lion, cold and proud
From the start I've seen you true
Kind loneliness you'd not say aloud
I close my eyes and I think of you

Sheets and pillows dampened with tears
Shadows so dark that I cant see through
Lying here in the quiet for what feels like years
I close my eyes and I think of you

I wake up late in the day
And no sooner does the groginess leave me
That the cruelest of feelings rolls in like a wave
Pulling me under, leaving me with nothing but the bitter taste of tears on my tongue.

I reach out to those closest
Grasping at their encouraging words
But they slip through my fingers dissolving like sea foam
Self doubt tangles my legs like barbed kelp, cutting my skin and holding me under.

And then the sharks come
The sharks that swim in the dark
They've come from the deepest trenches of my mind
Drawn by the scent of blood into the temperate waters where I swim, my loathing sinks in its teeth.

How can I explain
The surface is a barrier I've created
People can see the blood, but they can't hear me screaming
As my insides are torn to shreds by predators circling me in a frenzy, invisible to them but so real to me.

You make me believe in fairies and dandelion wishes
And when you speak the sky looks like sea glass
Your laugh tickles like butterfly kisses
You sooth my soul like a warm summer rain
And you lift me up like a sweet spring breeze
You fill my heart with stardust and wildflowers

So today you started with the why's, making excuses and reasons as you have every season since I looked at you, but now I see you and you think you can use the glint from that shiny silver tongue to blind me so you can bind me in your arms until I can't breath. And while you seem pretty qualified at splitting hairs and splitting sheets that doesn't mean you'll be splitting legs, not unless you get down on your knees and join this Sunday service, my body is a temple and you will worship it.
     It is not a crime scene to be inspected, not a base to be infiltrated and not fire to be quenched. The masses have called out "Sister art thou there?" and I have replied rising from what remains of my childlike mind saying,"Yey, I am the mosque, come to me and fill me with your joy and celebrations, but only the worthy shall enter my sacred halls and learn my holy obsessions." So don't think you can break me in because I am not something to be broken, not something to be dominated or overtaken in one moment of reckless inspiration.
     I see you shaking. Whether it's in fear or lust or just from the itch of dust forming on your skin from sitting patiently and waiting for the day when I give in, but just like you, it won't come. So whether you are wide eyed or tired eyed you will behold the glory that is within me, the strength that defines me and realize that I am baptized in the dawn of a new day. And you should know that I will not be coerced and as far as I'm concerned if you haven't learned by now that I am not your outlet, not just something to help you come around when your feeling down, your living puppet, then you never will. So you will never fill the gap between my thighs with your lies and turn around and call it love.
     Preach all you want but this choir isn't listening, it will sing to drown out the deafening sound of your screeching, so after hours when my church is closed and your feeling empty and alone just remember that next communion I'll be waiting for your confessions, and then maybe you'll receive my blessings. But before then my doors are closed until you know the difference between impulse and infatuation.
     So until the day when you figure out what you need to do and say, focus on your words, and not the way my bees talk to your birds.

My finger nails glimmer like fish scales as they dance across your skin,
They bite in tight leaving half moons like the delicate curve of a fin.

My heartbeat thrums like a war-drum beating hard against my ribs
Pushing the fire that burns through my veins to a rhythm that's starting to skip.

"You're perfect." You say And I flinch.
You can't see it but my skin begins to itch and I twitch
"Thank you." The words leave my mouth with my hope that you will translate them into"stop."

"You really are." And each word hits me like pin ****** violently tickling across my sensitive skin.
I hate those words, when they're spoken to me I want to hide or scream,"I'M NOT, I HAVE FLAWS."
You see I'm amazing.
I'm beautiful and crazy, manic and lazy, a puzzle and an open book
My scars and bruises are the marks life has made to chart the path that I took.

Then you say I'm "perfect."
Taking everything I am out of the equation and making me a single word.
And you say it after I point out one of my wonderful imperfections
As if trying to ignore these fine lines etched like lightning on my pages
"I'm really not." And it's not a bashful admission of self enmity masked as modesty
It's a fact, sharp and black like the edges of my eyes as I stare you down.

As I gaze out on the endless blue saltwater sky's
Crystalline saltwater drips from my eyes
~~~~~
O western sea hear my plea
Swallow me and set me free
Bring me home I will be brave
Pulled under by your loving wave

I don't know how much longer I can hang on hope.
I don't know how much strength I have left
I'm weak and tired and want to let go
So that I may fall to my death
So fast it would happen, just a slip of my grip
Slickened by blood stained palms
Spiraling towards me, the ground just a blur
And I would be nothing but calm

But right now I'm dangling freely
Fear pumping fast through aching veins
The harder I grip, the more that I slip
The sliced skin increasing the pain

I want to scream
Let this be a dream
So that I can wake up in due time.
Because if I slip
Loose my hardened grip
The surely I'll lose all that is mine.