timing.  

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Ethnic Timing.

Black Timing.

It’s the same thing, to some.

It’s a joke that you can…maybe, be

let in on:

I used to see it as something harmful,

Painting ourselves all with the same brush,  

feeding into their narrative.  

But…

I see it differently now,  

A juvenile middle finger up,  

followed by a hushed group giggle,

against a system that never was for

Us.

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--

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your privilege.  

(About a personal experience, channelling hurt and frustration over a fall-out with a close friend around white privilege and understanding of BLM)

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You snap like,  

a sliver of glass forced to bend between two fingers.  

Something delicate,  

broke so easily.  

You erupt at the compromise of your

age-fortified, ivory defences.  

Gather and launch spears from on high,  

aimlessly wounding those below in your panic.  

Your towers rise as,  

high as shrill screams in perplexed horror.

Retreat seeking comfort in what you’ve always known,  

the warmth of ignorance guides to closed blinds.

You weep in the dark while

daggers still soar out through your crenels.  

Re-puncture the already dead,

a drop of your blood is worth the ceaseless labouring of…theirs.  

Yet all of this

hurt  

anger

outrage

hysteria

cursing

explosion

implosion

terror

when I only threw a pebble.

A pebble.

Forgive me.

I believed that arms above

would have lowered at the realisation of me,

tossing a pebble rather than

hurling a boulder.

Sorry,  

I did not know that such fragile walls were made of

White.  

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