SPEAK, BUT HOW?

 

They say we must speak

Yet our mouths are tied shut

We are tongue tied

Lips folded

Sealed and sewn tight

Eyes wide shut

Guillotined, our wet wings cut apart

Hogtied

Petrified

Yet they say we must speak?

 

But how?

How can this be?

How can I be?

How can they be?

How can I speak?

Discern my voice from left and right?

Steer thought from right and wrong?

How can I?

Speak?

Sheer speak?

When my voice is drowned by my throat of fear?

How?

When I am thronged and have no voice?

When vice-grips are bolted on my voice box?

How?

When I am crowned but am without a crown?

How, when I am king,

But there is no kingdom?

How?

How? When a man up there raises a fist of revolt against my noise?

How?

When all I hear is my silent scream.

How?

When life hangs on the unbalanced beam, how?

How?

How can I speak?

How can the mother bird feed its chick

When it is not yet ready to be open?

For now its beak cannot be fully open?

Its wings are not ready to fly in the open.

So how?

How, when you cannot choose to speak?

How, when words are choked down your throat?

When blood stains you white coat?

How, when small hills are capped mountain peaks?

How?

 

But yet they say we must speak

And meanwhile whilst in their altars of power they spit

How can I speak?

When soldier boots meet my back when I roll my tongue?

How?

When my wings are nailed to my table of hope?

And I can only grope for hope?

How?

How?