True Name

I've been seeking places of power in a land who can’t remember her own name

She lives
just barely
just weakly
a too slowly, too softly
heartbeat

fading quick
dissipating as I try to listen

And beneath Her dying things 
lies a boneyard 

Do you know the feel of land that has seen bloodshed?

Holy or unholy and 
you feel them both

Sacred and the gross darkness 
overlapping

Some land redeems its power
naturally
through fresh lives birthed on it, lived with it

This stolen land is not that. 
These trees are not that.
These rocks are mostly silent 

only the cries of the innocent
murdered and now
buried beneath her soil
ring out with hard truth 

we have been sold a lie

these handcuffs are not golden 
as we believe them to be
hated but 
accepted, acceptable, necessary

We cannot refuse to see
they are cheap brass tarnished
nickel turned green no
not made for our skin 
suffocating our humanity

For they know
we will stay chained if 
we don't know we are o(su?)ppressed 

if we think only the Other is in danger, not 
our family, our friends, our neighbors, 
our own souls 

if we hate our lives but believe 
what keeps us trapped

if we fear change, so we remain
complacent, compliant, complicit

The truth is

Our hope has felt mostly lost
but
what the they forgot is
what we must remember

Injustice breeds revolution 
and their market is now saturated
with it

We have not been the heroes of this story

we are an enslaved people 
to a broken system
only perpetuated by our own unwillingness
to believe what the rest of the world already knows is true

war is the machine of old men
wielding stolen power
to satiate unquenchable avarice
using the alchemy of our willing submission
to turn our blood into their gold

the oligarchs have consumed this land
and in our fear and apathy
we have helped them

No wonder She can't remember who She is
no wonder we can't remember who we are

And yet...

I can taste it
the thinly woven thread
still there beneath the longing
in the faintest wisp and whisper

Weshallbefree
Weshallbefree
my heart picks up the rhythm
Weshallbefree 
we shall all be free

and it is here I find what we seek 

life will return if we 
cultivate it, fight for it
reclaim it 
T O G E T H E R

so we
street corner protesting, neighborhood patrolling
feeding each other, protecting our neighbors,
singing songs of resistance, speaking truth to power

Hear me now, America
as I speak to this dry, dead, bloody boneyard
within us and without
calling

remember yourself, land of wonders and beauty
remember ourselves, people of joy and strength
remember freedom’s call to “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses longing to breathe free”

our hearts restart with courage 
our bones reknit with peace
our flesh resewn with grace

standing together we
dismantle what was not actually built for
most of us

hand in hand we remember
the true power of this land is found 
in us, Her people

By Melissa Hawks