Who are we?

One of the poem's I wrote for my class's choice poetry collection

Who are we?

Who are we?

When we ball up our fists,

Aiming our wounding words?

we are hurt,

and the words begrudge

a silence,

an unnerving still

and the still causes space,

and the space festers,

festers, and expands

till we stand so near,

and are so far.

 

Who are we?

when the anger clouds our eyes,

flailing our knives blindly?

We are fools,

too busy holding a match,

to see the burns it makes,

till we are lit on fire,

but we don’t feel it,

no, not even when we

are ash.

 

Who are we?

when we shake, inside and out,

running closer and farther at the same time?

We are not ourselves,

reduced to our primal beings,

we stand buried under our armor,

our hands grasping a two-edged spear,

each equally jabbing,

and then we are bleeding,

but too afraid to take off our armor.

 

Who are we?

when we poison one another with silence,

killing ourselves all the while?

We are lost,

swept away by the hurricane

of hurt

and shackled in the maw

of anger.

they say,

“A storm’s abrewing”,

…we've had it over our heads

for a while.