Poem
Platelets
Fear of conflict leads to victim blame.
While you tell me, how to pronounce my name.
Don’t worry, I won’t take slight.
A thousand ranks down so I’ll be silent and polite.
Diversify. Life’s non-binary.
Communication styles – can’t you see?
Did no one tell you, that more than one way can be right?
All of our red blood cells are needed and can be bright!
Intimidate. Restrict the pulse. Undermine.
Rewrite my history and sugarcoat the sin.
National-front see my brown blood. Do y’all see my chocolate skin?
Starved of oxygen, circulation supremacy sucking up my air.
Eyes searching for my inadequacies- I see your glare.
It’s an emotional rollercoaster, Mensa minuting meetings and begging for a scrap.
Vessels of aid offer people bone marrow, but that’s really a trap.
I’ve got three degrees but no one hears.
“You’ve said your bit. Now THAT IS IT.” (but it’s been this way for three thousand years!)
Political powers grudgingly give… what they consider, your fifteen minutes of fame.
They forget that I’ve suffered thirty years in silence n’ shame.
Zeitoun, Soufanieh, and Akita oxygenate my veins.
Coalition of allies, will you ever get to see the racist, covert games?
Brown-skinned in Kibeho. Mannar and Jaffna, she’s in tears of blood.
Our Lady of la Vang, why do I remind them of mud?
Mexican Mary, do you hear the meritocracy myths?
I pray, do you think one day, they could value my pith?
Stereotyped-Saviour Superman; Lois Lane had a brain from the start.
Meanwhile the political games, are like daggers to my heart.
Trump’s orange-brown skin, but his drain stopped him run.
So why do we ignore that Biden has an N-word cursing son?
We forget pro-segregationist Biden’s thirteen N-word senate bungle.
We’ll Covid-mask his fear of his kids living in a ‘racial jungle’.
Privileged say be resilient, so I’ll transfusion-clot my pain.
Stepped on each day; an act of kindness; a blessing of rain.
They say difference makes us grow deeper,
But they only accept your difference if you conform.
How much political will, traumatic stories, introspection; before we transform?
I’m not at the table so resolutely ruffle feathers while sorrow fills my grange.
I don’t have the power to be an agent of change.
Nalini Nathan