Inspire

 

Why is it

that a white middle class kid

with loving family and friends

public funded education and medication

living in Canada, with no reason to complain

will try to kill himself?

Why do I write poetry?

 

See there was a time in my life

I felt no one would listen to me

and what I had to say begged the question

why should I live anyway?

 

What is the value of a living wage

when my T.V. tells me that statistically

children starve to death

every five seconds of every day

because we would rather drink coffee

than feed them

 

I eat foreign fruit flown across the ocean

and flush my toilet with filtered water

 

While a boy

who is just like me

on the same planet somewhere I can’t see

dies

of hunger and dehydration

so what is my life worth?

Is it worth more than that starving child’s?

 

Why?

 

I’ve never known poverty

I might have all the answers

but I’m no Gandhi, I’m no master

I’m just a kid

but I can see!

 

I live a very privileged middle class life

that I don’t deserve

when minimum hourly wage is eight

and a starving child’s life is two a day

I would rather be a starving artist

than a fat hypocrite

I would rather die

than live a lie

 

My privilege was built on the backs of slaves

My comfortable middle class life is the product of genocide so

WHY should I LIVE?

 

My death would speak volumes

My bloodied limp body hanging from a sewer pipe

would have deserved front page headlines:

 

WHITE MIDDLE CLASS MALE

NO REASON TO COMPLAIN

KILLS SELF

 

And the whole world would echo my voice:

 

God! Damnit

we can do better!

 

But that is not

how my voice will be remembered

 

For I have seen my mothers face as she held my bloodied wrists

and my father’s as I confessed I no longer wanted to live

I’ve looked death in the eye, smiling

but chose not to give in

because I still have breath

and as long as I’m alive I have the power of inspiration

 

Gandhi’s breath

united a nation

JFK took a bullet to the head

because he said to his whole country:

 

“We are opposed around the world

by a ruthless conspiracy

that relies on intimidation

instead of free choice.

Its mistakes are buried, not headlined.

Its dissenters are silenced, not praised.”

but even death couldn’t silence JFK!

The words of Christ, Malcolm X, John Lennon

and Dr. King resonate to this day

 

So I keep breathing

reaching towards freedom

the way a flower unfolds and reaches towards the sun

 

You could kill me

but the sun will keep shining

freedom keeps inspiring rhyme in revolutionaries

you couldn’t silence me with an assassination

without immortalizing a life

LIVED LOUDER THAN SUICIDE!

 

because like John Kennedy I believe

humanity was born to be independent and free

and my eulogy will be heard

anytime anybody recites revolution poetry

 

So my friends, keep breathing

live life louder than suicide

louder than all the dying screams

of the starving children

whose lives are worth our daily coffee

 

louder than the deafening silence

of a revolutionary gunned to death in the street

and don’t be afraid of your final exhalation

because there is dignity in death

when your final breath

is an inspiration