hear my voice

Show me how to stand up for myself

because I’ve grown up being silenced

to make it easier to survive

The world is too big for me to feel small

yet I have lived as if it was -

as a minority living in a majority

My voice is lost against those

who feel like theirs has the right of way

leaving me with so much and nothing to say

A fog is slowly lifting from me

but only because the world is starting to see what I see

and trying to feel what I wished I never had to feel

Like I didn’t belong - wasn’t welcome,

like I was living on borrowed land and borrowed time

paying rent and only dreaming of ownership

Don’t call it character building or life experience

or resilience or a point of difference that

I have felt what you have not

It is not my privilege - or advantage

to walk down the street and be told to go back home

knowing full well they don’t mean around the corner that I came from

Stop telling me things will be ok and things will be better

because after twenty-seven years I have realised

how tired I am of battling

So here is my voice in your ears

listen to it - and if you don’t

you will hear it anyway

---

Originally written in my journal, on the 4th March 2021 following a therapy session where I truly realised how deeply racism affected my upbringing, my sense of self, my voice, my day-to-day. I felt true anger - followed by distress and disappointment. This was written as a commitment to myself, and the world, that I will no longer let others silence, underestimate, dismiss, disadvantage me - or glorify adversity as an advantage.