People Who Need People Part II

The Time Will Come

Have you ever felt like a spec of dust in a world filled with monolithic rock? Have you ever? Have you ever felt that no one truly gets it or can connect to you even among your many colleagues? Have you ever? Have you ever had an experience where you were overwhelmed with thought and you felt as if you were drowning in it; you are so exhausted with all your knowledge that you feel like it is too much to contain and it is slowly strangling you?

Have you ever woken up from a dream and straightway ran for your paper and pen, and without effort, without much thought a story wrote itself? Have you ever made art and felt disconnected from the story it told? Well I have.

Below is a story I once wrote. I’ve never been physically or mentally abused—I’ve always been surrounded by love, but one day my pen and my inner self wrote a story that the Jem on the surface at that time had no idea about. As I reread it, so much emotion consumed me.

I chose to share this poem today only because after years of not knowing why that story was relevant to me and where it came from, the reason unfolded today. I realized today that I too can relate to the misery this girl faced and like this girl, time was the ingredient necessary in fulfilling destiny. I’ve reached a certain milestone and only now does “it”… all make sense.

The Silent Voice

My cries, my voice no one can hear.

Loneliness, darkness ever so present, to wake up from this horror my prayer.

To return your ghastly scoldings; to swear at you at the top of my lungs,

To incarcerate you in a lonely cell...and your voice like mine so silent...

Only echoes of your cries you'd hear.

I wish just once I could be heard!

I'll tell all the untold stories, the novel of pain my tiny body has to bear.

The times you'd tower over me, you ogre, you dragon, you beast...

My little voice....ever so silent.

You were my predator, for years I've been your prey,

But I know one day I'd be tall, I'd be unstoppable.

I'd have a voice and sweet vengeance would take lead,

And you, not me, would have to plead.

All the torture, all the pain, the emptiness...

The void in my heart would always remain...NEVER erased from my mind.

Although Just a little child I would remember all the episodes with you and me...

that made me wish I'd never seen this world,

that made me wish that she who bore me never died,

that made me wish I could turn back time...

turn back time to that night you planted your seed

and her heart beat raced and your breaths were deep.

For now....my voice, like the sound of silence

But when I own that voice--liberty to speak, I'd repay you for all this pain

Memory won't fail, because they're engraved

etched in my obscure mind, my tiny heart...my little brain.

J.Wilson (2007)

I can now relate after four years. Four eventful years where I’ve made academic institutions my second home. I’ve been bombarded by critical thought, theorists (dead and alive). I’ve been awakened by life itself; life and its struggles, the quandaries it brings, friends that weren’t even associates. Through this time I too like this little girl was faced with physical and intangible elements that prevented me from saying, doing, reacting speaking! I’ve been guarded; I’ve allowed people, schools, professors, friends, ideologies and the status quo to silence me.

This silencing was implicit, this silencing was destined to be, it commenced at my birth and if I remained unconscious of it, it would proceed to do the same till my death—hampering me from letting out my deepest cries of hope, joy, love, emancipation. The thing is, time has matured my mind, opened it and though physically there might be no sign of growth, that “little” mind has now acquired the necessary ingredients to allow this woman to speak out. I’ve found my voice in all the chaos!

The next step for me is to figure out what I want to use this voice for. Is this voice that of a revolutionary? Should I use it to share knowledge and simultaneously gain it? Should I go on fulfilling the dream of someone else or use my voice to reveal another path unknown to me?

Like this little girl, my chance has come as time has passed and I am grateful for the people who have all led me to this epiphany.

If you have felt like this girl, like me, like the oppressed, suppressed, abused, misused… you are not alone, but remember, your voice will come and when it does it’s up to you what you do with it!

Speak the truth and accept the truth in love….