Silence has a name

Silence has a title

Silence has a paycheck, a dark green uniform and the kind of boots that will make your voice crack as it begs for freedom if they were to press them against your neck

and they will

Because your ideas are too inconvenient

If they weren’t they wouldn’t have a body count

But they do

Silence has a gun and it will let you bleed out to shut you up

Because the power in your words threatens the power that they hold by force

It will kill you for standing up to tyranny

It will kill you for wanting freedom

It will let you starve and burn food right across the border

It will deny that all of this is happening and censor every ounce of truth

Even then you never mellow, you stand tall with your words knowing that their deaths at the hands of injustice will not be in vain

They had names too

Maybe if we don’t allow ourselves to forget them we might not let the silence win

Silence has a suit

It sends its thoughts and prayers and doesn’t do anything about why they’re needed in the first place

It sounds like the downfall of a society with a frosting of lies, unfulfilled promises and history that only repeats itself

Exploitation began hundred of years ago and stops when?

Silence has a gun and it will lull you to sleep as it makes every neighborhood safer

Until you later realize all they did was bleed out your young

For walking through the wrong places at the wrong times wearing the wrong outfits, but most of all for having the wrong skin

Not all silences are created equal

Sometimes it is the sound of your parent’s voice as they tell you that you have to leave for loving the wrong someone

Sometimes it is your own voice as you repeat all the times they told you it would never happen for you and you allowed their silence to fill up your own head and not even you could hear your own voice

Sometimes it is your thoughts as they tell you it is not worth the anger, it is not worth the effort to fight because things will never change

and those thoughts are right nothing will ever change unless you get angry at the silence and speak up

Silence has a name

Do not let it be yours