Language Is a Weapon
My grandmother handed me a pen and
Told me to never use words as a weapon.
So I took that pen and I wrote and I wrote
And I wrote until my hands bled the ink of my pen.
Because for me, my voice will get lost
In a crowd but my words can
Never die.
My grandmother handed me a pen and
Told me to never use words as a weapon.
So I took my books and I underlined words
And wrote stories in the margins as I looked
For meaning in the nothing. Stories are
Necessary because they give a voice to
Whatever is without a voice.
Maybe I am that “whatever.”
My grandmother handed me a pen and
Told me to never use words as a weapon.
So I wrote about freedom inside this body
Of mine and how it truly is never my body.
The slurs, the sneers, the slurs, the sneers.
They say that the mind may go yet
Despite everything the body remains.
So whose body is it truly?
My grandmother handed me a pen and
Told me to never use words as a weapon.
So I sat in the graveyard of my ancestors
And wrote what the voices whispered to me:
“Pretend I wrote this at your grave—
This world will try to bury you
But it is better to make a Heaven of Hell
And a Hell of Heaven if you ever
Want to survive.
And you want to survive,
Do you not?”
My grandmother handed me a pen and
Told me to never use words as a weapon.
So I wrote down everything everyone ever
Told me: the lies, the praise, the lies, the praise.
And I soon realized that I did not need them.
Yes. And this is how you are a citizen:
Come on. Let it go. Move on.
My grandmother handed me a pen and
Told me to never use words as a weapon.
So I wrote what was clawing and
Screaming at my throat, just begging
To be let out—
Use your words as a weapon because
At the end of the day, they will beat
Your body and take your life but
Your words will always remain
Like an echo through time.
_______________
Originally penned May 15, 2020.
Direct quotes taken from Italo Calvino’s The Uses of Literature, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, Eve L. Ewing’s “1773,” and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.