When safety is a privilege?

Like Angelou's pressed palm against glass,

I watch their freedom as I pass —

Through corridors of white-washed power,

Where fear marks every passing hour.

The moon knows my secrets deep,

In streets where respect lies asleep.

Hope — has feathers — but mine are clipped —

By systems — built on — privilege slipped —

Into every — institution's door —

While I — stand watching — from the floor —

What happens to a dream denied?

Does it sink like stones in troubled seas?

Or does it burn beneath our pride,

Like truth beneath their pleasantries?

Fragment of woman, piece of whole,

Like Sappho's verses, torn and sold.

In marble halls where power dwells,

My story breaks like ancient shells.

Like love that cannot stay silent,

My pain searches where to scream.

My silence will not protect me here,

As Lorde taught through her fierce grace.

Each breath becomes a revolution,

In this white-male dominated space.

Wild and precious is this life,

Even through the darkest strife.

Oliver's geese still point the way

To survival, day by day.

Rich taught me to dive deep down,

Into wreckage of what should be.

Finding strength in broken places,

Where their eyes refuse to see.

Millay's flame burns in my chest,

As I navigate their world possessed

By rules that bend for some, not all,

While justice watches from her fall.