The Right to life

Today is Martin Luther King day.  But that is not what this blog is about.  Not completely.  


1964
By Jessica Singleton

My freedom flies out the window when I dream.
When I am awake, I know it stands in a corner of a darkened room.
I know that only in dreams, does it have wings.
Like Robins with kite strings.
Always held at bay.
Just beyond my own horizon line.
I watch days slip into warm baths and I watch my hope fade away.
I can see the scars and I can feel the pain.
It never leaves my side.
What it takes from the mind is not as bad as what it steals from the heart and soul.
They will tell you not to talk about it.
Unless you want to be locked up.
No sane person will scream.
No normal person would disagree.
They have a rope and a electric shock therapy machine for the dysfunctional pieces that don't work well with others.
It is a punishment for those to watch you say no.
So there is not tomorrow for you if you don't beg for their approval. 
They take your family apart.
They must be sold off to separate you from where you belong.
No one can stand beside you when you fall apart.
And no one will say anything until , it is their turn to scold or scream.


---------------------------------

There is a man that today was dedicated to.  The reason is that he was an innocent man who gave a speech about freedom.  He stood up in front of the world when it was not okay to talk out loud if you were not white.
He did not pick a fight or start a war.  He did not scold people.  He just reminded them that walking beside someone on the street or having to sit next to them on a bus, was not the same thing as marriage.  It was not right to kill someone just because you did not like their skin or nationality.  They were not talking to you.  You did not have to take their human rights from them.  They could eat in public.  They could go to a hospital and get medical attention.
He was not hated by the whole world for what he said.
But one day- someone took a gun and they shot that man for asking people to consider freedom for all.
It was already a law in constitution and bill of rights.
So it is not like there was not a rule to freedom under one God for an entire nation.
But they killed that preacher man anyway.
Not because he reminded them of what they already knew, because he was black and he ask for peace for blacks.
That is what today was for.  To remind people of that man.
And what he stood for and what he lost.
Life is a precious gift that no one has the right to take away.
They took his life.
It was senseless.
He should be remembered.  He is just as much a part of history as anything else that has happened in life.


I do not know what it is like to be a black skinned woman.
But I do know what it is like to not have a choice, even when you have the right.

So in honor of freedom and equality;
This blog and that poem that I wrote is dedicated to Martin Luther King.