‘For the others’ by KC

For the others

Stop pathologising
our personalities.
Stop boxing up
our individualities.
We will find our own ways
to meet our own ends.
Not yours.

We will be together
against the devastation
of your systems of oppression.
But never in your boxes
so you can categorise us
and shelve us as sorted.
No.

When we gather
we will know each other
as we know ourselves.
We will wield our knowledge
to grow together.
Wild like a forest
of Aspen, separate
on the surface
but one beneath
the soil.

We’ve fought hard
to know ourselves.
But our knowledge
does not belong to you.
You cannot know us
because you cannot know
yourself from inside
the boxes your systems
have made.

You fear what’s on the outside.
You fear what you don’t know.
Yet every day
you take your fear
and give it to us.
And sometimes
even we believe
that you are afraid
of us.

Did you know the flower
of the Aspen can free you
from the fears
you cannot name?

But not today.
We will not heal you.
Today we will name your fear
and we will give it back to you.
For we are done with it.
It does not belong to us.
Today we will name your fear
yourself.