Gimme Some Skin!

I don’t rest easily in my own skin,
I have a woman’s skin
And so I’m forced to fight
Against oppression and for equal rights.

My skin is white,
So in my fight for equal rights,
My skin won’t rest easily on me,
The stigma of my white supremacy.

My skin rests on an uncomfortable bed,
My skin is smooth, clear and well fed,
My conscience is a bed of nails,
Pricking each time my fight for justice fails.

My skin tingles when “I have a dream…”
And visions of a better future seem
Tangible, almost within reach,
A magic world arising from a magic speech.

I wake to the harsh reality of life,
The poverty, the inequality, the strife,
I can’t rest easily and my skin creeps,
So I fight on while the first world’s conscience sleeps.

My only suit of armour is my own skin,
Uncomfortable and vulnerable, I’m trapped within
Its white, well fed, ‘superior’ sheath,
While a rage for justice smoulders underneath.

My skinny suit of armour’s frail and weak,
Bruised & pierced by fat cat wealth and fascist shriek,
But gashes heal and bruises disappear,
And the only wound that festers on is fear.

I refuse to rest easily in my own skin,
I have a human being’s skin,
And I will exercise my right to fight
Against oppression and for equal rights.

©Lynne Joyce, 10-7-1996.