I Can’t Feel Your Scars

Stolen poem

I can’t feel your scars

As a poet

I depend on experience

Just not always mine

However, even being an empath

Doesn’t tell the whole story 

I can feel your anger and your rage

I can feel your frustration 

I can feel the faint glimmers of hope

I can feel the embers dying as well

I can feel your ‘now’

I can’t feel your lifetime

Of fear and oppression

Of shattered hopes

Of abandoned dreams

I can feel the hurt

I can’t feel the scars

“This, This situation here, is the depth of despair

If you are black, born in America

You have and will experience trauma”

Stolen from Corey Yeager, psychologist 

“It’s heartbreaking for us”

Stolen from Philip Goff, psychologist 

Shawn Shipman, Minneapolis PS

Decries “the lack of the handling

Of human life with care”

We have weaponized “being white”

What black parents teach their children

“Always remain aware of who or what 

Is watching you”

“Always take note of the police when driving 

And even when going the speed limit, slow down”

“If you are a passenger in a car and police appear

Make sure to alert the driver”

“Never look too long”

“Never linger too long”

“In 1863, the Negro was granted freedom

From physical slavery

But he was not given land

To make the freedom meaningful”

Martin L King Jr. 

“Emancipation was freedom to hunger 

Freedom to the winds and the rains

Freedom with no roof to cover your heads

Freedom without bread to eat

Freedom without land to cultivate

Freedom and famine at the same time”

Fredrick Douglas

Freedom without rights isn’t freedom

False hope is just a bus ride between prisons

I can stand with you

I can stand beside you

I can feel your hurt

But I can’t know the depth

I can feel your hurt

But I can’t feel your scars

I can’t feel your scars

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

June 4, 2020