Why’d it take so long?

 I watched The United States vs Billie Holiday. 
Strange Fruit. 
A song that made white men uncomfortable so she had to be stopped.
And drugs were an easy choice because she did have a heroin addiction.
This poem is inspired by the movie.

Pin prick
slow plunge of the syringe
milky liquid
shot through my veins
numbing the deep pain inside. 
Time without reason
men allowed to kill men
of different colors
without consequence
(passed in 2022 how sad is that-
the length of time to criminalize lynching-
100 years in the making
200 failed attempts)
my voice rises with passion
with pain
try to cut me down
take the words
twist them 
because they make you uncomfortable.
My soul has felt
tugged upon
ancestors demanding my vengeance
but it cannot be
for it would lower me
to the same level
as those bastards
murdering mamas
papas
14 year old boys
for why?
Sport for some?
Pure hatred and evil for others
this is history as we know it.
Lies
distortions
they took me down
arrested me on my deathbed 
so they would not look like clowns.
But in the end
I win
for it is my name that is remembered 
not his.

©Jan 16/23

It’s Easy To See

Blonde.

On Netflix.

A movie about Marilyn Monroe.

I had seen some headlines that watchers were turning them movie off in droves. Finding it difficult to watch. And I can understand why.

This Marilyn is portrayed as broken. Caught between the dreams of how others saw her and the reality that she lived in. She is constantly seeking for adulation and love that forever seems to slip out of her fingers.

It is not an easy watch. Not in the least.

And if one can put aside the illusion of perfection that Marilyn Monroe has always been portrayed as, it is easy to see another facet of her, broken, scared, alone, used and abused.

How could no one see what was happening? How is it possible that she fell so far between the cracks? It is a story that we can only guess at. A story we will never have a proper ending to.

Oct. 16/22