A Great Awakening
It's May 25th, 2020.
I hesitate,
then force myself to
WATCH
"Don't look away"
I tell myself on repeat.
Minute after painful minute.
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"I can't breathe"
(I hear more than 20 times).
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"They'll kill me."
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"Momma, I love you."
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"Tell my kids I love them."
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"I'm dead."
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9 agonizing minutes and 28 seconds later,
the knee finally removed from the neck.
Limp and lifeless,
flung onto a stretcher.
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GEORGE FLOYD HAS BEEN MURDERED
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The footage will forever stay with me.
​
It has been forever burned
onto the retina of my soul.
I cannot unsee it,
nor do I want to.
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I was home, alone,
Covid-19 sheltering in place.
Since I had nowhere else to be,
nothing pressing to do,
I sat
and stayed
with the discomfort.
I wept.
I sobbed.
​
Something exploded inside.
My heart broke
but it also awakened.
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Why did this happen?
How is this possible?
I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!
I set to work:
Read
Listen
Watch
Weep
Repeat
​
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Words from a Don McLean song running through my head:
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"Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen
They did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now."
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And I wondered...
What would Van Gogh do?
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"I can't breathe." - George Floyd
"As long as a man has a golden heart, it does not matter whether he has green blood or blue skin!"
- Mehmet Murat Ildan
"Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions.
You may have a heart of gold but so does a hard-boiled egg." - Maya Angelou
"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."
- Leo Tolstoy
Over to YOU!
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How will you respond? ​​​
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