Angry

I’m a pacifist and I’m angry. Those two terms are not mutually exclusive.

If you are a woman of color who has something to say

You have been accused of “being an angry person”

And being called angry is meant to call you out

To point out to a deficiency in your character.

This tactic is as old as the oppression of women

Especially women of color in America, meant to silence,

Mellow out, subdue, and crush our spirit.

And some of us have internalized that for far too long.

That being angry is a sin, when in fact more often than not

It is when we stand by, quietly, that we become accomplices

Of our own death, fear, and violence.

 

What we do with our anger can be sin;

but what we do not

at the sight of injustice is always fatal.

 

But Alas!  We serve Jesus, who had no shame in his game,

he expressed his frustration,

And modeled for us what we are to do,

when fueled with holy anger, he

turned the tables of the moneychangers.

Money mongers, manipulators

And cheats…

 

Yea, I am angry

Not because I like to

Want to

Or need to

It is because

If I don’t

Im

Numb

And dumb

Or worst yet

I must have

lost my heart.

 

Yes, I am angry

I am mad at myself

That I let you see me

And the quiver

Of my upper lip

And the tremble of my knees

Shook the earth between us

And I hate

You saw that insolent tear

atrevida

Make its way

Near my lips

While I am still

attempting to explain

Man-splain

In English plain

Why it is that we cry

Outloud

when we do

what is not right

it is not right

for far too long

we’ve kept it to ourselves.

 

Yes, I am angry

And no,

I do not let my hair down

I let my hair UP

Not as some crest

To intimidate ya’ll

The springs that jump of my head

Are not stinging coils

Meant to scare you away

They are not my defense mechanism.

But they are who I am.

Who I am

That is what seems

To really scare you.

 

We are angry, yes!

Because what we see

We know

It’s killing us.

And you want to call us out

Sitting us at the dugouts

As if something foul

Had been rotting

in our mouths

and our words spill out

from our souls

like self-inflicted curses

that dig deeper

the ditches

where we are supposed

to bury our dreams.

 

We know you see it.

Yes, we are angry

And we wonder why

It is taking you so long

To be angry too.

 

©Teresita Matos-Post, July 2017

Summer Music Institute

#BlackLivesMatter

Drew Theological School