By Joshua Williams

Who hears our cries in the night? Our skin feels akin to a stone slate, the way we feel through our tears, remaining headstrong through heartbreak. Light and God feel too fleeting on days like this, days where our pain is too great, and respite seems lost. I have written a lot about the tiredness that becomes us, the burden of injustice that weighs against our chests at night as we try and rest and prepare ourselves for the heartbreak a new day could bring. Bewilderment is how I feel, at the nonchalance of a bullet piercing a young girl’s heart. Four times. We weep for our shared blood spilled, we weep for the unflinching gaze of society as our mourning is embellished into nothing more than an unfeeling headline or an aside talking point that is all too fleeting to hold any real weight. 

There is a darkness in our midst

It wears blue and tells us to be safe

The words sound like a screech

Parroted through a mic

When words can no longer escape our lips

When our breaths no longer warm the night air

Who lives for us?

We cry for doves

How their wings sing through the air

No longer burdened by the chains in the ground

That hold us there

We cry for the dove 

That misunderstood flight

Off to unseen places

Oh 

how we wish we could see them off

And wish them a safe flight

We cry for doves

Set free not of their own accord

But of our own guilt 

The dove cries for us

Joshua Williams is a poet, activist, and best-selling author of Joshua Williams in a Week of Suicide(s) and love bandit. Twitter: @jshwilliams4 Instagram: @j.w.poeticworks