Page 14 - Poems by Alyson Malach - Childhood to Adulthood

Brutality

As I walk the streets on a rainy night

My hands in my pocket my head held upright.
I think of my dreams of love and peace.

But the tears that I shed are of sorrow and grief.

Not of love and hope like I had dreamed.

But of fights and quarrels and of language obscene

I have visions of Black people and whites.

Figh�ng and cursing each other with dislike

I have illusions of a happy land.

But they are soon to change back to a stretch of sand.

I have stopped walking; I have reached my des�na�on.
I have snapped out of my spell of medita�on.

Only to come back to the life that I detest

To see a police officer making a brutal arrest

Bea�ng up a man of my race

Kicking him in his head, his face

The trickling red blood covers the street.

Trickling, trickling, touching my feet.

I cannot keep it back any longer.

I scream to ease the strain that I am under
What happened to the dreams, are they all shatered?

They must be, for before me, lies a Black man, brutally batered.

I have no faith in dreams anymore.

I am sick and �red of all this unrest.

I only hope life is beter a�er death.

Alyson: Aged 15

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