Like Tags on Cattle | Teen Ink

Like Tags on Cattle MAG

October 1, 2016
By Escritora PLATINUM, Bucharest, Other
Escritora PLATINUM, Bucharest, Other
25 articles 0 photos 0 comments

What you are is the demand –
Don’t you see that it’s labels that command?
Who else to orchestrate the symphony of swords,
Composed of notes of hate and stolen words –
Snatched from air and incarcerated in skull gates.
Where you’re from – another inextricable tag,
With the insatiable vice to see you lag.
The sordid label clings, pinned to your ear,
Much like on a cattle’s back rear,
impeding success from lowering near.
Color of skin – before your mouth – speaks,
For in this world ethnicity reeks.
Like a stench, it floods through your pores,
seeps to your core,
So that you, yourself, like everyone else, can perceive naught more.
Who you are comes last,
And is so soon cast
To the side of irrelevant frivolity where, there,
it is destined to rust.
It’ll decompose amidst the fetidness, the swords, and the tags, just as it must –
To satisfy our prejudice and mistrust.


The author's comments:

The text was inspired by the insidious racism that is, though we sometimes refuse to admit it, inculcated in all of us. But even labels unrelated to race are dealt out to all of us: nerd, jock, artist, etc. These impede us from being the complex, diverse, extraordinary people that we are. Labels, when they concern human beings, are detrimental and they only prevent us from freely being who we are.


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on Apr. 24 2017 at 11:45 pm
joyashford BRONZE, West Chester, Pennsylvania
3 articles 0 photos 7 comments

Favorite Quote:
"We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."

This is so powerful and beautifully written, thank you for sharing.