Today I see a brick wall
Magnificent and cherry-red
laid in layers of
parallel cement lines
It rises on all sides
Cold and hard
Towering and deep
It is a house from the 1960’s
with a wide porch
and stately columns
of white
But it is not my house
though I am bound
to it
It is my home
though I have never lived here
The history of those before me
whispers like the
curling smoke up a tall chimney
Surrounding and suffocating
Her choked cry for help
from behind a wall
birthed everything but freedom
But it birthed me
and no one ever told her
we could leave
So we stayed and staked
our place here in the
toxic waste of generations
before us
Where rage paints souls
and sadness
lies below the surface
of our skin
every second
like the tick of the clock
tocking:
“There is no hope. There is no hope.”
This in the anthem of the cement
I’ve lived behind for so long
and watched carry on
in everyone who was birthed and raised
in this 1960’s house
of perfection
and torment
Behind the brick wall
of generational burden
is me
Some fifty years later
staring at the impenetrable surface,
It’s anthem alive today
as ever
Wondering how we ended up here
Why I’m still here–
A prisoner of my trauma
when I had nothing to do with it
and have never even lived in a brick house,
why it boxes me in
and make me feel so small
Like a lab rat
in a whirlwind of tubes and syringes–
Therapy and medication
trying to break in
Break through
to me
Why can’t anyone see that it’s
not the depression
or the anger
or the fear
It’s the cage
I’m in–
The lies I was fed
The fact that I’ve believed all of it,
that by some generational ticket
I deserve it
The harsh law behind the wall
that was meant to make
all of us perfect,
when instead we’re all
Messes
Now hardly seen
Oh, god–
How I miss my family!
I wish all of you
could peek out
for only a moment
as I’ve done
Peeled my eyes,
glued my brain to the
pages of books that explain
why we are the way we are
I wish I could tell you
it’s okay
I wish we were the kind of family that touched
so I could smooth a warm hand on your cheek
and remind you of your humanity,
So I could say once and for all I’ve figured us all out—
It’s the wall
The place we’ve been hidden
The place we’ve been ridden
The place of our deepest scars
I finally understand–
The curtain lifting
to reveal the truth
I wish I could tell you
but today,
I can’t seem to look past it all
The lines and rhythms
of cold
Today
all I see is a brick wall
Eden Campbell 