I'm Sorry Marsha

I’m sorry Marsha.

They don’t know you, but they know all the white people.

People like George Washington and Rosie the Riveter.

All of them are important.

So important, they’re in the history books.

But you aren’t.

You’re important because you fought in a revolution,

a movement that gave me rights, gave you rights,

and everyone like us freedom.

But we haven’t felt relief yet.

We march, we’re so proud,

but we’re still getting beaten and killed.

I feel bile rising up my throat

for my people with glitter and blood on their skin.

Those people in their suits are on our screens,

so high and mighty and unmoving.

They’re shaking us like we’re piggy banks

trying to empty us of our strength,

slowly trying to take away what you gave us.

If you can see all this,

i can imagine pieces of your heart shattering,

falling and landing on the grass beside me.

You can see that we won’t shut up, and they stomp on us.

We’ll do what you did. Let our rage consume us,

stand firm like a willow tree that can’t bend to the wind

and say ‘We’re not asking for respect. We’re fighting for it.

We’re taking it for ourselves.’

Isabella Radaelli

Hopkinton MA, USA

Isabella Radaelli is from Hopkinton, Massachusetts. She is a senior at Roger Williams. Her major is creative-writing and her minor is English literary studies. She likes to spend time with her family, read, and rewatch Glee.