Number 13 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article about the Underground Railroad that went south into Mexico.

Have you every asked,

“Why didn’t
Black people/Jews/that battered woman
fight back?”

– OR –

“Why aren’t
Muslim women / Chinese people / African queer folk
fighting their oppression?”

Have these questions melted
on your tongue in
the same mouth that discounts
the railroads
riots
escapes
protests
prisons
& pleas, bent one knee?

Have you asked these questions
without curiosity, only myopic blame,
before you even tried to look?

I have.

I may again.

I hope not.

I am un/learning
And hoping that other questions
the ones they aim at me
are being un/learned too

Richness comes
in expanding
in opening
in shedding old thoughts
like so much skin

Enough to let the whole world in