“A Snapshot of Some Class in the U.S.” by S.M. Brown

S.M. Brown (she/ her) is a writer and preservice teacher. In her writing she is inspired by her religious upbringing and political awakening. The anger of all that was hidden from her in public school and the pews moves her forward. She writes in hope a soul like her's will find meaning in her words too.

I sit. 

Middle row, far right column. 

There I sit. 

I sit and I read. 

Poetry. 

Specifically, the kind that outlines the stolen mouths of the 20th century. 

There I read. 

I read and I listen. 

To poetry. 

Of lives victim to intentional iniquity for not fitting a mold. 

I hear their dying breaths, their anguished cries, their marching toes and joyous tongues. 

There I listen. 

I listen and I see. 

I look into a mirror and find the history of where people like me have been. 

I look through a window and see the history of the people unlike me have suffered. 

I look and I slide through a glass door and I feel overwhelming empathy for those who I did not know nor knew to look and see. 

There I see it all. 

In the midst of my revelation, my resurrection, my anger burning like a wildfire but carrying me like wings– In the midst of all of this, I hear a phrase: 

“This class is too liberal for me.”

When did it become too liberal to ask the world to let people breathe?