The crimson streams as they cloud my eyes          I am unable to save          unable to act

Piercing          deafening screams          of silence

Hiding my fear          simply fighting

Fighting to survive          fighting to ignore

the unfolding atrocity

Because if I remain silent          if I move on

I will escape what they all face

I will learn to protect myself          before my people

But what if I realize that

I would rather fight          fight to save          fight to change

face the escaped

Because I would rather

scar and bruise

than lose my voice

my will to be

Believe          Become          Belong

Because I would rather 

fight til death

take away my breath

than watch my people

fall under a human          fall beneath your animals          your crops

You have taken my mother

with her desperate cries          telling me          run          run          run

You have killed my sister

as she shrieks          wanting her doll

For I am smaller than your smallest states

My warriors fall short of your farmers

Yet I still stand

Through years of your history          years of my history taken

with my own tongue

I stand speaking

a language that I recall teaching

a language I call mine

Although you have taken my body

my hair          my limbs          the tips of my fingers

You fail to take my soul

my will          my strength          my heart

To not survive

but to die

for the place I call home