I was 12 and free
but I got sucker punched by a neo-nazi
who didn’t even let me
get my boxing gloves on before getting
all Rocky Marciano on me…
All his friends laughed
while I held a near broken jaw trashed,
crying dry tears and yelling in silence
like my favorite tragi-comedian, Charlie Chaplin.
Luckily, I lived next to a library
and as I was walking home that fated day
I found myself searching for answers
in the compassion of books.
As fate would have it
I found the Dalai Lama, Yeshua Ben Yoseph, Joan of Ark, Maya Angelou,
Abraham Heschel, Zora Neal Hurston, Pablo Neruda, Anne Frank, Nelson
Mandela… and so many of those who have overcome the craziest enemy with power of love
I spent the next year training
my body-min-spirit triangulating
in how to fight bullies with wisdom.
It was the only thing I could do to bring fact to fiction
And after being hurt so deeply
for something I didn’t understand like…
What’s a Jew? What’s a black or a native too? And what’s really erasing the
human race?
I learned that there are museums for wars, museums for bullying…
I learned that there were those so sick they created slavery…
I learned that there were millions of original tribes decimated by the
disease of money and fake gifts
I learned that so many troops have died they could fill the sky with sand or
the beach with stars…
I learned that history is violent, racist, sexist, classist and idiotic in its level of intolerance
But I also learned how to channel my rage and anger
into inventions, sports and art… I became a musical painter
An expert in poetic justice, a voice for the voiceless…
The next time I saw those bullies,
I was at a party and I asked them to battle me…
but this time it wasn’t a fake boxing match
It was a fight in song, a fight in word, a fight in dance, a fight about
peace, and a fight about real history…
They knew nothing of their own
and what they did share was a list of lies
that so sounded confused it was off beat and humiliating.
But instead of laughing at them, I asked the party to surround us all in a
giant group hug
Not even a bully can escape that much love
__