My skin my raincoat

My skin my raincoat
Possible to feel welcome in my own home, I call my skin my raincoat.
Stars that seemed only alive when you’re about to leave falsely in your graveled seat sinking boat.
I saw my mother get dragged by the limb and beaten by that thing they call protection, by the man who carelessly wiped not a flinch of his grin as he pulled her, I could not shed a tear rather cry within my blood cells that boiled in the entrails of my “what is it called?”

That pulsating throbbing thing on the left side of my chest so bare and battered that has been snatched along with my “what do you call it?” that veracious act without chains so invisible that hurt without restraint where I can stand alongside what I want to say.
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My brother of 200km and my father without a foresight left in him, who refuses to believe me anymore.
I feel I have feet that refuse to work anymore, with bones that refuse to function, a tongue that’s stuck and cannot move, hands that don’t feel a cent of attention.

Help me! my brother, I’m only drowning in this flood of repressed affection and hand-picked restraints of whips that hurt no more.
​My truth you only see in black and white, detaining me of my culture, my land and my children.

I’ve been sour sipping crude cups of neglect filled with nonentity but faceless words and stray. I’m shackled in my own despondency, but I won’t fall, I will live on, for I call my skin my raincoat.

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A dedicated piece to our West Papua brothers and sisters. I stand as your sister 200km near. – Krystal Elizabeth Selwood ​