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**Warning this poem deals with issues of violence that may be triggering to some readers.**
By Anonymous
Our people are peacemakers. Late nights spent curled under covers, Nights when flashing lights brought fear of who would be left. We have scars to trace our fear of conflict. We grew into people who aren’t worth the fight.
We are community makers. We make spaces that bear witness to trauma. We grasp onto things we don’t know how to hold Because we’ve held hotter before and The calices haven’t gone away.
We are backroom people. Tucked behind the dim glare of computer screens, Behind fantasical scenery backdrops Making things go smoothly and hoping not to be noticed By the wrong people.
Sometimes our people have fought too much to know when to stop Have spent too many night muscles-tensed In rooms that have never been homes. Sometimes violence is too familiar to be strange To our people.
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