Shane Zhao Poet Free verse

Colonisation 07-02-2025

We all started life a sheath of blank pages
Able to be shaped into anything.
Paper aeroplanes, an artist’s canvas, a library book.
Our parents determine what kind of paper we are
-Cardstock, coloured tissue or plain white sheets.
As we grow, our friends, our families, our teachers 
Etch the ink into us,
Page by page, letter by letter
Building up our childhoods.

We felt everyone knew better than us,
(and perhaps they did)
So, we obeyed, listened and absorbed everything
-morals, actions, behaviours-
Until attentiveness turned into reticence,
Til compliance became blind trust.
We trusted everyone by our sides, trusted what they said,
What they told us to do.
Until we realised we shouldn’t.

Nobody had ever showed us 
The callous hands that tore instead of turned,
Ripping out our pages for their own.
Nobody showed us what it felt like
To have your story stolen,
To feel oneself drown beneath another’s ink.
Now I have just one question
How do I rewrite what was burned?

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