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BY AU D R E LO R D E
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
"A Litany for Survival." Copyright © 1978 by Audre Lorde, from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre
Lorde. Copyright © 1997 by the Audre Lorde Estate. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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