Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Composed by: Sophia Zybenko

If you’re happy and you know it / clap your fucking hands / make yourself heard /

make them watch as you tear at your own ribs / reassured of who you are / all too aware of where you have come from / clap your God damned hands / in rhythm with your battered and broken heart / as it bursts from your wounds / and as you clap and scream and stomp: stride forward / stride forward, against the waves of taunts and slurs, stained red with the absence of those you longed to know / stride forward, against the flailing cowards with one foot in their mouths, and the other foot in a doorway left ajar eighty five and a half years ago / who wish to starve you all over again / stride forward, further forging a river, a bloodline, of resistance / 

If you’re happy and you know it / continue the fight / do not rely on the assumption that it is over. 

If you’re happy and you know it / slip away / at the earliest hour, under that blanket of peaceful darkness / collect your thoughts and your belongings / then flee / find the hills, their familiar ridges and valleys / press your body against that soothing earth / long enough to reinforce a memory / but not long enough to leave a trace / follow the trees and their breathy tongues / down the pathway that you had carved together / in case anything should go wrong / tread the way he taught you to / slowly shifting your weight / the weight of survival / the wait for survival / remain on the move / outwards, to the land they’d never look at, for it cannot be capitalised / let yourself find comfort in its ruggedness / before uprooting yourself again / again / again /

If you’re happy and you know it / take flight / for they cannot kill what they cannot find. 

If you’re happy and you know it / do not move / plant your not yet bloodied feet / sprinkle soil over your pale skin / take a breath and think of him / reach out your quivering hands / not a callous to be seen on those innocent knuckles / no cracks, chips, nor darkened dust on those young nails / reach out and wrap yourself around that happiness / keep it warm / let it keep you warm / be still / when those around you pelt forward, lashing and stumbling out of their restraints / be still / when they are tipped back again, helpless to the clock that ticks the wrong way / be still / when they ask to meet in the middle, before ripping at each other's throats once more / do not be led astray by the promise of anything greater / do not gamble away that happiness / 

If you’re happy and you know it / freeze / and pray you are not caught in the crossfire.