The Color of Peace

By Tifara Brown

The color of peace is Black 
Black like oil
Fueling weapons
Black like the ink of treaties
Brok  en 
Black like fertile soil
Sold
Taken
Bloody
The color of peace is Black
Like Southern flesh
Burned
Like pages of history
Blotted
Like shadows walking 
After ravishing 
Black bodies reeling
In the night 
Memories sunk beneath the Atlantic
Peace is not the absence of war
It is the presence of suffering
With the gall to live 
Anyway

Tifara Brown was born and raised in the Deep South and has been writing original poetry about her experience as a Black female Southerner since 2013. She has shared her poetry on the TEDx stage and competed across the country in the art of spoken word. Tifara recently published a book of poems entitled Honeysuckle: Poems and Stories from a Black Southerner in memory of her ancestor who was a victim of racial violence. She is passionate about storytelling and uses her words as a vehicle for advocacy for POC and all oppressed communities.