If You Seek a Revolution, Start with the Lens You Refuse to Break

A picture is worth a thousand words,
yet silence lingers in the margins.
You see a family and paint them in the colors
your mind deems familiar--
you assign roles,
you carve identities from your own expectations.

But what of the truths you do not see?
What of the histories etched in scars unseen,
the languages spoken in glances,
the struggles hidden in the space between frames?

You assume wholeness where there is fragmentation,
harmony where there is negotiation,
ease where there is exhaustion.
You affix labels with hands that claim to unshackle,
not realizing the weight you add.
To assume is to erase.
​To erase is to harm.

And yet, you speak of justice,
you cry for change,
you demand to be seen in the fullness of your truth--
but do you grant the same vision to others?
Do you listen when silence speaks louder than words?
Do you hold space for complexity,
for contradiction,
for the stories that refuse to fit inside neat little boxes?

Or do you press the edges of the picture tighter,
trim the inconvenient truths,
discard the discomfort,
crop the world until it fits your view?

Revolution does not begin with the loudest voice--
it begins in the quiet moments of self-examination.
It is the dismantling of the frame,
the rejection of the easy answer,
the courage to let truth exist without your permission.

So tell me--
when you ask others to do better, to be better,
do you hold yourself to the same fire?
Do you burn away illusion
or bask in its comfort?
If you seek a revolution,
start with the lens you refuse to break.

- Hillary Kempenich