Arya (he/him) is a Bengali-Australian youth advocate championing the voices of young people across the public service. In his poem, ‘In Pride We Speak,’ he gives voice to CALD young people with disabilities, urging readers to redefine their perspectives of the community and ‘pride who we were born to be.
In Pride We Speak
In pride we ask you to
Pride
Who we were born to be.
As we ourselves learnt to do so,
And will for eternity.
In pride we speak,
To celebrate the beauties that we are,
For we rose up from rock bottom
And became our own little epiphanies.
For, from day one, we become the
‘other’ – coloured so vibrant,
Our machine different to yours.
Perhaps something malfunctioned,
But it is with our own hands we take broken wings
And fly once more.
And our wings, they are all; they stand tall.
Black, brown, yellow – we got it all.
Whether in shades of black,
Tones of brown,
Hues of yellow,
Pops of pink,
Our arms and legs carry stories even books
Lack the spine to hold.
Stories of soldiers, musicians, writers amongst others
Whose voices have been
Soaring the skies for millennia,
if not more.
And in our eyes, oh such vivid worlds we see!
Through the zig zags, swirls and twirls they become the
Looking glass into tomorrow,
All it takes is a moment’s patience to forego
The blur of a world so cold.
Though some of our mirrors may be fogged forever,
Though some of our limbs may be stagnant, silent,
You shan’t miss a chance to see the future,
For in the little waves and sudden tics you’ll see
Tomorrow’s heroes, victors, trendsetters,
Changemakers.
No one can take that away from us.
We’re not born knowing where our wings shall take us.
Nor can we see the steppingstones nor obstacles
Inevitable to our plots.
But, we are strong, beautiful, powerful,
Though we may not be able to ground ourselves
In our silver tongues and smiles so bright
We give you a world of light,
A haven of peace.
And behind us stand generations upon generations
Of heroes whose victories remain unnoticed, silenced.
The hymn of those who came before us,
And those who shall come after us
Are etched into us, for eternity.
Our grandmothers and grandfathers came from afar,
Our mothers and fathers left the only worlds they knew,
But fearless, they built a galaxy of their own,
In times of urgency, they gave you and I a chance to
Breathe, rest and revive.
We pride them in what they did, do, and shall do.
As they pride us in overcoming the barriers of being different
To they and you.
They celebrate us for all we are,
Palsies and scars,
Pills and marks.
Some of us may not be able to speak
Nor move nor think so well,
But we are like you in every other way.
Some of us may dress, eat and speak
Different to you,
But we bleed the same, coloured or not.
And for those of us who sit in between,
We too are enough.
We weren’t born with pride,
But we built it.
You can too.
That’s all we ask from you.
