My little brother is a little ****.
I watch him voice opinions no one cares about
and say things I don't want to hear.
And yet
Everyone watches and listens.

They watch and listen to a boy in the spotlight
He comes to me and says things like
Hey have you seen the power rangers? My favorite is the pink and-
He's annoying.
So annoying I ripped out his vocal chords.
So now he says
"   "
It's quiet
"  "
I let his silence consume me
"   "
I told myself I don't need to hear his voice to be happy
"  "
But after a long day I walked into his room where he carved his words into his walls so maybe someone would listen
His vocal chords leaving him hung on his unspoken thoughts
I could demand attention
I could play my every game
I could still hear him
screaming my name

You died 4 years ago and I never forgot the feeling
the feeling hoplesness I felt when they told my that the cancer inched its way to every pure crevice
until you were as weak as my knees were to become.
I remember falling
not literally but figuratively
falling into a hole where the light of god was absent
and all I had left was my inner light
The day you died was the day I stopped believing
You and I prayed every night and even though I don’t believe in God I still pray
I still speak- The bare definition of a prayer is
a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to a being or audience that cannot respond
So here I am
In front of you
Screaming
Begging for another conversation with you
Grandma I’m sorry I lost faith
and I don’t intend on ever regaining faith
but I always pray to you.
before every performance.
I beg that you listen
and that everyone else listens
I don’t believe that my words go unheard
or I wouldn’t be standing in front of these people today
Grandma I love you, I love you, I love you
And I will never break this life-long conversation with you.
Grandma this poem- this prayer- is for you.

the silent vote works like a canister of oxygen in a small house fire.
the fire is contained but the canister is soon to explode, leaving ashes of its legacy in the empty field of progress.
the silent vote works like a man standing in line thinking everyone is looking at him differently because of the color of skin.
like that same man being told he's irrational for reading into the white stares.
that man being held back by security, asked to step certain ways, because paths in America were only made for certain shoes to fit in
your silence lingers around the necks of those who had to walk to freedom in chains.
carrying the slurs, the murders, the history that otherwise would be forgotten.
it's the silent vote that will leave me forgotten.

it's the silent vote that will force me to register, force my family to be outcasts in the America that told us that for once we were accepted somewhere
the fact that a person who decided this fate could have been protesting right next to me
telling me that my voice mattered- until they had something to do with it
until they stripped my american flag freedom stripe by stripe until i was just a field of fallen stars.
Stars that so many of us wished on, laid out, and soon to be forgotten
if you're going to do this, the least you could do is ******* say it.

Hello everyone, come in, come in!
The show, is about to begin.
In one ring we have a man bouncing his head on cement
For your entertainment .
Laugh at him,
It makes the pain hurt less,
And in this corner-

Oh and this is only the beginning of our show,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Laugh and tip your comedians.
They do this for you.
They’re dying, for you.

Begun! The show has only begun
But, the show will be all night ladies and gentlemen!
In this ring,
We have a man who chokes on your laughter,
So laugh harder ladies and gentlemen,
He is dying for you to take him away!

But there just comedians right?
Nobody telling them who they are.
Nobody telling them what they have done.
Take a look, they are numb.
They are the living dead.
Watch them die in front of you and still survive.
Because no matter what they still **** themselves slowly.
So enjoy the show

The family we should love surrounds us
Hidden by labels and society’s masks
We don’t have the time to reach them.

Or maybe our hands don’t stretch far enough
Like we try to move and yet we’re confined to the same square box.

I want to scream to my brother and sisters from other fathers and mothers
But you tell me you don’t know who I am

We are all under one atmosphere
Working together for multiple purposes that can melt into one, to live

We let society's labels define us, stick us in different apartments, houses, states, nations but we are all under one atmosphere.

We all can link our shared experience
We can all learn from one another

Your label may look different,
Our ingredients might have changed over the years
We don’t need to look, sound, or act alike to know
That we are all one body, one family
One group of humans in a studio atmosphere traveling around the galaxy.
And it’s time to act like it.