“ Im sorry there isn’t anything we can do but file a report”
suffocated by his biased glare,
“you could get motion sensor lights?”
But how is that going to protect me from the slurs I hear just from pumping gas?
Or walking the street late at night?
Or even when I’m being followed?
Or the pictures of my house written in human ****
“******”
“*******”
“*****”
“**** yourself”

The police never patrolled my neighborhood,
But it wasn’t the first time I experienced it.

Knife to my face, I was told to get on the ground.
In the middle of the day at a park-- I was fourteen.
I ran as fast as I could
But it wasn’t the first time I experienced it.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman” as she set Webster’s dictionary down,
a tilted head juxtapose to her accusations.
“And it won’t be discussed any further”
An Educator? Refraining from talking about new ideas-
Doesn’t make sense.
But it wasn’t the first time I experienced it.

I was stronger than eternal sleep’s beckoning,
But she did have some good points.

Living life in constant fear
The sickness that they passed to me Now festers in the pit of my stomach
Quietly.
But this was the first time I felt hatred.