white man says
make america great again
white man says it
like he ever knew America bad
like he ever knew anything but privilege

white man says
take us back
to better times and
I wonder which he means

maybe genocide
or slavery
or Jim Crow
or woman only knows kitchen
or woman doesn't get vote
or back of the bus
or don't ask don't tell
or all that war and all that death

white man says
make America great again
like it ever was to begin with

other white man says
make America Christian again
like this country wasn't founded
on freedom of religion
like you’re only free to have it
if you love Jesus

white man says
conservative with fear between his own teeth
says the word
like it's a dying breed
like it'd be a bad thing if it did
says it like he knows a **** thing
about what it means to be a minority

white man says
**** political correctness
as if kindness requires too much effort
as if it's a mistake to be considerate
as if words don’t have significance
white man says
Mexican
Mexican
Muslim
says go back
says you're not wanted here
sounds a lot like 1941 Germany
sounds a lot like ******
Mexican
Muslim
brown person
doesn't know how much survival it takes to be one in this country

white man
says legal
like it only means good
like these men who look just like him don't walk into movie theatres and shoot
into schools and shoot
into churches and shoot
into mosques and shoot
into human and shoot
tell me again what it means to be legal
to belong here
to have the right to be alive without chains
say we'd rather have guns walk free than citizens
say we'd rather save money than lives
say this country's got too many problems
say you know how to fix it

white man says
make America great again but
doesn’t know that progress
doesn’t work in reverse
tell me again
how going backward
will make the future any brighter
when our past is a reflection
of all the light
we never really had