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.