what respect do i owe to my elders if they cannot afford me any?
who i am is not a choice but to do right by me,
as another human being, is.
i do not pretend to know the horrors of lives that i have not lived
but i have lived my horrors daily, in the face of ignorance and erasure already, at twenty-three.
do not expect me to stay silent when it is my existence on the table.
those days are over.