be still, my love, it's all ok
or will be soon, I hope
the world, with sweaty palms, still clings
to fraying bits of rope
the plants, they like it warmer
and the animals can cope
(or those that hold tight, anyway,
to fraying bits of rope)
what’s wood made for, if not a flame?
the creatures can elope
the forests singe another inch
of fraying bits of rope

and now it's time to go, my love,
to journey down the *****
you didn't learn, and so you lost
your fraying bits of rope

Not until you can see the pain in our eyes, the scars on our skin, the protruding ribs and distended stomachs of malnourishment, till you can gape at small black bodies disfigured by kwashiorkor and colonization, till you can gasp at people that don’t look like you being branded like cattle, like animals on their way to the slaughterhouse
(and thank goodness we’ve come so far, things used to be so bad)

Not until you can marvel at the mottled marks of a whip, the black and blue bruising only white hands can inflict, till you can shake your head at teens boldly drinking under a whites only sign, till you can cover your mouth and peek through fingers at the water hoses, the dogs, the guns, the blood— black blood on black bodies in black and white photographs
(and you inwardly sigh, relieved that it was so long ago and so far away)

Not until you can retweet teenagers face to face with riot gear and tear gas, till you can shake your head and show that you’re different because your black studies class told you so, till you can give a 40 character message about how sickening the violence is, but you keep watching the videos of him her him her him her him her him her
them
shot choked kicked punched beaten whipped slapped
killed
by government sanctioned executioners

Not until you can see everything but understand nothing

Always have to be ugly raw hurting bleeding suffering
Why can’t we be smiling laughing eating dancing breathing

Why can’t we be smiling

Why

Nothing about us without us,
Always about us, you're without us.
Including the moments in history, that deserve our religious screams, our outrage and defiance,
The human rights that slip your systemic mind from time to time, because it comes with a billboard that has a painted letter of a capital D.
We own the crippled and crumpled pages,
Your oppression is our spark of history,
Flattering the pages and creating a novel,
a permenant marker of our precence.
Will you pick it up and understand?
We made our place in the palm of your hand,
This is about us, and without us you wont stand.

John Winston Ono Lennon
From Britain to Brooklyn, decked in denim
Controversial through his political and peace activism
Felled by Mark David Chapman's act of barbarism

Stiff necks turn your ears
To the approaching thunder
In the sanctuary walls,
A tremor in the civic flagstones,
Four million poster-board sentiments,
And twice as many young lungs.
They will be marching still,
When you can no longer
Answer those piercing eyes
Looking to your legacy,
Nor stand before the tender feet
Shaking the earth you leave them.

Anger is surging,
I am watching all my bridges burning.
Rhyme- I cling to the safeness the rigid structure evokes, the soothing sway of stability.
I am seeing flames,
your bigoted, misogynistic ways ebb away at my faith in humanity.
Cowardly, I bite my tongue, tasting iron, desperate not to be branded with the dreaded ‘F’ word.
Why am I ashamed? It is not a ***** word.
So do not roll your eyes when we preach equality,
we are not equal stop objectifying my body!

You were blessed with a voice,
One of power and brilliance--
Yet you still choose to sit in the silence?

You were given words upon words
& stance upon stance--
Yet I see not one sign of resistance.

Oh my dear child,
What is holding you back?

Is it fear of shame? simple diffidence?

Your speech is ammunition--
Your lips capable of deliverance more
Powerful than the rifles of wars once long fought.
Yet you still choose to sit in the silence?

Oh my dear child,
If only you knew.

In a world plagued so greatly with censorship and shame,
You’ve been blessed to speak freely as you choose.
Under this flag of red, white, and blue,
The only regulator of your speech
(or lack thereof)
Is you.

Somewhere across the pond is another--
One just as bright and capable as you.
But alas their tender head is still deemed naive
& their gifts remain invariably at rest.
Even now will you sit in the silence?

Oh my dear child,
Now do you see?

Your ability to speak up is a privilege--
One of rarity and great worth.
So cherish this blessing &
Hold it close while you can.
Because who knows?
Just one policy and it could all be stripped free.

Before the revolution,
I snuck into the capitol
with a pocket full of
Wrigley’s Doublemint
and a ski mask.

Lurking in their hallways
after hours. Hiding
in their aisles to find all their
loose pens,
I chewed gum
and covered all the tips
with Doublemint.

The ***** money in a politician’s pocket
will stick to their fingertips
from all the sugar and spit.
I stuffed the president’s inkwell
with gum stick wrappers.
Countless taxpayer dollars
will pour into the pockets
of Bic and Paper Mate
because of my vandalism.
Watch me take a bite from
the budget and chew.

While my comrades are
in the streets taking
tear gas and pepper spray
my breath smells of peppermint
and my bullets come in 35¢ packs.
Pens get capped with dextrin and aspartame
to snipe a signature from falling
on the bill that signs your life away.

I’m on the couch with my mask off
flossing and watching C-SPAN,
as the House collectively
wastes hours scraping
fountain pens and ballpoints.
Looking at a government
full of corrupt pearly whites,
my head thrown back,
I cackle like a mad criminal
with a mouth full of cavities.