American
Democracy means
Your vote
Counts more than mine,
My whiteness
My able body
My heteronormativity
Gets more than
Your blackness
Your handicap
Your queer body.
Our justice depends
On the judge
On the house
On the senate
On the votes
That don’t get counted
On a rapist
Who controls the votes
On a country
Built on the
Displacement
Repression
Murder
Of people
Of color.
…
God
…
Help
…
America.
God save America, land of the shot
Shoot ‘em wherever you can catch ‘em
Off guard—schools streets marathons malls
Festivals nightclubs churches bedrooms—
It’s a life for a life for a bullet
Wedged in the flesh of a form.
Oh God, in America boys will be boys
There’s no crying here but anyone can
Get a gun to be seen to be known
Because violence like sex like guns sell
And politicians can be bought and
The bottom line is not life but power but
Money money money money money.
God, in America no one feels safe
Violence normalized romanticized
Anyways, we need the protection
Anyways, laws don’t do nothing
Let them have their guns, let them
Shoot until there’s no one left to clean
The blood from our white collars.
God help America, land of the mass murder
Massacre land of the sick care health care
Land of fences and walls and camps
World’s strongest military rape culture
Oligarch rich-getting-richer president
Keeping us controlled, confused, divided or
…Dead.
