8/30 Space

the world is not a safe space
never has been
           never will be

ask Afghanistan
ask the homeless
ask the countless missing women
no one is looking for

in thought it makes sense
it has no place in reality
no one person has the answers
so we are stuck in those places
where stuck things live
were memory fails
and history pretends it never happened

i remember a dream that wasn't a dream
a brown body on a stage
a brown body in my arms
sobbing and confused
how their community
could turn it's back so loudly
shut their voice off
them shaking
my shirt soggy
nothing there was safe
not even the fabric

there was a time i made a statement
it was mine
i born it myself
believing because it was mine
it would hold me
then someone stuck their fingers into my story
made me all about them
said it was OK
said they were right
because even being my own bones
wasn't safe for me
or them
so they drag their neanderthal thoughts
blamed me for their privilege
they felt safe in their convictions until the next time
when they make some other vagina their own

i suppose you could wrap it
surround it with something impenetrable
bomb proof it
bullet proof it
take it away from those who harm
if we all decide who that is
but it has to be the same who
cover it in plastic
make it safe
no longer a problem for anyone
or anything
because everything is safe
when it is dead

6/30 The Difference

The Difference

history is not always on your side

there are tools today not available

some long ago

the rules are no longer

the rules

back then

the peaceful opened arms wide

believing no harm would come

because they meant no harm

over and over again

at some point the peaceful

adapted their thinking

protection their mode of communication

modern day colonizers forget

the memories present in the colonized

because they have no recollection

they couldn’t

they have never been

on the receiving end

of loss of home

by force

being demonized for existing

in their own environments

so moving forward

the mentality of

things will be what I want them to be

is not based in real time thinking

these days the people

know they are being displaced

never trusted your tongue

or

presence in neighborhoods

they’ve inhabited

for decades

and you don’t understand

that you moved into their hoods

you want to claim neighbor

when you do not know them

or care

to

they who are reduced the to thug

because you never read hood life 101

left a laundry list of opportunities to take

the way you took from them

and this is not to condone

but explain

things don’t change because

you showed up

I know your privilege didn’t tell you this part

that yes the native folk will videotape

the crimes against you

the way the cops tape crimes

perpetrated on them

and nothing happens

and nothing will happen

as long as you believe yourself

to be above them

you continue to call them thugs

call the police when you

don’t like the loudness of their music

because it doesn’t have the same

rhythms of your leaf blower

if you want to live in the hood,

you better learn the language

understand that Leroy

been living on that corner

for a decade

and Miss Lillian knows everything

all the time

your presence

doesn’t change

their reality

it changes yours

and you better learn how to adapt

or just like you saw your opportunity and acted on it,

they will do the same

there are all kinds of takers

you no longer hold

the monopoly on that

and that is the difference