Where do we exist? Where can we just be? As we are pushed out of your world we must craft new ones for ourselves. You enter those spaces, hearts filled to the brim with hate, polished bullets, homemade pipe bombs. You sit as we worship, you here our laughter in theatre's, you watch as we walk the halls to our classrooms, you feel our music pounding as our bodies move across the dance floor.

I am dying with all of them. Every second I feel another one and every day another story, another person, another nation, another excuse. You say these incidents aren’t connected. That they are somehow isolated. That they can somehow be distanced from one another. Your white supremacist, heteronormative, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, islamophobia are all wrapped up together crushing our windpipes as we continue to fight for our liberation, as we struggle to break free. These fears and ideals are widely accepted, utilized daily to alienate and terrorize us. You superficially come to our aid in times you see to be a crisis. Yet you ignore our screams, our pleas, our beating hearts - until they are no longer beating. And by the time you decide that my life mattered it will be too late. You will have been too late.

You cannot claim to love the LGBTQ community and to hate Muslims in the same breath. You cannot mask your homophobia with islamophobia. We see through you. We know you. Your fear of trans people in bathrooms, your fear of black bodies on sidewalks, your fear of gay people in nightclubs, your fear of Muslims on planes, your fear of our very existence, is yours. And while you stand there and refuse to acknowledge our pain, when you condone the jokes, aggression, and violence, as you watch us live under the force of systemic oppression we will continue to fight. We will continue to breathe. We will continue to stand together against you. Our anger, outrage, pain and sorrow will not break us. We are strong. We are love in the face of all your hate. 

Heartbreak is literal. You have no way of coping with the scars of this trauma. Blood pumps slowly through your veins, never really reaching all your extremities. Your limbs feel distant, detached, as though they've been sliced from the rest of you. Your vision doubles mirages of your past. Your empty stomach wants to vomit. Your chest becomes a war zone, you can feel each beat,

slower than the one before,

fighting to be the last.

The moment you met them your heart might have stopped.

Skipped a beat maybe.

Fluttered a little. But in the aftermath, the butterflies within you have seared off wings.

In the desolation, the destruction, the erosion of your body, you enter into a state of awakened sleep paralysis. Struggling to wake up from the truth in your nightmares, screaming for assistance with no vocal cords. 

You have had a heart attack. Your heart has slowed to an impossible rate. You, like a possum playing dead, are stiff and unaffected. It’s an incurable disease spreading to every crevasse within your body. Your heart is broken, it stops beating.

But your body refuses to give up,

your mind refuses to die,

your blood creates bridges between pieces of your combusted heart.

And you begin to heal. 

Prove it.

But her husband was a cop, and her boyfriend was valedictorian, and her brothers friend was the star quarterback, and those men were famous.

and she danced for money, and she liked liquor, and she was free, until she was trapped.

Prove it.

But the blood spilling from her lips was wiped away, and the purple ring around her eye was concealed, and the broken ribs were from… a fall.

and she liked it rough, and she sent him pictures, and she never said no, because she was frozen by fear.

Prove it.

But her test came back positive and DNA would prove it. But her friends had all abandon her, her sisters all neglected her, her colleagues had all forgotten her.

and she had to prove her pain, and she had to watch her back, and she had to rebuild her body, her mind, her spirit, and she was forced to stand alone.

Prove it. They said. Prove it. She did. Prove it. I will. Prove it. I can’t. Prove it. I did, but why is he still free?

When my body is equated to property I am diminished. When his body means less than broken glass or a bag of cash something is wrong. 

We've let the wound fester too long. Without the the right care, without proper treatment. This country slapped a bandaid on 400 years of systematic oppression. Slapped a bandaid on piles of bodies. Slapped a bandaid on broken families.

This country hides behind a colorblind nationalism - saying we are ALL American, we are ALL human, we ALL matter. BUT DO WE?

The ease with which you can say my color no longer matters, that my history is irrelevant disgusts me. You work so hard to erase the past of my ancestors without taking the time to remember. To see my pain, my tears, my fears. To acknowledge that we are here and refuse be displaced. 

Listening to my narrative should not make you uncomfortable. When you close your ears, when you shut off your minds, when you close off your hearts to our words, to our peaceful actions, we are left with no choice but destruction.

Do you hear me now? Can you see me now? Me. I am angry, I am black, I am a woman, I am queer. But I refuse to beg for your recognition any longer. 

When our words fail to penetrate and when our silence is mocked. When your mere existence threatens my life. What's left but violence? 

if she could have created

man with her nimble fingers

she would have fashioned them

from cocoa beans.

they would have called her mistress

as did stumbling fathers

in texas bars. 

if she could have spoken louder

she would have learned to escape

the hawks and sing like canaries.

if she could have erased the darkness

she would have. 

oh great 

ruler of men,

what have you done to my sister?

Your silence,

Like bees swarming around me, ready to prick

Me.

Your silence,

Like roaring waves engulfing cities, ready to drown

Me.

Your silence,

Like a bang from the barrel of a gun, whistling bullets, ready to pierce

Me.

And when you speak

Your volume looms over us,

Casting hallow shadows.

Your words confine us

In rusted chains and barren boxes.

Your voice encases you in

Metal armor, impenetrable to mine.

Your silence,

Rings in my ear drums like guttural screams from our mothers.

Your silence,

Rings in my ear drums like children's cheers while lynching our brothers.

Your silence,

Rings in my ear drums like the cracking of a whip on the backs of our fathers.

And when you speak

The world halts to give you its ear.

And when you speak

You are lifted upon,

Our blistered backs and busted bones.

Your silence,

Is the border that separates us.

Your silence,

Is the violence that breaks us.

Your silence,

Is the genocide that erases us.

Your silence,

Speaks.

I wrap my arms around me

terrified.

He’s coming, They're coming.

Arms raised above their heads

chanting.

Children run streets barefooted

terrified.

He’s coming, They're coming.

Voices raised above the crowds

saluting.

Dead eyes watch the commotion

terrified.

He’s coming, They're coming.

Heads raised above destruction

embracing.

I wrap my arms around us

terrified of their future.

He’s coming, They're coming.

To bomb contestation

To build separation

To burn aspiration.

He’s coming, They're coming.

Taking us back to pavement soaked in

Black blood, Brown blood.

Taking us back to mass graves holding

Black bodies, Brown bodies.

He’s coming, They're coming.

Trumps coming — but so are they.

Those in disguise

trying to claim our bodies as a prize.