No one is entitled to my body-
Not the parents who made me
Not the culture that raised me
And not your precious little baby
You may call it 20 minutes of action-
Your words can't break me
I see a world in wreckage
I live in a land that's betrayed me
But when the words of Joe Biden-
Move me to tears
When I sit in silence next to my mother
Because we both know
That you are us, and we are all you
I wake in the morning-
To a new state of the nation
The news shakes me
Obama's 18th reading
His fruitless request
That we all start feeling
One day he begs, one day we will all agree
Enough is enough
I think to myself-
How can I live in a world
As dark as this?
It must be a nightmare
That the woman whose genitals do not match her identity
Is more feared than any zealot with a gun
And when that gun is given to that man
With more ease than it takes
To register to vote
I live in a country
That values the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights
Over my right to life
I live in a country that asks a victim of rape
Why she even bothered to leave the house
Do not go out into this country
The defense says
If you do not want your body and soul violated
Do not leave your home-
Do not dare to be yourself
Because this is not a land that allows that
Because the right to a gun is written in stone
But the right to love another man
Is asking for death
Aptly named-
Pulse beat with life
But became a house of death
What was once a refuge-
Keep your gay away from me
They say
So we retreat
To dance, to sing, to live apart
Separate but equal they say
Is over
But I do not see
The world they claim exists
When all around me
People are dying
Men aren’t crying
And women can’t speak
When the gun sounds-
When our bodies are used without our consent
In the broken land of red white and blue
I was raised to stand
To pledge allegiance each day
To the land of the free and the home of the brave
But all I see around me
Is a country slowly dying
Choking on that God damned
Red White and Blue
