Rust my iron fist,
But let the silver
Always coat my tongue;
A wraith and wrath,
To the taste society has left –
Bitter, boiled, blistered,
Corrosive and
Nearly anti-anything
Come the cuffs around
My eyes
And the bullets burrowed
Backs.

America isn't purple mountains and prairies
It isn't 1930's New York City
It's not marble columns and domes
It isn't crazy politicians and gridlock in Washington

And it certainly isn't Red, White, and Blue. Australia, Russia, Slovakia, and Great Britain are all red, white, and blue.
Heck, they're the exact same shades of red, white, and blue

America is freedom
America is tolerance
America is acceptance

America is about taking your traditions
And mixing them with the traditions of people around you

America is about saying what we want to
And not what someone else wants us to

America is about letting the people take the reigns.
"We the people"
It's the first line of the constitution

It's why we have memorials, marble columns, and congress

It's why people died fighting for it

Don't forget it

America is an ideal
Not a place
Not a person
Not an object

America is as beautiful
As we choose to make it
*what do you want it to look like?

When I was younger I bit my tongue so hard that all you can see in my mouth is blood and the colour red. They thought it wasn’t severe and just a normal bite but they didn’t know that bite would change my life. My mother brought me to a doctor who she called “stupid”. The doctor told me that in order to stop the bleeding, he will need a thread and a needle, to do the job of putting stitches to my tongue. My mother thought, “Is this doctor crazy? Sewing my daughter’s tongue? Is he serious?”, my mother was worried about the things that are bound to happen to my tongue, that it will connect to my speaking, that I will have a speech deficiency, but that time all I worried about was the pain. Of course, I was young, and kids were afraid of pain. Kids were afraid of bruises, wounds, blood. But they were never afraid of the world, instead, they loved it. But now, I think I see it in a different way. Thinking of all the things that are happening to my life I think the doctor is sending me a different message. A needle, a thread, putting stitches to my tongue, I think this doctor is telling me to shut up. At such a young age, he was warning a little girl who didn’t even know reality yet to keep her mouth shut, does he know that these things would happen when I grow up? That the moment my eyes will be open by reality my entire perspective will change? That I won’t let my voice not to be heard? That my tongue will serve as my gun and my words will be the bullets that can ****? I wondered if he knew, but I also wonder how is he now, where is he. Because I would want to say some words that I didn’t get to say before when I was just a small child who had her tongue held back to prevent her for the words she was about to say.

I would want him to know that I will not keep my mouth shut.

I will not keep my mouth shut because we tell young girls how they should act, what they should wear. Don’t go to the streets in the middle of the night, don’t wear that, that’s too short. Because ever since we were young we already needed validation from everyone.
I will not keep my mouth shut because we teach girls how to prevent being harassed instead of teaching people to stop harassing girls. Because the questions you will get after that are “What were you wearing?”, “Were you drunk that time?”, and that oh so famous line “Maybe you were asking for it.” Did you think I dressed up that night and got drunk because I was waiting for someone to ruin my life?
I will not keep my mouth shut because we still make jokes about ****, we still think it’s funny, we think something that could destroy someone else’s life is hilarious. And you tell us, “Lighten up, couldn’t you take a joke?”.
I will not keep my mouth shut because my clothes determine my consent, the shortness of my skirt will tell you that I want your hands to touch my thighs, my sleeveless top will send you a confirmation that I want your skin to touch the different parts of my body. That I don’t have my own name because you are throwing different ones to me, I never knew my name on my birth certificate was “hot thing.” But then you did it again while I was wearing long sleeves and jeans, what’s your excuse now?
I will not keep my mouth shut because you think that being a woman is an insult, you will shout phrases like “You’re such a girl.”, “You fight like a girl.”, because we are seen as damsels in distress that are always in need to be saved, because we are the weaker ***, right? But why, that when the moment we already fight and be the heroes of our own that makes us less of a woman and more of a man.
I will not keep my mouth shut because when a boy gets harassed you will tell him to “man up, dude.”, because boys are meant to be strong and women are meant to be pretty, because boys should avoid being sensitive and girls should not be powerful, because blue is for boys and pink is for girls, but didn’t it ever crossed your mind that maybe colours and descriptions could be for both?
I will not keep my mouth shut because we always need to be modest, hush, act like a lady, the way of your sitting is not very ladylike, your clothes are not really for girls, your taste in music isn’t fit for a lady like you. Because you see us a delicate flower that you can pick and own all the time. But let me tell you this, we aren’t just flowers, we are fire. And when you play with us,  prepare to be burnt.
I will not keep my mouth shut because all my life that’s what you’ve been telling me, and after that say sorry. Say sorry for fighting for your rights, say sorry for speaking up, say sorry for not being silent. And tell me, does my voice terrify you? I hope it does.
I will not keep my mouth shut and I am not sorry about it,
I will not keep my mouth shut because I can not,
I will not keep my mouth shut and I never ever will.

After our encounter with the crazy doctor, we found another one, the second doctor, and he said, there’s no need for sewing, you will only need to put some ice to stop the bleeding. I think he even gave me a frozen delight. I didn’t get to thank him before and now I want to see him and see what he’s doing. I think he forgot to give me a message before, a message that he was dying to tell but couldn’t because I was only a child, but now I think I know it. I think I heard him say these words to me in my dream last night:

**“Not because you bit your tongue, that doesn’t stop you from speaking. Don’t be silent, speak up.”

Vapid people
dribbling vapid shxt.
A society of ****-eyed,
drunken infants
debating politics memorised
from Fox News.

We, the awakened,
plastering social media
with doll-faced mannequins
captioned with some Eastern Philosophy
we read in Cosmo,
enhanced with a filter
titled "Who The **** Is Lao Tzu?"
Comments read: goals af.
(Insert emoji here)

And praise the Indigo Children!
It's a true gift indeed
to talk about activism
until blue in the face.
My, what a spiritual hue, are you.
Are you?

A generation of craft makers,
weaving their way
through the alcoholic labyrinth,
drawing the Hungover Man
from a Rider Waite tarot deck,
for another episode of Dull and Duller
next weekend.

The day we hoped to fix things
The day we would make it right.
The morning we would wake up
And teach the world to love the night.
Yesterday was not an enemy
And tomorrow was our friend.
We would build a world for everyone
And that world would never end.

Yesterday we woke up early
And got a jump start on the day.
We ran or jogged and exercised
And tried out life a different way.
We ate the food we thought healthy
And avoided those we called junk.
We chose to grab life with both hands
And drag it out of the bottom bunk.

Yesterday we started to insist
That people say what they mean
And talk with us about feelings
Not stuff from movie magazines.
We began to demand humanity
And ecologically-minded choices.
We took advantage of the strength
That could be had in our voices.

Yesterday we marched and yelled
To let our brothers and sisters be
Whatever they are and who they are
Without scorn and without penalty.
We joined our local groups and said
They needed to act accordingly
To the rights of every human being
And to implement total equality.

Yesterday we thought of tomorrow
And today we have to do the same.
Human rights and a peaceful planet
Must not be just a hopeful name.
Greed and lust will only prosper
If we back down when we are faced.
Freedom of choice and equal rights
A basic needs we can’t replace.

Do not buy for one second that donations from unions are an equal evil to donations from corporations.

Why demonize the collective efforts to own and regulate one's own labor?

Why respect those that call another's labor their own private property, to the extent they enforce this rule through the tax subsidized violence monopoly?



Never forget where we came from.

you cannot
be at the summer cookout
eating chips, with my mom’s
famous
seven layer dip
and say
“i just want the beans, thanks”

while with your ***** finger
you push off
the - delicious, might i add -
4 cheese mexican blend
wipe off
the sour cream
onto the side of the dip bowl
pick
the strands of lettuce
off of your Tostino’s Scoop

before you are satisfied enough
to savor that bite.

no. you will take your chip
and you will dunk it
and get a piece
of every single layer
you cannot pick and choose
which ingredients to eat
out of a dish
that has already been made

but this is not the family cookout
this is oppression.

this is to all my women
who support gender equality
and claim to be feminists
yet belittle and dehumanize our
transgender sisters.
one less safe space.

this is to all my white people
who believe in LGBTQ rights
but are "all lives matter"
and the moment someone brings up
racism,
you tell them racism doesnt exist.

this is to my best friend,
who is an activist
of ending all of the above.
yet, who pulls my sleeve and says, “look
how fat that woman is
i can NOT believe she went out in that.”

you cannot pick and choose
when it comes
to
equality.

you can not
eat the seven layer dip
and go for the beans
while ignoring the rest.

accept.
acknowledge.
listen.
change.
try a bite of the dip
with all the seven layers
i promise
it will taste
even better
than before.

Fragile the white poppy and frail are
The words we spoke, help we gave
Souls that scream in anguish
Swept by death's wave.

Pale and broken- yet strength
Is not a distant thought
For gentle eyes and gentle hearts
Never need be taught.