These streetlights, overhead bus lights, flashing alley bulbs,

The flickering, the only light of holy left here.

Churches keep their doors shut,

Eyes, the only thing illuminated without lights on,

Dark night in the silent part of town,

My head is down,

but the eerie feeling of a silent Christmas lingers,

These bulbs are heavy on my throat,

I feel everything the light touches,

I feel like everything the light touches is your kingdom,

White boy,

I am not a gift,

The is not the lion king.

 

Theres an energy through my bones and I am walking west through the dark streets,

There is an ache in my joint,

Like when you finally sneak past your parents and jab the fork in the socket,

I ache, a lasting ache, the flashes of lightning are smothering,

I can not move,

I can only stand still with these eyes on my back.

I am consumed,

White boy,

I am not a meal given to you by your father's past-down ideals,

By your mother's medicated passivism towards anything he says,

I am not your meal.

Father is not law.

 

My body is war torn,

I am a lonely traveler, bus hunting and mile walking, traveler.

The space I take up is miles and an intruder is never permitted,

So when these eyes enter the little bits in my soul, up my skirt, down my shirt,

I am already waiting, chewing my cheeks apart to continue this growing foam of blood bubbles,

These busses are my daily taste of adrenaline,

My silence is the foot off the ledge one still standing and this balance is so quick to fail with any passing wind,

I am waiting for a storm,

I am going to be a storm.

I can hear you from your 2007 cherry red mazda Trojan horse,

I know your game and your tricks will not work,

We know what is inside of this present,

It’s the large all consuming eyes,

It’s the mouths too big to ever be satisfied,

White boy,

I am not yours.

 

I am afraid of dogs,

When I was a child my mother left me alone with the protection of Jack,

A pretty golden retriever with big, soft blue eyes.

And when this dog bit me did my mother to tell me to not let one bad apple get in the way of my perception of these companions?

No, my mother let out a glorious cry.

I know this is not a bad apple, this is a poisoned orchid on distribution path to your local comedy sketch, news story, or buzzfeed article

This is a parasite leeching onto the things you say to your sons,

This is power, this is detrimental to the herd, this is supply and demand.

White boy,

I will take a spear to the heart before I ever smile at you on the metro,

I will take every gun shot, every threat, every night followed home in the dark,

Before I ever let you peel the skin from my body.

 

White boy,

In the moments before you decide to play personal space invader with my life,

Know that I have spliced the genes of my mother, my sisters and my lovers,

Know that this skin you are tearing apart at the seems is sewn together with every voice you’ve ever silenced,

And with devouring,

Know I will look into your eyes and bellow out the winds of every storm left inside my stomach,

With every scream from the millions of girls beside me,

I will blow you and your little houses down too. p

 

White boy,

I am justice

Clean and simple,

I am fast walking buck fifty tongued,

I am fingers in my coat pocket wrestling with the sharp edge of a pen,

White boy,

We are not safe like this,

But until then, we are all comfortable like this.