alLIES

If poetry slams worked like privilege

Each scar carved other would be

a step back from the microphone

People of color

Step back

Queer community

Step back

The wrong religion

Step back

Wrong bank account - back

wrong neighborhood - back

the wrong body

the wrong back

back

back

I never find myself far enough on the stage

For the mic not to outstretch its wires

My privilege accompanies my words with brass echo

This poem is for those who had everything right

Whose aorta memorized the tune of forward

Who’ve never been to war for their own existence

But crave the breeze of ruptured grenades

This poem is for the ally

The poet whose only tasted riot in his metaphors

The non-survivor who takes back the night she’s never had

I am an ally

hashtagging child bones

Without the spine to protest the police

Donating expired cans of apology

We dress up bruja a thousand miles from Salem

We say, I am at the witchhunt

I am an ally

I am

I am an ally

I am

I am

I

I

I

All I

All I

I've realized so many allies are mirrors trying to sand themselves into windows

It’s so easy to claim you’re burning for other people

when it’s just friendly fire

How many platoons have white savior flags shoved down their throats?

Yes, we need allies

Without French bullets our nation would still be coated in red

but you’re not a social justice warrior

if you never bother to walk in someone else’s boots

you can’t paint your heart purple

when you’re not sketched by the frontlines

when you don’t do basic training

Learn how to be an ally

how to avoid stuffing  your roommate’s tears with question marks

Even when they fall from a bipolar episode

Be man enough to shield your girlfriend when she bleeds through her pants

Demand campus police find the girl soaked in smirnoff and frat salvia

When they shoot humiliation

Remember your shame will only last tonight

Remember denying a transgender man his name

Is stitching numbers on your grandma’s forearm

Rip toxic pronouns from your mouth

Rip slut

Rip victim

Rip all lives matter

Rip until your teeth are fossils in a graveyard

carrying eulogies memorized by black mothers

When they tell us to shed pounds,

remember five year old brown girls

are mixing up bleach cocktails

to shed the melanin from their skin

My privilege is genocide I never have to acknowledge

The battle scars I don’t have to cover up

Being an ally is looking at American curb stomping

and picking the concrete out of your neighbor’s teeth

Look through that mirror—

Notice not everyone’s skin is a bulletproof vest

Remember what this poem would sound like

Without my whiteness

my education

and my gas money