Poetry
Bam!
The first stanza hits me
Another speeding stanza steering
straight at me—
I brace myself
Bam!
This time I'm floored
How?
I'm not a poem person
Poem person?
Poetry pupil?
Poet?
I don't even know what to call it
Do they even have a name?
For people who get
Floored with words?
I don't know
I don't care
It's not me
Nothing really hits me
So how did words hit me?
That's all they are
Just words
Before I know it
I'm mowed down again
Well fuck,
I'm embarrassed
I feel eyes
On the back of my head
I'm not supposed to be
Moved by this
I'm a tough guy
right?
Tough guys don't feel words
That's what I was told
Has to be true
How tough are you?
You're not Salty Spitoon tough
If you get
Hit with words
I look around the class,
All the other “tough guys”
Are in worse shape than me
What?
How?
How do words
Hit that hard?
They're words on a screen
Nothing else
Not even
They're really just letters
Arranged in different ways
If you think about it,
That's all they are
If you think about it
Did I think about it?
I guess not
I just felt it
But why?
Why did I feel it?
Do I want to know?
Should I just ignore it
Like everything else that requires
Some form of emotion
No.
Nope.
Nah.
I'm done ignoring myself
I'll do some research
See what's up
“Through my research”
Is how I start most essays
Best believe I ain't ever
Do any research
But this time I did
I really did!
Through my research,
I found her. . .
The single most calming,
Soothing thing
I've ever known. . .
Words.
I've known them forever
But not really
Kinda like finding a new chill spot
In your hometown
Was it always there?
Did someone just make it?
I don't know—
I don't care
I found it
I can make it mine,
I can run to it
I can manipulate it
I can use it to
Hit other people—
But not the ouch kind of hit,
The hit you secretly enjoy
But can't tell anyone
Because you'd be a weirdo.
There's a name for it;
Not words
Not poem person
Not poetry pupil
It's just poetry
I just like poetry
I love poetry. . .
And I think she loves me.
What Do You See?
When you ask who Kaepernick is—
It's the guy who kneeled!
When you ask why he kneeled. . .
That's all you get
Just a blank space
A white space of nothing
Like a kid's face when they're caught watching the window
He knows he shouldn't be watching the window
Because he's not paying attention
But he's exiled the world around him without a care
And focused on the window, where his thoughts are the only things that matter
No matter what is happening around him, he's still watching that window
All alone with his thoughts
You see, it's the same phenomena
Ask why Kaepernick kneeled
And you'll get that blank space
That blank space comes from watching everything that's happening
And just turning your head to the window
Deciding what's happening is not worth your attention
Deciding you'd rather be alone with your own thoughts than bothered by somebody else's
Now ask why he shouldn't kneel:
It's disrespectful!
It's against American values!
He gets paid to play football!
It's against our military!
Getting choked out by a DT for loose cigarettes isn't disrespectful
The Nazi Rally wasn't against American values
The police don't get paid to protect and serve
Our military fought for a flag
Not for our right to protest
Right?
I get it
I got it as soon as our president called White Supremacist Nazis
Fine people
I got it as soon as the same man called football players protesting
Sons of bitches
They tell us to protest another way
We've tried that
We got killed for that.
We got hosed down for that.
We got arrested for that.
You know what insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over
Expecting different results
We've been protesting for hundreds of years
HUNDREDS OF YEARS
Where did that get us?
I still get called a sand nigger every other day
I still can't put Osama on my resume if I want them to look at it
I still get scared when a cop looks at me with my hands in my pockets
I still have to fight twice as hard academically, physically, mentally,
And whatever-lly
Just to have a fair chance
So, if you ask me if I have a problem with kneeling
Fuck no, I don't
I have a problem that you're asking me that
You're not asking about the message behind it
You're not asking why we're kneeling
You're not asking how we've been pushed to this point
You're not asking how to make it better
I don't have problem with kneeling
Because after and before the kneeling
I'm still a sand nigger
I'm still a terrorist
I'm still a little black-ish thug with a gap tooth
And nappy hair
None of that changes
Standing upright won't change that
Kneeling won't change that
But kneeling exposes that
Kneeling forces you to stop staring at the fucking window and look at what's going on.
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