I call you,
My brothers,
To die.

I call you to spill your blood
Across the thirsty ground
So we may grow freedom
From the seeds you planted.

I call you to march ahead
And face your deaths
With heads held high and
Eyes of steel.

I call you to be pasted across
The posters,
Decorating mourning cities
Years after your deaths.

I call you to watch your friends
Be blasted apart,
See the last light leave them
In their final breaths.

I call you to be mourned
By those who live,
Missing limbs,
Missing friends,
Missing love,
Missing joy,
Wanting death with hungry eyes.

I call you, my sisters,
To feel the rage
Burning up inside you as
You take up arms,
Sometimes open,
Sometimes in disguise,
To defend what you feel is right.

I call you, my sisters,
To mourn those who left

all these politicians say immigrant. 
immigrant 
immigrant 
immigrant
in all these different ways. 

but they don't know what it's really like. 

Being an immigrant is
looking around you
in concerts, plays, graduations and seeing 
grandparents
uncles 
aunts 
cousins
and knowing that it will never be that way
for you. 

Being an immigrant is being sick to your stomach
at airports 
at the border
because you know that there 
will always be a problem with where
you're from.

Being an immigrant is being afraid of 
losing your
language
family 
culture
because there aren't that many people around you
that speak the same language, 
feel the same way. 

Being an immigrant is looking at the 
news
stories
flickering TV lights
with terror because you don't want to hear 

cracked girl, 
tell me your secrets, 
how you spill your nourishing water
through the splits
helping people grow,
but never keeping enough for yourself. 

forced girl, 
tell me your secrets,
how you shoved 
and filled in all the empty places with gold
so that they wouldn't see 
all the nothing that haunted you when you breathed. 

hair girl, 
tell me your secrets
how you grew to hate
the kinks that swirled from your scalp,
blooming when given water and warmth, 
that they were the symbols
of everything that was different. 

deep girl, 
tell me your secrets,
how you see  
the beauty in yourself in picture after picture, 
not minding how others snicker, 
and say that you are vain.

full girl, 
tell me your secrets,
how your curves
roll like the hills our ancestors used to roam,
flowers blooming at the splits,

My head is in the clouds, it’s true,
but wouldn’t you rather be here too,
floating above everything that everyone says
you can’t do.

Where colors mix with words
and you can see the glorious patterns
of brushstrokes floating in the sky,
connecting what we thought we knew and
what we don’t.

Where the stars are so much sharper,
but we always look beyond,
into the darkness that doesn’t want to be defined,
making homes in the blankets of galaxies and
nebulae.

Where our dreams are not scorned,
and tapestries of all our ideas weave together
in a cloth of genius that people will only understand
after we are six feet under.

so let go of your sanity,
that fragile thread and then
come wander with us
in a place the others can’t see
because their minds are so confined
by what’s possible and what’s not.

we’ll jump over the clutters

If I was a poem 
I would be ...

A slam poetry punch 
that cuts across people's skin
and digs into their souls. 

I would be written on the pages 
of a worn notebook, 
used so much that 
it's almost falling apart. 

I would be written by someone 
forced silent, 
spilling their heart onto their empty 
pages. 

If I was a poem, 
I would burn bright like a flame, 
lighting a fire in people's minds,
getting rid of that 
ugly, ugly, dark. 

If I was a poem, 
the handwriting would be messy, 
sprawling across the page 
in anger and grief and joy. 

I wish I was a poem,
I wish I was simply the result 
of a thought that
turned into so much more.

I wish I was the outpouring of a heart, 
the torrential rains of emotion bringing 
me into life just to rip the 
cloth that was restricting people from speaking. 

There's a little piece of me
tucked into every book,
a little piece of worn soul
snuggled safely into the words,

A little piece of me that wept
when the characters in my mind dies,
a little bit that laughed at their snark,
a little bit that was frustrated at their inability
to be real.

There's a little piece of me
displayed in every movie,
a little piece of believer
splashed across the screen.

A little piece of me that
fell in love with the pain in their eyes
a little bit that rooted for them as they fought
a little bit understood the villain, cheered him on
a little bit that wished they were here
a little bit that broke when
the ending credits rolled on.

There's a little piece of me
woven into every poem,
a little piece of open heart
hidden in the verses.

A little piece of me that
cries when i'm hurt and down

You have seen the void.

You have seen the nothing that swallows people whole,
that slowly eats at them until they are hollow inside. 

You have seen it in the eyes of people just before they die,
eclipsing their pupils and taking all the light,
that terrifying not-knowing, 
when you're just about to find out what happens to people after they die.

 You have seen it in the silence after two people who love each other give up,
in the sadness when they realize that they have nothing left to say to each other,
that they tried so hard but it didn't work.

You have seen it when people scream in empty parking lots,
their voices shrieking into the almost dawn that
is making the sky lighter, but
the stars have not yet dissapeared.

You have seen it in the ashes that drift from cigarettes, 
and the smoke that drifts from lips, 

What happens to the fallen angels,
the ones who lost their grace
in the fall?

What happens to the fallen angels,
who wear the pieces of their broken halos
around their neck?

What happens to the fallen angels,
whose wings fall off and wither,
losing their freedom, their flight?

What happens to the fallen angels,
the ones who are not sorry,
who revel in the sin that they committed?

What happens to the fallen angels,
who roam the crowded city streets,
beautiful strangers that mingle among the lights and smells,
disappearing if you look at them too closely?

What happens to the fallen angels that grovel
to their God, their broken bodies weary 
with the weight of everything that could have been?

What happens to the fallen angels,
the ones with cutthroat smiles and voids for eyes,
who light cigarettes in back alleys?

once there was a girl who forgot 
what words tasted like
when she drank them up with her eyes
and her thirsty brain was finally satisfied.

once there was a girl who stopped loving 
the words that had once tatooed themselves onto her skin
who washed them clean every time 
her eyes wandered from the page. 

once there was a girl who lost her dreams
and scoffed at magic when the subject was brought up, 
forgetting that she once used to find the fairies 
that lived on the other side of the creek. 

once there was a girl who lived 
in 
black 
white
grey 
grey
grey. 

before, 
there had been explosions of paint 
and color 
and brightness.

once, there was a girl lost. 

but then something changed.

once there was a girl who 
healed the desert inside with an 
oasis of beautiful words. 

How does it feel to be a problem 
in your own country?

i do not know.

because i refuse to let you tell us 
that we are the problems.

You are the ones who cross the street
when ever we are near.

You are the ones holding guns to out heads 
while police sirens wail in the distance.

You are the ones tearing families apart,
ripping parents from their children.

You are the ones who rip headscarves off 
of women in the streets.

You are the ones who paint swastikas 
on synagogue doors.

You are the ones who drive teens to suicide 
because of who they are. 

You are the ones who toss acid in women’s faces 
when they refuse to go out with you.

You  are the ones who support a flag that stand for 
years of Alavert and discrimination.

You.