i beg of you

this is not a poem. 

this is not a song.

this is not metaphor, a sonnet, an ode, not a ballad, a rant, not even a dream–

this is a plea. 

a plea to the people who were supposed to love 
                                                        me, a plea to the ones who said 

we were meant to be free– 

look. look at us. what do you see? my eyes are swollen with tears, and yet the blood on our hands still shines ruby. is this what we are aspiring to be? a country who cares for nothing but their own two people instead of for their own society? i cannot breathe,

wondering if by tomorrow, by next year, my body will still be my body. 

                              my mind conjures images of the world bleeding, of people 
screaming. these are my friends, my family, our home, our prosperity. have you forgotten? are you blind to the weight of our history? please, i beg of you, see. we cannot live like this, reversing the progress of humanity. 
        i find tragedy not unregularly, in missed assignments and lost games and people that leave, in dying flowers and falling leaves. but i swear, let it be the worst that it ever comes to, this sadness melancholy. never find that that misery is obsolete, that it is insignificant in the span of things, bleak. you have the power- i don’t, so many don’t, but to the ones who do- choose right this time, we beseech                                        
    you. you’ve always been 
              so loud, taking what you want instead of 
what you need, but you must know; this time, there might be no going back; he might take everything from us, slowly, and then all at once, and no one will be left to dig our bodies from the ruins of our fallen country. he doesn’t care; not about us, not about america, about the earth and the sun and the sky and the stars. he doesn’t know what it’s like to live. 

i am young, i know. i see 
my flaws as steadily as wind through the trees. but i cannot rest,
knowing that my life, my brother’s life, my best friend’s life, and that 
Mexican mother and daughter fleeing poverty, that 
Palestinian family seeking safety, that 
transgender woman just looking for identity, 

they are in his hands; 

his hands, who don’t deserve to be anywhere near our America, our space to be free. 

so, this is not a poem. this is not poetry. and it will never be, not until i know that my generation, my children's and their children to be, will have the chance to grow up in a world that isn’t burning. 

 this is a plea-- god, to the American people, please. i cannot bear the thought of living in a country where so many people lack deep empathy. use your power the way it was fought for. do the thing that you know has to be done. please. 

and maybe, finally, we'll begin towards peace.