It’s hard to remain human

on a day when mercy is a frozen river,

when the news informs me tomorrow’s

as bleak as it was yesterday, tells me

yesterday couldn't have left love

lingering listlessly on my bed all eager

hands and doe-eyed, says

there’s no room for beauty in this fight.

Liberals tell me, we must remain

vigilant. We can’t rest, relax,

let down our guard, but

don’t they know I’ve been vigilant

all my life? Yielding to white spaces

like ocean to keel.
I was vigilant when,

in high school, white friends

proclaimed, I don’t see

color, then painted their bodies

with sun, as if skin were a lipstick
 
they could apply to the perfect shade of
 
not too dark. These days

it’s disguised in praise, like

“what a beautiful mix you are, as if to say,

be grateful you’re not as black

as you could have been. 
I’ve vigilantly guarded my mind

around men who only valued my body.
 
Guarded my body from men

who think permission is for “pussies,”

who think a fistful is a proper unit

of measurement. When the cab driver

told me I must have a white parent
 
because I don’t “sound” black,
 
I vigilantly wrapped myself in my arms,

tried to imagine the sounds he’d make

without vocal cord or tongue
 
or his privilege.
Each time someone cracks a joke.

about a black man’s disproportionate
 
prowess, about a black man’s "laziness",
 
about a black boy’s "good for nothing father"

I want to vigilantly cradle my grown
 
brother in my arms and sing him
 
something soft and sweet to keep
 
his fists steady and his mind right, but
 
what right do I have keeping him in check
 
when they don’t take the time

to check their ignorance? 
We try our best not to

but sometimes a woman must walk

down a dark street alone, must count

the number of parked vans, must keep
 
to the middle of the road, must stay out

of reach, must keep her eyes peeled, must

walk with wide steps, grab her crotch

like a man, spit like a man
 
(things they teach teen girls in self-defense),
 
must turn herself into something
 
a man would never desire, must be
 
masculine, be careful, be vigilant. 
So when liberals say,

this is how we fight back, this is how
 
we’ll win, I want to tear my clothes off,

walk naked into rush hour traffic,
 
cut my feet on broken glass and car fragments,

breathe in exhaust fumes, let the poison

sink into my skin, grow an extra limb,
 
heart, head, become something
 
un-neutered, volatile, dangerous,

become something able to withstand

the next four years.