Playground

Everyday,

it seems to be a vicious cycle of

Acculturation classrooms,

Assimilation lessons,

And conformity schoolwork.

We don't dare walk around your building

In our cultural clothing or

Bother with home cooked lunches to avoid

Your sensitive noses.

Forced to hide our pride because you

Prefer posers

And as the lobotomy lectures wind down,

We dread recess creeping closer.

Everyday,

The privately funded staff

Lead us into fenced in fields

In which we are punished if we do not

Sweat, bleed or heave

Until there is only enough strength to kneel.

Then, when we are overworked, broken down

And scarred,

Here y'all come:

The teachers’ kids,

Bullies of the yard.

You show up with equipment passed down

Yet deny being frauds.

“Do you want to play a game?”

“No”

And without consent y'all carry on.

“Here are our rules.

Our team will get a 400 meter advantage

Then we can all start the race.

We will determine your forward progress

No matter how fast your pace.

Even if one of you manages to

outshine us,

We will determine the winners’ place.

And finally, what we say goes,

There is no pleading your case.

We won’t allow any questioning, just follow our rules.

Now with a fair coin flip...

Heads we win, tails you lose”

With the small autonomy and a grit you can’t tame

We plot and we scheme, while we play your losing games.

Our heroes and captains will always hold fame

Cuz though they have fallen

We never buried their names.

Marsha P.

James B.

Maya A.

Claudette C.

Malcolm X.

Nina S.

To protect their lives

We won’t name the rest.

We play in handcuffs, in tear gas

Even with bullets in our chest.

But we never lose hope

So we’re probably big pests.

In teacher-overseer sight,

We are openly beaten by you bullies.

Where slurs are just “name calling”

And girls can be grabbed by the pussies.

Then you tell them they are lying and

For attention they are crying.

You make up rules about their bodies

And any objection is

God denying.

We only have ourselves

Cuz the teachers are no help.

“Oh boys will be boys”

Or

“He just likes you. Can’t you tell?”

With double black eyes and blood in our mouths,

“You’re nothing but bullies!”

We riot and shout.

All of the marginalized caught

In a human rights drought,

And the yelling came loudest from

The drained global south.

With soot in their lungs and lands mined dry,

Their cries did break through those gray, polluted skies.

Political playgrounds are no place

To have a fair fight.

But don’t worry,

what's coming

is waiting in the next life.

Recess don’t last forever

And the bell will soon ring

And the runts will ascend

And father death will be waiting.

You will have to face your Maker,

He will reveal your people’s curse:

“The closest your ancestors got to me

Was in the back of a hearse.

For the runts made it to heaven

Where they're jubilant in mirth.

I will grant you no salvation,

Like the comfort of a hearth

Instead you will live again

In an agonizing rebirth.

Among your wicked selves-

Devils that made

Hell on Earth."