White men tryna kill my mother –

my mamasita.

Not with guns,

not with knives,

but with paper.

 

It’s like they comin’ for us.

 

They know I’ve wet my toes in middle class waters,

coming from a pair of sneakers a year,

hand me downs, and a brown box from the church,

full of plain white boxes and cans –

labeled simply “pasta” or “beans”.

 

They know I’ve been waist deep in it now.

That I like to return inland,

return home,

to share the treasures I’ve earned.

 

They’ve found us out, mama!

They’ve seen our last names!

They call me a spy because I look like I belong there.

 

They comin’ to murder us with paper!

To murder all the landlubbers who will never know of the untold riches

lying beneath the depths of the sea!

As if being driven out of Bushwick wasn’t enough,

they want to take her plastic,

her Capecitabine, her Lapatinib,

her paper.

 

They comin’ inland, mama –

to force us all to walk the plank

and blame the sharks.

Tell daddy to grab the pitchfork!

Save all our paper and plastic,

before they set it on fire!

 

– Rachel R. Vasquez,  July 2017

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

 

I’ve got a lot of rage from keeping up with the news as of late – Republicans literally willing to murder just to undo what their predecessor put in place. Disgusting. The poem’s self explanatory.