Poetry

guppies and seagulls piranhas and vultures picking away at all of our cultures yellows and browns dulled by white pinks leftover paint washed down the sink mother, at the table father there too all whites and one puerto rican what shall you do make jokes about where she hides her switch blade of course you see i’ve laughed through the uncomfortableness time after time but in the meantime my mom’s patience is working overtime i’m caught like a crime i haven’t committed between being mad for us all when they get off acquitted and a hard place and our struggles are different and varied and the secrets we carry are buried beneath a sheath waiting to unleash the sword of righteousness and slice your closed minds open now i hate to make generalizations but exceptions are far and few between it's just that our problems are real but those in power aren’t so keen you don't see what we mean or find it obscene just go back to the routine of reading seventeen magazine and watching food network to find out how to copy our cuisine so how long will our world be a library open to public consumption but every time we try to speak up we get hushed pushed rushed shushed brushed aside into the tide and you laugh as we walk the plank yelling ‘it’s only a prank’ and whispering about how we should thank you for letting us aboard in the first place you forget this was [is] our ship too so here we are in the country of the bald eagle labeled illegals guppies and seagulls piranhas and vultures (Based on Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Detail of Fish Attacking Slave)