This Country Won’t Save Us
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Thoughts since “Inaugural” came out in 2021
I feel like so little ever changes in this country, especially for the better.
I am tired of waking up exhausted and going to bed angry. I am spent after so many years of swallowing the lesser of two evils and digesting the loss of my rights.
As I am writing this, leaked draft decisions from the Supreme Court threaten to overturn Roe v. Wade, but it is so much more than that. The Supreme Court is pulling on a hell of a thread — the right to privacy.
This decision will be the foundation of a whole new area of authoritarianism. This decision could change the rights of gay people and interracial couples to get married. It will allow politicians to push forward laws that include outlawing abortion for ectopic pregnancy — a kind of pregnancy that requires an abortion or else both the parent and the fetus will die. It will allow lawmakers to make murky or outright outlaw IVF — a kind of fertility treatment. People will die, and some already have, just as some people have already been arrested after miscarrying. We are allowing corpses to have more autonomy than pregnant people.
This is an LGBTQ+ rights issue. It is a disability rights issue. It is a human rights issue.
Please support your local abortion clinics during this time as well as Shout Your Abortion.
Inaugural
Originally published by Brian Miller Press
I watched the screen
With my breath held
In between my teeth.
A familiar feeling,
Watching Washington
On another Wednesday.
I waited for the disarray,
The brigade of ostentatious
White supremacy, treason,
The rejection of reality.
Flags waved in place of faces,
A somber day in history;
As they made their promises
And performed their traditions,
I asked God for one commitment:
May we not forget all we have
Learned
Lost
Lamented
Illuminated.
Today’s peom is from my upcoming collection UNGODLY. If you enjoy my poetry, please consider shopping any of my poetry collections or other merchandise!
