i had a poem published in a book called why freedom matters, edited by daniel katz. if you get a chance, check it out. even just flip through the table of contents. oh my god. a poem of mine (which i now think is naive and idealistic and ignorant, but what can you do--i wrote it before i knew just what this country was capable of) was included among the likes of oh, Tony Kushner, Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth, Mark Twain, several presidents, Kurt Vonnegut, James Baldwin, Bob Dylan, Ann Frank, Elie Wiesel, Mother Jones, Ursula Le Guin, and on and on and on and on. granted, it's a poem i wrote when i was nineteen, and a part of me is tempted to just be like, ::sigh:: my heyday is over, my best days are past, i'm over, i'm washed up, i'm through--but the rest of me is like, whatever, and is kind of celebrating the fact that anybody would throw me into the mix with these interesting folks. it's remarkable to me that my writing is in a book that is actually really fucking interesting to read. like the other writing is really fucking interesting. perhaps the barest tad more hopeful, perhaps, about america than i'm feeling right now, but nevertheless . . . i fell into reading it and was just fascinated. and then i got really inspired . . . and i wrote the following poem:

America, I worry about you.
I do not think
you worry about me.

I am brown, female, queer.
I am under thirty. I do not pray.
I hold no mortgage. Own no property.
Receive no health insurance.
No retirement fund.
My credit would repulse you.
I have never held a gun.

I have no hope that I, brown,
female, queer, young, poor
will curry your concern or sympathy.

You will not take my hand.
You will not take my part.
You will not revel in my story.
You will not embrace and love
and nourish and carry me.

That has never been your way
with any of my many peoples.

We must fight for every scrap of love
We must struggle for every right
you’ve made a privilege of.
We must teach our children
to obey you or to be locked away.

And still
I want to love you
distant father
cruel master
abuser
executioner
keeper of my only home.

I want to love you somehow,
my knees biting into asphalt
my throat raw and gasping.
What is broken in me that loves
what has never loved me
but fed me promises as an infant
kept me docile as a child
and as a woman, you call me terrible
names, deny my love, take away
my children, bleed their schools,
refuse me care when I am aching,
harass me, jail and murder my brothers,
tax me and take away my pay to raise armies
commit genocide in my name
and against my will.

America, what have I ever done to you?
How have I ever harmed you?

America, I worry about you.
Who will love you
when you enter your final killing spree?
Who will feed you
when you have cut down your last tree?
Who will believe you
when you’ve bludgeoned every brain
with fear and intimidation, lies
and misinformation?
Who will sing for you
when you have starved and slaughtered
all your children?
Who will hold you
when you have named everyone
your enemy?

Oh, America, I am afraid.
I am afraid, I am afraid
it will be me.