We are born with our feet on the ground, Heads in the sky, Sea in our blood, And stars in our eyes; We are stardust in a large universe, Blown about by the whims of some higher power. Of all the places we could end up, We find ourselves on this tiny hunk of rock
Such a huge universe around us and we come from above, All illegal aliens, an invasive species, on our own planet. We hurl through space at 67,000 miles per hour And in the blink of an eye it’s all over And our temporary bodies have decomposed Nothing but shells of who we once were
My body is the accumulation of idle matter But I matter Because I choose to believe that my life matters
Because if my life matters then it is so much more than just this The bars that outline my body don’t hold me Lines are cages And identity is not meant to be Set in stone behind these locked iron gates Written before we can even speak Before we learned to stand Children with our heads in the sand When they told us to always Write the names they gave us on their lines Color in the lines And memorize your lines And we are defined by kept in line by Petrified by these lines that they gave us Those lines on their map Do not lead to Eden Instead, a border And we do not know ourselves We only know the pain of constraining our souls The strain of stretching outlines wrapped around our bodies We only know these borders
keep out the unwanted,
The misfits Those who don’t belong, Not necessarily because they look different But because they’re not from here As children, we play these games meant to define us But don’t realize that we are all sundust, Starsong, and mooncall And we care not for talk of angels for we are not them Care not for lines or borders They keep us in the dark, Not enough freedom Not enough light They keep us too neat anyway Too far removed from Too often divided, too often In little boxes
Are just another word for prison cell For label, It’s the person on the bus screaming “Go back to where you came from” just because you have brown skin It’s the moment before the match strikes Temporary, So full of pressure and tension it cannot hold back the flame But the greatest fear of the flame is six border walls closing it in Boxing in fire, they remove its oxygen It cannot survive Boxes are only for the dead Because no living body can fit into a four by four millimeter square And yet we disgrace ourselves to try Boxes are forcing you to hide your accent to avoid the questions Boxes are telling you your sexuality isn’t real Boxes are deciding gender is a logic problem that only ends with broken switches Only ends with all is false Only ends with I am not I am not a checklist One of five nationalities One of four religions One of three colors One of two genders I am not
test grade depression income status sexuality
gender lengua nativa (langue maternelle) my vices Blackanese freak fetish One of “those” people From that place Doing that “thing” we always do
Lines on lines make borders Borders make walls Make boxes Make barriers Inferiority spreading Like dropping bombs on poverty Like checking ethnic maps to raise the cost of living Like unloading a machine gun into a nightclub Like seeing terrorists in every boatload of shivering starving children Not recognizing the substance of your astronomical anatomy In the eyes of the other In skin and bone Limited life of another This limitless life lit the stars With the same flame that burns within you Propels you 67,000 miles per hour Through space and time On this tiny hunk of rock And in the blink of an eye, it’s all over.