Fed-Up Rising
Stop burning the cities
Because I have a baby,
Stop the revolution
Because I have a baby,
Yet smoke has lingered since the founding
Wretched fires have raged underground;
No one wants a battle,
No one wants an enemy,
But now we need a takeover
Because of our babies.
Rewrite our struggles to be our own
Not the chains imposed on us
Like an infallible heirloom,
Can we nurse and carry the AR
Like Sandino’s daughters,
Can we carry a beating and still protect
Like Gandhi’s children.
The fence has been blown,
Picket signs trashed,
As people face off the state
Don’t mistake it as steam,
This is your property,
This is your tea,
But this time without the bourgeoisie;
Your military doesn’t colonize for me,
The people on the streets fight for me,
The tear gassed, the stunned, the shot,
The chased, the non violent, the looters,
The shielders and the sheltering,
Throw the Molotov,
Release the cries,
But hold your judgment,
Hold the applause,
In Philadelphia Boston Miami and LA
and there’s more of us
Fighting in middle USA.
Streets pulsate from cross armed chants
Of free them all!
Of shut it down!
Streets absorb the elusive whispers of
Your veins will resemble the color of your pig-headed suit,
Intricately woven blue lines fomented the reckoning you face,
Will I love my enemy,
If I trust your kneel.
A grandfather at your dinner party ticks and tocks,
As your ton machine rumbles across,
Concrete and curfew challenge the microcosms
With futility,
Spiders creep through the entryway,
Ducks waddle your walkways,
Bees repurpose torn screen,
And cardinals dare window glass,
The synchronicities are off beat
Still we step together,
Our stomps echo out of the cold mines,
Our shadow selves trailing close behind,
Forming a mountain you’re not meant to climb,
Silhouette and memory in Mother Earth's clay,
And finally you will feel nature rise.
Missy Malverde
Missy Malverde lives in subrural America with her life partner, raising their loving and discerning child. An anti-capitalist from the land of Sandino, her heart is a writer and her mask is a lawyer, somewhere in between she gardens, studies tarot and organizes in her community.