10 Rulez

Her star spangled banner body is waiting for you to bring home her supper;

The taste of brown boys is rusting her throat.

She wants to feed on the color she could never get from colonizing the heavens,

She only drinks when she needs to filter your tongue,

from thinking too loudly

She wants to share you with all her friends at the gun range,

Don’t be whiplashed.

Don’t be whipped.

Participate.

Rule 1: exist.

Rule 2: breathe quietly enough to swallow your ancestors

Rule 3: loosen your body, nobody wants a brown boy to fight for himself

Rule 4: blink twice if you’re free  

Rule 5: don’t be yourself; it’s disrespectful to live past 18 if your skin isn’t snow white, willing to swallow forbidden fruit.

Rule 6: don’t be loud enough to die; being shot is America’s form of poetry, don’t you wanna be published?

Rule 7: should you find your worth, speakeasy, for only you can smile with your teeth shattering to the rhythm of your spine. Pick crops from her field before you end up being picked from it.

Rule 8: drink more water. it’ll help your family from drowning in el Rio Grande, you know the one they had to swim through for freedom

Rule 9: when you hit land, run. before you end up in it

Rule 10: don’t turn your neck unless willing to have it snapped; pray for yourself before you are someone’s reason to pray.