Cotton

Gina Napolitano

Cotton

Your crosses are covered in blood.

Not the blood of Christ,

But the blood that oozes from brown skin.

It pours from your thorns

And drips from your ancient crypts.

Destruction is rampant in the land you claimed

People you maimed cry out in desperation

Loud enough to drown a nation

While you shove cotton in your ears to the drum.

Bodies broken by the winds of time

But when YOU bleed it is the end of the world,

The crime of the century.

You will not remember me in a few days

Because I may be pale but I am not male.

I do not live up to your standards
Or have the best manners-

How can I stand to breathe the same air?

As you leave bodies bare in the street

Poisoning my oxygen supply

That don’t matter because they’re Hispanic and poor.

Poor and tired of their mother’s lives not being worth more.

Tears fall out of ancient rosary beads

Trying to fulfill white needs.

Sowing the seeds of hatred,

Fertilized by tears gas and lingering radiation.

A baby cries loud enough to rip a nation in half,

Missing it’s sister, mother, and father.

But you just push the cotton in further towards the drum because you’re numb.

Numb to the tears of tomorrow,

Losing all of your sorrow in the red, white, and blue.

Be careful, because the crosses might start to burn you,

As the rosary beads wrap tighter around your neck…

Push the cotton in further.

You wouldn’t want to hear the sounds

Of soldiers’ boots approaching that you paid for.

Or the ropes tightening around the throats of teenagers.

Falling into the roles of cattle,

Claiming you will be the ones to dismantle the system

And “make America great again.”

Ignorance spreads like a disease,

Bring young people to their knees

With every decade of denial.

The black bodies floating in the leaves don’t disturb you

In your noble castle of privilege

That you refuse to acknowledge

So why do you care?

Shove the cotton into your brain to block judgement…

Oh no, you’ll have your judgement day.

When your body lays in the place where immigrants aren’t allowed to stand

You will discover your final reprimand.  

A party of hatred,

A rave of joy-

If it takes a death to get you going

You are worth nothing more than the dirt that covers the bones of a murdered rape victim.

Sickening.

You want a lethal needle stuck

In the arm of an innocent man

While your god weeps tears of blood.

Not the blood of Christ,

But the blood of bullet wounds that flew from guns

Your “well-trained” cops drew.

Push in that cotton, ladies and gentlemen!

The screams are only getting louder now…

If you don’t watch where you’re walking,

You might trip over a decomposed body of Native American descent.  

Your red sea is finally red with DNA.

Isn’t that what you wanted?

Crosses of tears following proud Americans through the years.

Drown yourself in beer and fear.

Get slaves to pick more cotton for your precious, privileged ears.