I.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck:
my girlfriend quotes.
That's because it is a military dictatorship:
I finish the thought.

II.

As a queer, I really hate agreeing with Republicans.
A man says to a near empty room that
It isn't acceptable to kill citizens without a trial.
We read the newspaper every day in class.
No one is talking about it.
They will say, later,
That they didn't know.
No one said.
I have read this story before.

III.

You don't live here, I say.
That's why I left, my girlfriend says,
Mistaking it for offense?
No, I say -- I still do.
I know. I'm sorry.

IV.

Allegations of voting interference
Dismissed
To keep things moving along.
Allegations of torture
Dismissed
To keep things moving along.
Allegations of arrests based on ethnicity or religion
Dismissed
To keep things moving along.
Stability is God.
I am an atheist.

V.

I do not support gun control
As long as police are armed with machine guns
Again peaceful protestors.
I do not feel safe when I see a cop.
I feel nervous.

VI.

We are the privileged.
We will come crashing down when it falls.

VII.

Do you know?
When some countries need shock stories
they threaten these things could happen:
American crime rates,
American prison conditions,.
American urban poverty

Do you know?
America has engineered military coups,
Removed heads of state,
Supported dictators in:
Guatemala, Guyana, Ecuador,
Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic,
Uruguay, Peru, Chile,
Bolivia, Argentina, Nicaragua,
Honduras, Grenada, El Salvador,
Haiti, Venezuela, Iran,
Indonesia, and others.

VIII.

Things I imagine saying at night:
Why do you hate me?
Things I imagine saying in daylight:
I can't support a party that advocates
Treating me and people I love as subhuman.

IX.

Write your Congressman or -woman now:
Gay rights abortion rights immigration rights
Free Leonard Peltier mental health patient rights
Education cuts public transportation stop Israel
stop drone strikes fund Planned Parenthood
Raise taxes lower taxes save Medicaid.
Give us a voice.

X.

We are the ones that watch.