Trigger warning: Depression, Rape

Trigger warning: Armageddon, Race.

Had to look up what a ‘trigger warning’ is.
Had to know before I was assigned a pop quiz.

Who's being triggered now?

Back then that wasn’t allowed.

When a man was strung up on a tree,

his kids weren’t told “trigger warning” laying by his feet.

When thousands were kicked out and sent away

people weren’t told “trigger warning, here lies your fate."

 

Thrown into the alley way,

no one told the young lady staying out late,

“trigger warning” Forced and fear.

In the hospital, cheeks soaked from her tears,

hovered over, curled

bringing a new life into the world.

Yelling because there’s no ring on her finger.

Rape! Now are you triggered?

 

Walking down the street, quickly and out of breath,

there’s someone waiting around the corner, warning: Death.

Was it one shot or two? Was there no reason or a few?

Brown, black, like the coffee beans you drink

he’s walking down, lock the door, don’t even blink.

I’m sure he’s bad, was it a bottle or a flask,

Trigger warning: they don’t care, he’s Black.

 

A big family, only one working parent,

Not their fault, their story isn’t apparent.

“Stealing jobs” or taking what they can?

Doing things you would never understand,

Kids growing up, acting out on the streets

Gangs, mafias, and bloody sheets.

Only a mother pours over an alter, what happened to the father?

The only breadwinner, the only way for dinner.

It could only mean one thing as the riots and the standards keep raising,

ripping helpless mothers from their babies.

Last time, trigger warning: Deportation.

 

Trigger warnings only exist

because we seize to acknowledge the problems that we assist.

So many people are hurting from what we call a warning,

And no I don’t want it, too

but you may not care until it happens to you.

And the next time you feel something’s alarming,

Why don’t you stop and think to give the next victim a trigger warning.