A Unicorn of Color Mourns the Day After the Boston Marathon

The day after the Boston Marathon
my newsfeed is full of red and pink equal signs
next to posts from national press about the bombing.
In a way, these are
the same love:
government-sponsored ways
of expressing our empathy.
 
Boston is a rallying point for independence.
The marathon is a rallying point for independence.
Tragedy is a rallying point for the state
to exploit its people’s fears.
 
Two men are stopped
at Logan Airport
for speaking Arabic on a plane.
 
Mourning brings forth a fresh imperialism.
At sunrise, at death,
brown bodies are supposed to return
to the sand they came from
to the dirt they labor on.
 
Equal signs appears in the horizon
like two towers bending over,
America remembering how to make
skin illegal,
how to steal colors
and put them in a rainbow.

The Middle East is backwards;
let’s bomb it off the map.
Black people voted for Prop 8;
let’s build more prisons to contain their homophobia.
Palestine does not have enough gay bars;
let’s fund its occupation.
Asia has no sexuality at all;
let’s get them working at our call centers.

This Friday will be Day of Silence
every White liberal I know will
slap an ally sticker
to their chest
loudly:
I pledge allegiance to the American fag.

And President Obama will talk about Stonewall
and slip a check to Israel,
and send drones to Yemen.
And brown hands will construct these closets
for white bodies to come out of.
And the State Department
has allocated $3 billion a year
for LGBT rights abroad.
And we will stake our claims all over the world
which is not like colonization
because our new flags are made of rainbows.
And the people of Kabul will send love to Boston
and this is the language
the Department of Defense will listen to,
when they inscribe battle plans
and love letters
with the same X’s and O’s,
mask the thunder of machine guns
in the beating of pink hearts,
a Human Rights Crusade:
each marriage license,
a license to kill.
 
Two men will be stopped for
speaking Arabic on a plane in America.
Two men will be celebrated
for being gay in America.
 
To have and to hold,
till death do us part.

—Janani