Bloodstain
blood disobeys
All else can be cleaned, vacuumed, or swept away, but
Blood stays
It stains the skin of our children
And they carry all the excess ink from their birth like tattoos
We can never wipe them “clean”
Unwrite their history
Blood stays
Unruly and rebellious like our predecessors
Remember all those who carried us wrapped inside their bodies
While they paved nations
threw bricks at Stonewall
fought to end slavery
and crossed oceans
We were the dream on the tip of their tongue, folded into every prayer
Blood stays
It sews 7 red stripes into a white flag
Waters the soil from which we grew a nation
don’t act like you can erase it
by scrubbing away our education
When you
Ban books, ignore our history
Deport refugees
And try to control our bodies
you remember
that blood stays
and we remember from where it came
you will not get away
With this
You forget that we were born into blood and flesh that is not ours
We wear our ancestors’ survival like tattoos just by standing in this room
and we, too, are a blood stain, America
We can never be erased
we will never go away
Blood stain
