Unbothered: After Election Time

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After voting time, my face is still
shaped like a fist. Tightly screwed.

Unbothered. Huey P. Newton
behind a podium or Fred Hampton

trying to build class solidarity.
The truth lives in a gray area,

an overcast reality. Strange and
lit. Apply maximum muscle in

traffic–shun mercy–because
they only understand pressure.

Pressure is sustained ideology,
a religion of sorts for men and

women who value autonomy.
Capitalistic creed is limiting,

unlike Curtis Mayfield riffing
for afternoon audiences. Pigs

play political football with SNAP.
Party affiliation does not matter.

Ticket holders still attend the
circus. I SNAP. Way beyond

the slick ideals, the traps, the
razorblades, the failed attempts

at trying to save a Burning
House. “We got a nice house,”

they say, licking boots and
American-scented flames from

parched lips. What’s the use
in preserving a structure that

was never built correctly? The
master’s tools will never dismantle

his house. The focus is different–
metallic. Gaza. Sudan. D.C. A free

heartbeat. Different. I only trust
my aim, a fierce gamble; shaking

dice on one knee, at the top of an
urban hill; trying to play a game

of click-clack with this volatile life
before the lights go out. Someday,

they will go out for us all, and I seek,
unlike a basic colonizer surveying

land, the revolution, the revolt
boogie, the familiar bloody knuckle,

the daily picket sign, from another
American day after an election.

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