loopings of elongated conversations held together by centuries long forts
      is how I’ve learned to recognize violence
        To comprehend the extraction of force
To speak of suppression without a colonel holding Colt revolver to neck
And to God I ask—
    How to birth a nation without splicing half-whole
      Plasma leaking off ruins—half-empty
    Scripture lingering at the cusp
How to inhale breath that does not make the tongue reak of genocide
To comprend structure
This is how I’ve learn to hold nations upon nations—with a
    tight
      fold
        grip
  That is to name an infliction
    R
      U
        I
          N
That is to tell a lie
    leaking out—is spilled ink of a narrative i did not write
That is to say that the grass is only greener when you pluck it from the root and spray a fallacy
    I am speaking in a mother tongue that has only met my own with force meaning
  This
  is
War: a state of armed conflict between differing nations
        My armor: the global south
        And my weapon of choice—- speech in an attempt to silence
      That is to say that I dream in saccharine despite the metallics
      That is to see
—pouring out is spilled ink of a narrative that I will write
      That is to declare that I am love and light
      That is to know that I am no longer violence but it’s resilient aftermath