Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman Read Free Book Online Page B

s.
    Look.
    Look.
    No, really.
    Though we strobed
    That we came in peace,
    He was already at war.
    Because aren’t we all,
    Always?
    We blinked, stunned,
    A doe before the rifle.
    Didn’t he recognize
    Who we were,
    Who we was?
    A girl just trying to walk home
    & live to tell the tale.
    In that moment, we desperately want
    To snort
    To scream
    To survive.
    We have battled hard to be.
    Nothing—
    & we mean nothing—
    Can keep you safe.
    Silence least of all.
    Speak with this giant life,
    For we might never be granted
    That same breath again.
----
    * * *
    A nation’s cold pride will kill,
    Choke us on the very spot we shadow.
    This is also called Chauvin[ism].
    Such pain patrols with pattern,
    Practiced, cooled, coded, familiar & un-familial.
    Would we crave peace
    If we knew what it was.
----
    * * *
    Our war has changed.
    Whoever said we never die
    In our dreams obviously
    Has never been Black.
    Sometimes the whole dusk pulls us down.
    Sometimes in the thick
    Of night we say our name
    Again & again & again
    Until it loses all its meaning,
    Until its syllables are just
    Another dead thing.
    This is a rehearsal of sorts.
    We stand still,
    If just to insist
    That we still
    Exist.
    Hoodied by a nightmare,
    We resurrect ourselves.
----
    * * *
    Union of unwilling martyrs.
    Death is no equalizer,
    Death equals nothing,
    Makes a 0 of a life.
    That is the machinery of this country.
    As the regular sprang back,
    So did the violence,
    Normal in its abnormality,
    Completely unshuttered.
    & so we were un-shuddering,
    Our shoulders no longer recalling
    How to ripple
    After seeing our bodies
    Ripped apart.
    R. I. P.
    Ravaged In Pandemic.
    Rifled Innocent People.
    Razed Irreplaceable Persons.
    Look alive, everyone.
----
    * * *
    To ask a question
    Is to put our hand up
    & ready ourselves for the end.
    An answer is an assault,
    It can knock you dead.
    Can we tell you something? we ask.
    Shoot! cracks the response.
    O how our beloveds are besieged.
    Despite how hard we’ve prayed,
    Anyone becomes prey
    When they do not
    Turn & run.
    Nowadays, living
    Is a dying art.
----
    * * *
    We were brought here
    & all we got was this lousy T-shirt,
    This drowsy, free hurt.
    Taste our tired, unbroken rage.
    Nothing we have witnessed
    This lifetime surprises us.
    Disbelief is a luxury
    We never possessed,
    A pause that never was.
    How many times have we wheezed
    A dread to last all night long.
    The truth is, one nation under guns.
----
    * * *
    This republic was bred shady.
    Country of guns & germs & steal-
    ing land & life.
    O say can we see
    The blood we stand on,
    Shining below us
    Like a blood-slick star.
    What we might’ve been if only we’d tried.
    What we might become, if only we’d listen.
----
    * * *
    Scars & stripes.
    Schools scared to death,
    School drills of death.
    The truth is, one education under desks,
    Stooped low from bullets.
    Soon comes the sharp plunge
    When we must
    Ask where our children
    Shall live
    & how.
    & if.
    Who else shall we let perish.
----
    * * *
    Again, language matters.
    Children have been taught—
    America: without her, democracy fails.
    But the truth is:
    America without her democracy fails.
    We thought our country would burn.
    We thought our country would learn.
    America ,
    How to sing
    Our name,
    Singular,
    Signed,
    Singed.
    Ash is alkaline, meaning basic.
    All too true.
    Perhaps to burn is the most basic
    Purification there is.
    Time said: You must transform to survive .
    We said: Not over our dead body.
    What can we call a country that destroys
    Itself just because it can?
    A nation that would char
    Rather than change?
    Our only word for this is
    Home.
----
    * * *
    There is more than one hue of haunting.
    We want to believe that
    What we care for can keep.
    We want to believe.
    The truth is, we are one nation, under ghosts.
    The truth is, we are one nation, under fraud.
    Tell us, honestly:
    Will we ever be who we say.
----
    * * *
    The world still terrifies us.
    We’re told to write what we know.
    We write what