hands up, cowboy!
What’s American? Dying for your country! We do it every day — just cells in a body we hate — and everyone hates it, even if they love the idea. I am a woman (sort of, sometimes), I’ve got different shaped eyes, I’ve dated boys with yellow fever. There’s always another shooting — sometimes police — sometimes men who just can’t take their dick out of their hands — sometimes teenage boys with no friends. But the outcome is always the same — bleeding — it’s a habit by now.
It’s freedom — but it’s not, if you’re Philando Castile, or Breonna Taylor(’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker). It’s the NRA calling gun’s rights a women’s issue, while misogyny runs rampant right left and center, in the country where Matt Gaetz shows his fellow congressmen naked pictures of the 17-year-old he fucked over the weekend and they know it’s wrong — know it enough to fess up when the grand jury comes bumbling down the road — but not wrong enough to say anything while they’re staring down a photo of that teenage girl’s tits on the House floor. It’s freedom to own a gun so you can overthrow the government. But not if you’re anyone living under the heel of this nation’s beautiful boot. We need rifles to revolt! That’s what the white supremacists say — but they march those streets and it’s just drama between friends — ever wonder why the sheriff’s never around to stop the Klan protest? Me too, baby! But I keep my hands on my head like I learned in my active shooter drills, I keep my phone on silent — no vibrating, either — so I don’t get killed by an email alert — bzz. I recite my plea for life in the mirror while I do my makeup. I don’t know what happened but I’m sorry they did that to you. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to be good. I just need a little more time. You don’t have to do this. You can walk away. It’s not too late.
But the gunman doesn’t come for me, not yet — though odds are getting better. It’s American, the way I get up and brush my teeth and think about Xiaotjie Tan and wonder how she died because I can’t help it — I wonder if she pled in English or Mandarin, I wonder if she had time at all, if she thought she might make it, if she had plans for her birthday. You know? It’s freedom. Freedom to beg for your life in your mother tongue, freedom to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and die in them. I think about last words, language, and love. I think about Elcias reaching for his phone and calling not 911 but his wife, and how you only do that kind of thing when you think it’s the end.
And it is — it’s always the end! This continent has seen so many apocalypses, this body’s bloody mouth bites off its own breast and chews on it and spits it back out and glues it back on. I wish there were no more guns — but then there would be no more America? — well I wish for that too! White didn’t end up in my mother’s bloodline by accident or choice, baby!!! I wish there were no more guns, I wish I could bring those women back to life and I wish I could throw my body over my great great grandmother’s fifteen-year-old hips, I wish I could shoot that United States patriot dead in the middle of Iloilo.
Now all my friends want guns. Because the guns are real — they’re AMERICAN!!! And we’re all tired of watching our communities grieve because of these people and their bullets. And we’re all tired of being nice about it. And we all hate the United States of America, wish the Mayflower had crashed and fucking burned, wish Magellan had missed Mindanao by a mile and Balboa drowned before he could send back word of the Pacific being peaceful, because I am just a woman (sometimes) coming from a long line of women who were brought to this country at gunpoint and promised a better life, only to be shot in the fucking head as soon as the harbor came into view.
KILLING US HERE, KILLING US AT HOME.
WHERE DO YOU GO WHEN ONLY THE COUNTRY OF DEATH IS LEFT STANDING?
while you should donate as much as possible to direct mutual aid funds, here are fundraising efforts for the individuals mentioned in this piece. philando castile relief fund, for those affected by police and gun violence. tamika palmer’s gofundme, for breonna taylor’s mother. kenneth walker’s gofundme, to support breonna taylor’s boyfriend. atlanta area spa shooting gofundmes, for the victims’ families and survivors. butterflysw, asian and migrant sex worker support network. red canary song, collective of asian and migrant sex workers.
