The Audacity of Hope
Someone has been putting
Fuck Trump
stickers all over my neighborhood.
They wave to me from streetlamps
and telephone poles
from metal signs and fire hydrants
a little push back
against something
that feels unmovable.
so when I saw the group of middle schoolers
backpacks full of preteen anxiety
gathered at the street corner,
stop and notice the sticker next to them
the one that proudly said Fuck Trump
I paused.
This is one of the last conservative hold outs in Brooklyn
a neighborhood where white men tell their white sons
what the neighborhood used to be like.
Code for “more white than it is now.”
This moment could go either way
but I think I know which way it’s going to go.
They pointed and gasped a little
someone giggled.
Then the boy nearest me said,
Man, that night
election night,
I’ll never forget that night.
And it is here that I think to myself
that this little white boy probably sat with
his conservative father
and cheered, saying things like
They won’t erase us
and talking about places to grab women by
But instead he said,
That night,
all I could think was
my whole fucking life was over.
His friends near him nod
and share similar stories
their fear, their anger
their inability to understand
how the least qualified person
beat the most qualified person
and I trailed behind them,
listening
and for a moment
believing
really believing
in the pure hope
that it could actually get better.
When they turned the bend
I whispered, I’m sorry
aware
but unsure
what exactly I was apologizing for.
--Ally Malinenko
No comments:
Post a Comment