City Code
It’s ok to hit women where I live.
I spoke up and I got hit,
I complained and ended up handcuffed;
black women don’t have a voice here
we are expendable,
I could’ve been killed.
It’s ok to scream at women where I live.
Drunken, violent men are rulers,
Chollo hide by the side of the pool,
(it’s too dangerous near the outdoor grill)
children play in fear.
It’s ok to threaten women where I live,
shove women, push them to the ground—
I was even prettier on the gurney
apartment windows closed to anyone
speaking up. Black woman in a red state,
I had no business moving here.
It’s ok to stalk women where I live;
the long walk to the mailbox is a minefield
(black men know this—a city with two laws,
unequal and unjust) the pavement
did not get softer no matter how many times
I landed. As long as no one is accountable,
“None of it ever happened.”
I was assaulted by two men
in an unchangeable moment
of terror and helplessness,
yet no witnesses spoke up,
my spirit echoed with the reminder
of the price of being born female and brown.
Cuts and bruises of no concern to nurses and doctors,
police questioned no one,
violence and danger are the zoning code here.