What by Omar Zahzah

No matter what

You can’t escape it:

The signifying trap

A mediating

Meditation

Tell me

A brick thru- a cop car window

Is not a poem

A prison break

Is not a novel

Nor an uprising

A tune emphatically chorused.

Border violence doesn’t hide

On the Out/side

Of the In/side

Your violence

Is already personal

Your mechanical eye

A reptilian mirror

Scaled

Static

Stiff

As the cool teeth of metal cages

You turn away from

So casually

As though your skull

Weren’t crunched in their closing.

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Omar Zahzah is a writer, poet and organizer. In 2016, Omar’s chapbook 13 Almost Love Poems was released.Omar holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Twitter: @dromarzahzah