i’ll scream it again & again—

no matter how eager, how radical, how cute you are

i do not exist for your fancy of freakery.

i could care less about feeding your taste for exotic flavors. i was not born to stroke your fascination of marginalized people.

no matter how much you are learning, no matter how much power/money/influence you carry, no matter how much you always know the right things to say,

my body is not for you to exam, conquer, or casually observe
as if the strands of my hair were nothing more than pages of a magazine

the creator did not craft these hands, lungs, feet of mine so you can feel good about yourself. my issues are not for you to solve.

who said you could analyze me? i am not a hobby, a project, a case study

nor will i ever be a pet to collect
in that menagerie of yours

instead i am harriet tubman using her disability to trick slavemasters, survey lands, and carve out paths to freedom
i am the spear waiting in datu lapu lapu’s right hand, standing with thousands ready to slice the colonizer’s head off of magellan’s body
i am the body casts frida kahlo painted on
i am the freedom song my joseon ancestors sung, the taegukis wrapped around their foreheads as they demanded an end to tyranny

no matter how quick i was to hand you this hard-earned self-determination in the past, know that from now on, you are being watched. vigilantly.

flip it, spit it out in a poem, brand it on the tip
of your tongue
do whatever you have to do
to remember