January
It took you six days in
To get under my skin
And riots at the Capitol
Reaffirming the unequal
Different outcomes, different skin
Are your laws so paper thin?
The beginning of this year
Made one thing most unclear:
What are we fighting for?
February
A month and some days passed
Answering questions that we asked
With our loved ones taken away
Aching for each life to stay
And when the single dose came through
We asked the questions “what?” / “from who?”
But no jab in right and left arms
Could undo unspeakable harms
Of the loss
With each breath and the last
Our resilient present and past
March
So we marched on
In these worn-out boots
Still asking “how” and “why”
But behind epiphany
Was the hope of mercy’s plea
The American Rescue Plan Act
Could not omit the fact
Many were barely okay
Struggling with what to say
Yet through all the noise and sound
We made our voices found
April
Each day
Blasé
But we went out of our way
And as April arrived
The ones who thrived
Were those bathing in billions
Not the lives lost in millions
So as some received a dose of vaccine
A humanitarian crisis could still be seen
And what had never been more clear
Is something most don’t want to hear
This pandemic is not just a virus’s cause
It’s the clenching teeth of inequity’s jaws
May
Less mask mandating
Feels promising, yet still debating
Are those with immunity compromised
Ableist privilege emphasized
And Broadway shows remained on pause
Artistry’s melancholy ached for applause
As jobs were redefined
A refugee crisis on the line
The month came to a painful close
Tragedies beyond words or prose
Unmarked graves, Indigenous children
Colonization and crime
But where is the religion
Condemning deaths from this sin?
June
In the heat of summer air
Muggy — breathes despair
Our hearts break
As shots take
More lives
Juneteenth arrives
And we can’t help but wonder
With the sizzling sun we’re under
How to see the light of day
When past horrors still have a say
July
I must confess
This prose is dressed
In often solemn tones
That hide our broken bones
Put back together with sheer willpower
Our strength unmatched
Yet wincing to the touch
From a bit too much
To carry all these harms
In tired, fragile arms
Nevertheless
We keep growing
August
In person — face to face
Each take it at their pace
What a beautiful sight and sound
Rekindling what’s been lost
If absence makes the heart grow fonder
Then distance made embrace last longer
September
The year is 2021
And words from the mouth of someone
Who is not me
And cannot see
That my body is my own
As they sit on pillared throne
Controlling the womb and birth
Determining what I’m worth
May they never have to learn
Of a freedom they can’t earn
October
Conspiracist ideation
News overload and propagation
As our fingertips type
And higher powers debate endlessly
Fearmongering on the left and right
We question once more what we fight
The viral consequences of a deathly infection
Or metastasized media without direction?
November
So how did we do it?
Take time and make it fly
The year a coherent blur
Have we realized
No time can be idealized
As the perfect one to start
Investing in a thankful heart
December
Here we are
With the question of the year:
What did you bring
To the past 365?
If it was only yourself
And all you did was survive
Know that you weren’t alone
In the struggle to strive
So here’s to you
To them
To us
And the gift of being alive
May the next 365
Be the ones where you can thrive.