We are on a break.
This isn’t the first time we’ve declared the need to see other people, but what you’ve done this time, I’m not sure I can forgive.
America, your tongue is dirty. Your knees have not touched enough gravel and you smell. Not like New York City urine drenched, graffiti-ground-up-in-potholes, fourth-day-of-forgotten bath. More like your climate is beginning to disrobe and all our coughs are coughing up smog.
United States of America, you never ask me if it feels good when you touch me. You just lick my bones with your hate crimes and think it will turn me on.
I need space.
This isn’t about Canada, though I can’t pretend she’s not on my mind these days.
America, look at your hands! Covered in blood, slurs, misogyny, favoritism, forgetfulness, and all that locker room jargon lodged beneath your fingernails.
Your red, white, and blue used to turn me on. All you needed to do was wave your flag and I was ready. You’d whisper Eleanor Roosevelt or Rocky Mountains and I’d lift myself onto you. We’d rock back and forth to your mix tape of anthems.
America, there is no welcome mat big enough for you to wipe all your filth on. You’ve lost sight on what made you so beautiful once before. Everyone that came to build you up, with their stories of survival and hope, living out their Dream…….you now seem to have forgotten their names.
Shame on you, America. You’re nothing without the sum of all your parts.
Now I’m screaming out my safe word because it’s just too much to bear:
P a s s p o r t
Aimee Herman 