Wake Up. This is ours.

This? this is our poem.
The white space on this white flag
oozes with indifference
and reeks of apathy. Not toward writing,
not toward words, but toward anything.
So we share this, and give the finger to surrender.
Wake up, and listen to the tug in your heart that says
You're here for a reason,
and that there is something bigger,
and that there is something better.
And this? this is ours.

So we share this with the man forced to write in red
when his black ink runs dry.
This, this is ours.
We share this with the man in a cast
unable to open a jar of jelly on his lonesome;
forced to squirm his right arm
into his left pocket reaching for the advil
he unwittingly put there.
This is ours.
We share this with student having to choose
between his bicycle in wintry weather
and the unreliable stained public buses to get to class.
And we share this with the woman who doesn't have the choice,
exposed to bone chilling wind at the frigid bus stop
with a child kicking at her ribs.
We share this with the homeless man picking the Thorazine shuffle
over walking with voices, even if it means
taking an extra hour to walk to his underpass house,
furnished with a throw away lazyboy
and a second-hand painting intended to turn
his hole into a home.
This is ours.
And we share this with the girl who misplaces everything,
the father who misses work,
the boy who misses his mother,
and the acne covered teen they call a faggot in the locker room.
We share it with the ones still asleep.
Wake up. Because this? this is ours.

It is ours and it is for us.
It's for the bulimic girl who wished
she was relevant.
It's for the bachelor who sits alone on his couch
wishing he had said something
all those years ago.
This is ours.
It's for the 3rd grader who digs in the dirt
with sticks looking for sticks,
and the 1st grader who marries him
some 15 odd years later.
It's for the child pulled along
when he was curious about the man
dressed in woman's clothing.
This is ours.
It's for the only roommate who does dishes,
for the freshman who only feels loved when she gives herself up,
and for the ones who can't write, won't write,
or don't even think about writing.
This is ours.

Wake up, because we are not
going to let the white page
be a white towel. You see,
this white space,
all this white space,
is meant to be filled,
with people.
With stories, with struggles, with triumphs.
All of it. And those who can write, will write,
and are always thinking about writing
will not let those stories disappear.
They are worthy to be written
to stand up and be accounted for.
So wake up, you're being written about.
Wake up, take to the streets, and give the finger
to the white space that tells them
that they are nothing, and exist only
as white space on a white page.
So wake up, because this?
this is ours.