Chapin City Blues

“I am a political animal,” Neve says to me. They sit cross -legged on the love seat, coffee mug in hand, a magazine propped up with their knee. Their focus is on whatever article they’re reading. Maybe something political. 

“What does that mean?” I ask.  

“You’ll see,” they tell me. “You’ll see.” 

The Things They Carried 

Paloma carried a photograph of her parents in the rucksack she borrowed from her oldest sibling. It wasn’t her only belonging she packed, but it was the one that anchored her most of their world.  

Chucho carried with him two magazines, a half-eaten jar of peanut butter, three granola bars, six bottles of water, and a love letter written to his late wife. He never managed to send the letter. Never got to say goodbye. And while her body was never recovered, he carried no hopes that she would ever be found. 

Miguel, the youngest in the pack, carried a tattered copy of a Texas atlas that his abuelo had given him for his twelfth birthday, two cassette tapes and a now-dead Walkman and headphones. He promised himself to get batteries the moment they cross over.  

Voting for a cop 

“You’re voting for a cop after a cop killed Sonya Massey?” the white man asks Black American voters on TikTok. 

A white woman rants how Democrats aren’t giving their voters a choice on who they vote.  

Republicans in Congress are calling Kamala Harris a DEI hire. Mike Johnson asked GOP lawmakers to refrain from calling her that. 

What’s the matter Mike? Racism is ok until it makes you look bad? Do you finally understand that the rest of us know when a white conservative uses DEI, what they’re really saying is the n-word? 

You Know How This Ends 

I do. And I am not looking forward to it.  

Though, I long for the ending.