There is a five year old girl on a porch.

There is a five year old girl on a porch

and while it may seem that all she has ever seen has been: 

honey sticks on peers looking over a dark blue sound,

pink bedrooms with thick green strips and big brown polka dots,

princess castles with light up windows,

kindergarten rooms with big bins of dinosaur toys, 

races on mossy basketball courts in beautiful glends,

water balloon fights in summer sun,

and parks on steep hills  

but she's seen much more    

This girl has seen hate

This five year old girl has seen more hate then most do in decades

She has been exposed to it on all sides

Her whole 1,825 day life 

She has been told that some people are inherently less than because of who they are born as

She has been told they don’t deserve what they have 

She has been told they don’t belong with them 

She has been taught to hate but she doesn’t know it because she hasn’t seen tolerance or acceptance 

He has told her they should go  back to where they came from

He has told her that they belong on football fields and in factories 

She has believed him her whole life, Why would that change now? 

There is a five year old girl on a porch 

There is another five year old girl on a tricycle and her skin is dark

She is riding her tricycle around the cul de sac 

She asks if the five year old girl on the porch would like to play 

The five year old girl responds in a nasty way 

Although I do not believe it was her talking, I believe she was just repeating what she’s been told yet still-

Every day after she has regretted that she ever fell for his hatred 

That she ever regarded it as truth 

Not a day has passed after in which she hasn’t fallen on the other end of the political spectrum 

A decade later and the girl on the porch still remembers but she prays and hopes the girl on the tricycle does not 

For the hurt extends great lengths of the five year old girl on the porch 

Today she does everything to flush the hate out of her veins 

She protests 

She hands out flyers

She hangs up posters

She listens to every trial 

She watches every second of hate her ancestors have managed to create 

And she cries for that hate she is complicit in

She wishes that blood didn’t bind as much as it does

She is his blood and she can’t escape his hate 

Every family reunion pits daughter against father 

For while he could convince me hate was the truth when I was 5 he can’t convince me now 

And I won’t let anyone fall into the same trap 

For there shouldn’t ever be another 5 year old girl on a porch