Hey APC! I’m Gabriela Alvarado, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m seventeen years old and identify as female, Chicana, and Latina. My maternal side is from El Salvador; my paternal is from Mexico.
My life experience and two quotes make up “The Wards.” The first quote is from the 1965 James Baldwin and William Buckley debate: “I am not a ward of America. . . . I am one of the people who built the country.” The second quote is from the beginning of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis, which I just started reading: “Others carried a simple something in their hands: a branch in full flower, a stalk of sugar cane, a yellow bird in a cage.” I tried to tie in two very different topics in this piece, and they intersect with guns.
My instagram handle is gabriela.p.alvarado
The Wards
“I am not a ward of America. . . . I am one of the people who built the country.”
— James Baldwin
it’s fourth of july
and small children hold
red white blue flags
they hold toy machine guns and rifles
they make those little popping noises with their mouths
and i write about what i know
it’s fourth of july
it’s fourth of july
—cue the machine gun sound bite—
two children hold up their hands
with extended thumbs
and pointed pointer fingers
they point at each other, they point at us,
they go: “pow!” “pow!”
—cue the machine gun sound bite—
they go, with glee, they go: “you’re dead! i killed you!”
i write about what i know
it’s fourth of july
it’s fourth of july
as it was some years ago in the safest hood of the city
i mean, the whitest hood in the city, and
some black man was told to go back
to his own hood. you don’t belong here
some white man threw a firework
some white man threw a firework
at his car at him
and it exploded beneath him
but he can still breathe
it’s fourth of july
it’s fourth of july
and that was the whitest part of a city
a city in which a white cop shot a black man
in his own grandmother’s backyard
he was shot in part for holding a cellphone
but more for the color of his skin
and his name was Stephon Clarke
and he can never breathe
it’s fourth of july
it’s fourth of july
and those /machine gun sound bite/s
are the real deal and
those pointed fingers are the real deal
they were real for my cousin, who’s name was on a train
they were death for Memo, who’s name his cousins saw
graffitied on a train in a war-stricken country
they did not see his body; they saw many bodies
(and they can never breathe)
and tugging at their mother’s clothes
they cried, “Memo’s famous! He’s on the train!”
and their mother looked down with widened eyes
(could she breathe?)
their mother reached out in an attempt to silence them
and their mother told them to be quiet
(could they breathe? could they breathe?)
it’s fourth of july
it’s fourth of july
in a country that funded a war that created those bodies
that put Memo’s name on a train
in a country where black men holding cell phones
get shot for being black men holding cell phones
and its flag doesn’t come in size small and
those children should stagger under the weight of its flag
this country should crumble under the weight of its flag
for this flag is no small thing and
a pointed finger is no small thing and
a firework is no small thing and
a cell phone is no small thing and
a name on a train is no small thing and
i write about what i know and
it’s fourth of july
it’s fourth of july
someone said that a bird in a cage is a small thing
but a bird in a cage is no small thing
i live in AMERICA and i’ll never treat
a bird in a cage as such and—
and i am no small thing
because i live in AMERICA
and i can mostly breathe
and i can write this poem
(this poem is no small thing)
and i can read it aloud
because i live in AMERICA
and maybe i am free
and i can mostly breathe
and that is no small thing
i write about what i know
it’s fourth of july
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