Look thru these deliverance-denied eyes:
You are now a child
from a land
beyond this land.
All you need is an altruistic hand.
What you get instead
is a jail bereft of a bed.

Look thru these deliverance-denied eyes:
You are a cis woman
who demands autonomy
over your chosen decision
that never needs a politician’s
Iron-maiden-restrictive opinion.

Look thru these deliverance-denied eyes:
You are now a trans woman
who does not want to be seen
as a sexual suspect,
but all you get is the hard fists
of the phobic bigots in your midst.

Look thru these deliverance-denied eyes:
You are now non-white.
No matter the shade
DNA made,
racists in brigades
want an antebellum system
at the behest of a demagogue’s dictum.

Look thru these deliverance-denied eyes
and ask yourself how
a human heart does not
feel for the oppressed now.