Two weeks ago, I returned to this country. I returned to my country. It was a leap-year, so I was outside of the U.S. for 366 days. Upon return, I went home to Davis, CA for three days. Then, I was flown to Maine for the Watson Fellows Conference. Processing and understanding what this past year was, is, and will be for me began and continues. Here is just the start: an animation, a poem, and some photos.

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Conquest is the use of force and subjugation.
Subjugation is creating ideas or making decisions about systems and bodies one doesn’t know.
People do that a lot. They make decisions that impact bodies they don’t know.

There was the subjugation of Vieques,
We bombed the Puerto Rican sliver of an island
to practice attacks,
after they bombed our
buildings.

Before that,
and as those bombs fell,
there was the conquest of Iraq, Iran, Israel.

The construction of military outposts,
The private constractors
Blackwater,
Academi,
We took and we take
streets, communities, lives.

Before that, Cambodia, Vietnam, and each cheek of Tokyo’s Bay.
The Philippines.
We inched a stick with our starry flag into the soil on the moon.

And not so long ago, it was Hispañola,
He thought he landed in India.
Haiti, the land of mountains,
Palms, and coconuts,
Clunk on sandy beaches and plop in larimar-blue, crystal water.
Their juice quenches, their meat feeds,
Unless something drastic happens.

Right now, protestors in American cities “shut down” highways.
The I-10 in LA and the 880 in the bay.
But before the highways were shutdown, communities were demolished.
Highways were intentionally built on top of bodies’ homes.
There were homes were the 80, 880,
And where the Maracaña now stand.

The Maracaña is a football stadium in Rio, but I don’t want to talk about sports because some people hear “sppppppp” and stop listening. Sports suck right now. They’re contrived and scary. Just ask any true Atlanta Braves fan about the politics behind the upcoming suburban move to Cumberland, Atlanta.
Goodbye Turner Field, hello white flight.

Homes,
transformed
into arteries
of our cities,
of our commerce.

Blood is so often not red.

And, even if some drastic change changes what feels like everything, and subjugation ends,
Women will still face its evil.
Or maybe some change could change that. But I really fear that that is not the case.

Women will still face its
Brute, selfish,
Irreverent grope.

Crimea, groped.

The last frontier,
Forever,
Is the women’s,
Curves, lips, crevices.
No woman asked for this.

Do I scold the 15-year-old brown boy
When he gropes me on
The moonlit beach.
Sand flies,
Over and into my clothes.

I’m angry.

So I scold.

I roar,
Or try to
Why do you treat me poorly?

Feigned repentance.

It hits me.
We give him Claro, Kiteboarders, and hotels,
But what about
A father,
A rolemodel
An authentic Rawlings glove or ball?

Can I say I’m treated poorly?
Yes.
He can say the same.