No More Benches

There are

No more benches

In Adam’s Morgan.

No place to sit

On 18th & Columbia

Unless you can

Lose $10 on a

Half decent cup of coffee

Or $50 on a drink and sushi

With a carefree lover.

I stride down the street

Popping in and out of

Boutiques

Bars

Salons

Bookstores

A Safeway

And one of the

CVS drugstores

On my block,

Thanking a God

I don’t believe in

That I have a place to

Sit down around the corner

Now,

In an apartment

That towers over

Brick and concrete

Tin and asphalt

Fresh white paint lines

And cement blockades

Marking off the

Boundaries of

20k or 200k a year.

Rusty red walls of rock

Hide the tents

That disappear day after day

Because

There are

No more benches

In Adam’s Morgan.

There are

No more benches

In Northwest.

A kind woman waves to me

I say hello

Giving a trite

“How are you?”

Knowing the answer.

Wishing I had my own cash

My own funds

To help.

She asks me where I’m from

Where I’m staying in the District.

She was born here,

Down the road,

Raised here

Lived here

At least when she was living,

And she says

She won’t die here.

“The death tax is

Too high

For an old,

Disable,

Black,

Transexual.”

I say I’m living on Columbia Rd,

And she bites her lip

“Yes,

all of the rich white people

are moving there, now,

Because

There are

No more benches

In Northwest.”

There are

No more benches

In DC

The heartland of

Democracy

Tent city got too big

Off of the parkway,

On K, L, M,

Capital Hill to

DuPont

And spreading into a carpet

Of Nylon and plastic

So they reigned it in

With badges and guns

And poisonous gas

And pigs on patrol

So they built concrete buildings to

Hold the poor

Hostage

Out of sight

Out of mind.

Vagrancy is a sin

Punishable by death,

It’s not in the

Constitution

But is ingrained in

The make up of

Your neurons and synapses

Triggering fight or flight

At her smile and wave

When you’ve never

Had to do either.

See a

Weather warn tent

The one you bought

From target

Last summer

For vacation

For $20

Seeing two, ten, twenty, forty...

“Living in tents

Is not permitted in the

District of Columbia”

Bowser announces

It’s not the

Aesthetic they

Want to portray.

The district

Lives true to it’s

Namesake

A (not so) new kind of colonization.

Columbus sailed

The ocean, blue

To force people out

And make room for new.

New space for

People who can

Buy their own bench

To sit on

If they are tired

And now,

There are

No more benches

In DC.

There are

No more benches

In America.

America

The land of the free

Born out of

A lie

They tell us

In elementary

Propaganda to

Keep our sanity

Born out of

The promise

Of opportunity

For all.

But the borders

Have been drawn

A five digit number

Determines your fate

Decides wether you

Go to college

Or live as a high school

Dropout

Or worry day by day

If you will eat

Or sleep.

One by one

The benches disappear

And so do the people

So does the culture

So does the livelihood

Of a person who

Worked fifty years

To pay off a mortgage

That will be taken from

Them, suddenly

When a Core Power Yoga

Burrows into

A community.

Progress erases the

Woman’s life who

Talked to me that day.

“She could get help

If she wanted it”

Why would someone

Ask for help from

An abuser

Who took everything

And claims to

Have a better life

In store for her

Tomorrow,

If she just took part

In a society

That wants her

Exterminated.

How could she

Trust

An entity that

Can’t even give her a place to sit

And rest from the sun

Or stay safe from

Sleeping on the ground

That was

Spit on

Pissed on

Shit on

By dogs

That eat better than

She has in years.

A refugee in

Her own homeland

The camps and ghettos

We are disgusted by

Are in your backyard.

Her back aches

From a concrete

Bed

As she waits

For the final

Euthanasia

To take its course.

I ask why

She sleeps on

The ground,

In the cold,

In the dirt,

Under the K street

Underpass.

I know I could

Be her so easily

But want to hear

Her answer.

She says, simply,

“There are

No more benches

In America.”