Ridiculous, right?
If someone who hurts you
Is your only source of assistance
You’re screwed
The sometimes abuser
The sometimes not abuser
Is the worst mental screw up
Flip the coin
Heads – a beating
Tails – laugh it off, jocular clap on the shoulder
Roll the dice
Snake eyes – a beating
Two – a whipping
Three you get slapped
Four is no big deal
Five is restrained
Six is a near death experience
In a world where the roll-the-dice scenario
Is what black and indigenous and people of color
Can expect from officers of the LAW
(Who should be protective of everyone)
(Who sometimes abuse their power)
(How often? How far do they go?)
For them to have to ask for help
Because domestic violence
Because missing child
Because murder
For them to have to ask for help
From people with a higher percentage
Of hurting them rather than helping them
Compared to other people
That ask is traumatic
That call is too much
It must be made any way
Let’s go back to this
Missing Child
Let me say that again because
A lot of kids are going missing
This is a crisis, because they are disappearing
But they are not disappearing RANDOMLY
Someone is taking these children
And the families are crying and pleading
And hoping and grieving that someone will help
And they have to call the department that killed
Their cousin
Or their uncle
Or their friends friends dad
Or their sister
And the department that is full of humans
(Dispensing tickets and collecting fines)
Who are working to pay their bills
(Protecting corporate property)
And maybe they are and maybe they’re not racist
(Maybe a little bit racist)
Are working for a system that doesn’t pay too well
(hazard pay and inventory perks)
That is full of politics and finagling and good ol’ boy
(Mayor’s birthday party cheer)
Connections
And here comes a defund the police activist
(along with the guilt)
A protect the water protect the land activist
(now Officer Woebegon is feeling defensive)
Filing a missing person report
And *yawn*
Maybe Officer Cush Job Traffic Ticket Dispenser
Doesn’t pass it on to the Detective
And Detective Looked Nowhere misplaced the file
And maybe they make jokes about lost kids
And runaways
And maybe they laugh and look under their paperwork
“Nope not here”
And maybe they know that the child snatchers
Are connected
Well connected
Too well connected
And it’s a fast track to job loss
Or sudden death on the job
From a perp who got away
Mysteriously
A fast track to truth
No heartbeat
Officer Down
And so they tolerate being called
Racist lazy biased bigots
Keep their heads down
Jockey elbows and make jokes
But the laughter doesn’t reach their eyes
And they clear the lies out of their throats
Before they speak
And the FBI and the Homeland Security
And the US Marshalls
Shrug because it’s not their jurisdiction
Even if it is
*shrug*
Tribal land you know
*shrug*
City cops state cops sheriffs got this
(they do not got this)
*shrug*
And the media doesn’t post the photos of the lost
if you knew
If you only knew how many
Faces of the lost there are
5 years old, 7 years old
15 years old
19 years old
30 years old, 60 years old
Gone gone gone
Families broken hearted
Their grief never ends
Who will help them?
Who do they call?
The man in uniform who raped that girl
The woman in uniform who slapped that kid
The ones in uniform who looked under their paperwork
For a child
And laughed
I see you
And maybe someone took the job an idealist
Maybe thinking ideals are strong enough
And maybe the department clique
Creates a slippery slope
Of fudging the rules here and there
Until the new guy the new gal is
One of them
With enough little wrongs
With enough grey areas
Enough camaraderie
That loyalty can become
A form of restraint suffocating ideals
Until they can’t breath
Now the hero in the uniform
Is no better than the thief he she they stop(s)
He She They lack self respect
So they demand it of the UNIFORM
Respect my job
I am my job
I am the LAW
But they know and can never forget
How they slid down the slope
(How they justified)
Slid with their brothers and sisters in arms
Straight into a pool of blood
Sometimes they bring justice
But sometimes they bring retribution
Flip a coin
And pray for mercy
There’s no one else to call
