We the People, But Only Some

By Breckyn Forcey

They love to quote the Constitution

Like a sacred spell,

Like it makes them holy.

Like parchment paper

Protects them

From accountability. 

“We the People,”

They say,

But only if

You vote the right way.

Love the right people.

Pray to the right God

In the right language

On the right land

That they stole.

They frame the First Amendment

On courtroom walls

But arrest the girl

With the cardboard sign.

They teach freedom of speech

Then punish students

For saying Black Lives Matter

Too loudly in the hallway.

They pledge allegiance

To the Second Amendment

But stay silent

When bullets find a classroom

Before breakfast.

They guard the Constitution

Like it’s a body

But only remembers it exists

When it’s convenient

For their power.

Where’s due process

When families are torn apart

At borderlines

They drew in blood?

Where’s equal protection

When a woman’s body

Is legislated

State by state

Like a zoning map?

Where’s freedom

When drag is a crime

But white nationalism

Gets a podium?

The Consitution is not a costume. 

You don’t get to wear it

Only on holidays

Or campaign ads.

It is not your flag to wave

While you burn 

Everyone else’s. 

“We the People,”

Means all of us.

Not just the straight,

The rich,

The loud,

The loudest,

The armed.

It mean the queer teen

Writing poems in her bedroom

Because school isn’t safe.

It means the trans kid 

banned from bathrooms 

And ballots

And basic decency.

It means the immigrant mother

Who still believes in liberty

Even when liberty

Doesn’t believe in her.

It means the protestor

On the front line

With pepper spray lungs

And paper-thin hope

Still chanting

Like it matters.

Because it does.

Because the Constitution

Is not a trophy,

It’s a promise. 

And promises

Mean nothing

If they aren’t kept

For everyone.

So don’t hand me a flag 

and call it freedom

If you’re just going to

Wrap it around my mouth.

Don’t quote the Founders

If you ignore

The founding lie.

Because I read the Constitution

Like a question.

And I’m still waiting

For the answer

To sound like justice.