My father and his fathers fought for the United States. 
I honored them for it because I used to honor the winners.  
Their Red was more brilliant after the war.  
Red is the chlorophyll of hate.  
I used not to think of my fathers as victims.  
Now, I honor only victims.  

Implicitly, it is legal to burn a rainbow.  
I am angry.  I am facing the rain.  
The sun shines behind me.  
Only when light hits the back of a raindrop 
does the sting of color spread its borderline 
between full and empty. 

Hatred is empty. Anger is not the same color.  
Anger is a litmus test for justice.  
It turns light pink and doesn’t dry brown, 
a science in the rainbow that hasn’t yet been explained.

Blood carries with it a disease 
that seeps into the whitest of cotton,
the kind that says we must kill the Muslims for a little peace.

Our anthem is a rainbow.  
It alternates with the monotony 
of blood for peace, blood for peace, 
blood for peace under a sword-poked sky.

If anger is pink, then I cannot tell 
where it ends and the true, deep red begins.
I can only see that I have a choice, 
and it is best to learn how to mix the colors.
				
How do you save yourself 
when you are in the middle of getting murdered?  
When the murderer’s knife 
enters you like Africa getting bled by the West. 

No one tells me its okay to get angry.  
It helps me get past the Red.  
It helps me move on through to purple.  
There are people buried under all that color, 
and no one is holding out a hand.

It’s not something that we shine, absorb or ignite.  
A rainbow is what happens when you mix fire and water, 
only none of us can actually make it.