GET OUT NOW

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My friend had coffee with me this morning and asked, 

"Do you recall him... in high school? 

He smiled until we trusted him,

he got us to vote him in as Student President and Valedictorian." 

Playing with her ring she murmured,

all the rumours about how he cheated on his exams.

I defended him, she said.

He was always sly.

He was that guy, the nice guy,

the jock who could dance. 

He convinced the world, he didn't rape her.

She deserved it, I heard him. 

It's what he said.

Before you started working for him, you used to say,

He made you realize they are not all bullies. 

You've never said it again have you,

since you started working for him.

He asked us to teach him how to say F YOU in our mother tongue. 

C'mon she said, you know he's always been that guy. 

He was everyone's best friend.

He told me he could fly.

He's said sorry so many times we know when to expect the next one. 

She pointed to her watch and said here it comes.

We'd wipe our tears, recall that one time he was so nice,

saw us, how good it felt

so we'd accept it like a box of chocolates

and believed it when he said he would never do it again.

When he brings his bros around he winks and tells us they aren't really his friends.

I don't know about you but I'm over all of it. 

I don't want a seat at this table. 

I don't care about his sports, or any of his labels. 

He says he feels awful about what his granddad did 

and created a memorial made out of stone to make up for it. 

I don't believe him anymore. 

Don't watch his lips, watch how his hands move. 

I saw a knife in his pocket.

She said, I'm eying the tables across the ocean. 

It can't be worse than this, she says, I think. 

Let's take the brain drain back sister. 

The Global South is calling and they have plenty of tables,

they haven't daggered us, he would say... yet. 

Can't be worse than this. 

Noone there ever lynched my grandmother.

What toxin has he fed us that's made us think we can't trust them?

You heard it, admit it. 

Him making fun of us behind our back.

I swear he said Guantanamo Bay.

Don't ask him, he might kill us for saying it out loud, aye.

Let's move back from whence we came. 

Isn't that what his free thinking friends really think? 

Let's give in and get out of this high school musical nightmare.

The fear monger has made us afraid to say we love our people.

My childhood friend, she said.

Worldwide change is underway, 

let's go. 

Let's get out of here while we can.