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      September 25, 2016Hayden SaunierHard Facts 3 (Do Not Resist)

      To stay alive do not resist
      that’s what you’re told
       
      as if it were a simple act to make yourself
      be only meat
       
      and bone
      pressed down into an asphalt street
       
      and not a form of suicide
      erase yourself be dead enough
       
      that he or she or they’ll decide
      there is no need to kill you
       
      though do not resist
      can make no guarantee of this
       
      but if you stay alive
      do not resist will mean you have to stand
       
      your dead self up
      walk out into the world alive
       
      which is another kind of death
      and harder every single time
       
      you have to kill yourself enough
      (do not resist) to stay alive.

      from Poets Respond

      Hayden Saunier

      “Two more police shootings … ‘Do not resist’ saved my life years ago when I was raped at knifepoint. Black men and women have historically, repeatedly, and continue to this day to be asked to submit their bodies and selves to the total control of another person under threat of immediate death. It isn’t easy, doesn’t always work, and even when it does, the toll is devastating.”

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