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      July 15, 2020Love Poem for a DictatorRodrigo Dela Peña Jr.

      color me scarlet             spilled on the pavement
      tell me what to do
       
      what not to do             under pain or duress
      make me a part of
       
      your fentanyl dreams             your spittled curses
      peppering your speech
       
      color me bruise             the size of your hand
      put the crook
       
      of your finger             on a gun
      on my pulse
       
      make my mouth mute             under your command
      teach me a way
       
      to seize             to salvage
      what goes against your way
       
      turn me into a wound             one among the many
      slashed against the ground
       
      dear dictator             let me count the ways
      how i can splinter
       
      when you break me             into a million
      little lines like these

      from Poets Respond

      Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.

      “Dissent is not terrorism. With the anti-terror bill signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte, the government now has a way to silence critics and activists in the Philippines by calling them ‘terrorists.‘”