In middle school there was a race war:
the white boys tried to drown Jamil in the pool,
again, I am called by administrators to mediate
with my two planted wires, to diffuse,

to eat the bomb, a tie swings to me and says,
Tur-reek, you are a demolition expert,
bomb-proof container, and the boys
don’t try drowning Jamil again. Instead,

the white boys get a pizza party.
Instead, they call me faggot and terrorist.
A self-destructing mechanism counts down
inside me; I pull the wires from my chest,

try to choose which to sever.