If your freedom and mine are really bound together
We need to make sure we're not standing on each other's backs
Both of our bodies have been fetishized
Soul and mind
I don't want to live inside their eyes
Or internalize lies that they say about you
Because I know nothing that they say about me's true
It's televised, mass manipulators bait and hide
Stories of a people that could really humanize
Anyone but white men is always other'd
Why
I don't want to center them in any of my rhymes
But we become a synonym to "them" when we don't try
To really see ourselves and the space we occupy
I know I am light-skin, masculine, American passport holding
Born with the privilege to be blind to anybody on the outside
If I choose to
Self-mutilation, men do it for power
And our sensuality gets completely devoured
We become loveless, and just to get touched
Sex is more of a drug yet, abuse isn't mutual
So often we hurt hearts
It's like we all lost ours
For freedom we go far, but
Knowing yourself is where solidarity starts
I know I can't see it through your eyes
So I listen for your vision even when my hands tied
If oppression is connected then our freedom's intertwined
Gotta make sure we don't harm each other when we fight
For our freedom, for the land, for each other, for our lives
For our people locked behind bars and enemy lines
For Black and Indigenous lives, for disability rights
We don't get free if we leave anyone behind
Our communities are intertwined
Though we've forgotten it
Through decades we've internalized
They invented these racist myths about me and you
It's gonna take my whole lifetime to undo
The anti-Blackness in my community
The same tactics they used in the Philippines
Control the land through white supremacy
Centered whiteness, made up the model minority
If your liberation is bound up in mine
We can not just pick and choose whatever we like
Filipinos in art, dance and music
I have benefited so who do I align with
When I was a Brown Queer in all white spaces
You gave me a language from which to name it
It's ongoing work to confront what's inside
The way we've hurt you
The way we fetishize
My history shows we fought side by side
From General Fagen to our worker's rights
Our resistance shows we were organized
Against a nation that thrived off genocide
So if I feel discomfort, I need to lean in
Because it means my solidarity strengthens
It's gonna take more than a post and a like
Defund police
Center Black Trans lives
I know I can't see it through your eyes
So I listen for your vision even when my hands tied
If oppression is connected then our freedom's intertwined
Gotta make sure we don't harm each other when we fight
For our freedom, for the land, for each other, for our lives
For our people locked behind bars and enemy lines
For Black and Indigenous lives, for disability rights
We don't get free if we leave anyone behind