God, Guns, and Trump

One of my drum students started wearing a camo hat that says,

“God, Guns, and Trump”

with a bunch of rifles on it.

He is 9 years old.

And I am a 27 year old androgynous looking woman in oversized men’s clothing, wearing men’s cologne, and with a faded haircut.

So of course he asked me, “are you a boy or a girl?”

“I’m a girl”

He paused, then shrugged and said,

“Okay! Can I play the drums now?”

And as he’s bashing on the snare drum my heart is breaking seeing his smiling little face under the shadow of a man who leans like Michael Jackson over the country waiting to steal little kids souls and place them in the new world order preferably before they’re 18.

That when he grows up, he will be taught that I am everything his family and god hate.

And in schools, kids like him are learning math by the equations “He is > than I” and learning their grammar from phrases like “Don’t tread on me” and that the United States flag is red, white, and blue, but the only color that matters is white.

That rainbow flags and different colored skin are incorrect answers and have to be erased by rubbing their knees into our necks forcing us to raise white flags in defeat.

Listening to their parents play their prophet on repeat:

“I am the lord Donald J. Trump, your god, the best god, the best god in the entire universe, the one who brought you off of the internet, out of the land of the woke left.”

Because most of us want to think these children's parents next door are just barbequing.

Not incinerating bodies by lighting upside down crosses on fire.

With fathers screaming “your body, my choice!” to their wives.

With wives exploiting their children online for views.

With the news cooking up digestible word salads,

because I’ve never heard it called a “Roman salute” before,

but I guess nazi’s have always had a sort of jeu ne se qua attached to them because people don’t like believing that the past repeats itself.

And it doesn’t,

as long as you stop watching.

And now they’re beginning to require children to memorize the 10 commandments in school.

Just like I did when I was their age.

I stayed in line, I did the rituals,

I repented for not recycling.

I don’t believe in god anymore,

but the church taught me how to sing.

How to clap in time, hit the snare drum quietly, even how to stand in front of a crowd and recite stories.

Because I liked being “holier than thou” by following terms and conditions because I wanted to be special. I wanted to be protected. I wanted to be loved.

Until I violated the terms and conditions by falling in love with women.

and these love songs dedicated to a spectre with little room for acceptance,

I now teach children.

As in, the children ask me to teach it to them.

So I “pray” that these children with their god, with their guns, under Trump,

will have mercy on people who don’t look like TikTok Trad Wives or Hulk Hogan.

That these kids never let the question, “are you a boy or a girl?” become an accusation.

That the little gap of exposure to the outside world shows these children that there is an opportunity to be loved unconditionally without the fine print.

That if they’re unholstering their guns at someone who “isn’t right” they hesitate.

Because I hope the memory of me is somewhere in them, knowing I was not a “dangerous criminal” but a human being. Their music teacher.

I’ve already had a little boy tell me, “my dad says you’re wrong.”

and it wasn’t the boy in the hat

yet.