When we can't remember your faces
We will still remember your names!
We will still remember the pain
That, like blood
Coursed through our veins.
The anger incited
Each time a victim was blamed.
"Young thug in hoodie armed
with Snapple and skittles"
With storylines that read like riddles.
What do you call a Black man
selling loosies outside a store?
Breathless
And what do you call a people
Who are sick and tired
And can't take any more?
RESTLESS.
We are agitated
but our agitation,
Much like our Brown bodies,
is short lived.
We follow the stories
for as long as they trend
But our angst seems to end
Almost as soon as it begins
We aren't angry enough
Don't take it personal enough
Aren't willing to speak up
If it doesn't directly affect us
But we should all be activists.
We should all be mad at this!
How sad is it
that we can't walk home, work, play...
Can't drive our cars, go to school, pray
There are no safe spaces for us
And there's never any justice for us
Just more hashtags for us
Just more bodybags for us
Candlelight vigils for us.
Protest the injustice? &
They send armored vehicles for us.
We have got to B-more careful.
As the old saints would say
"We've just got to be more prayerful",
But I've given God more than an ear full
And I'm not sure He hears me
He says
He'll never give us more than we can bear
But my tank is running on empty.
StephonClark, MikeBrown, SandraBland
Who's next?
Me?
We carry these little Brown boys in our bodies
We birth them into a world
That sees them as nobodies
That is dark
And carries hatred for them
And we pray for the best.
But even that doesn't seem to see them through.
They are soldiers
In a war that they never asked to fight
And
Our worst nightmare...
They will become casualties of it.
We will stand watch
Over their graves
And cover their tombs
With our tears.
We depart and
When we return three days later
They will still be there.
Lifeless.
There's no second coming for them!
