I have many enemies

One happens to be the inner me

I question the excellency of this Black energy

True, I am great, as are all of us

Yet blood graces the pavement 

and they ask why we fuss 

I’m furiously fumbling reality,

which is foolish and full of s**t

Dealing with what the ancestors were dealt,

as they stepped off ships

The shackles are shameful,

but I turn them into bracelets

Let my blackness become a statement, it’s raw, it’s naked

Are we producing for this country as we did before?

Still athletes, singers, actors, but don’t use our voice?

As if we’ve been stripped for our tongues,

Tuning into the terror and torment

While police guns shoot, how am I to remain dormant?

Dormant, I couldn’t be, open the door and you will see I am worth living

Only looking for what was promised to us in the beginning

Pursuit of happiness, life, and liberty

Except it didn’t apply to us literally

The illiterate, certainly were not the free

And the icy palms of injustice cause my heart to freeze

I’m faltering, stumbling, my legs can’t hold my knees

We are forced to thrive in this country where we were never truly counted

I’m talkin 3/5th’s

Was freedom ever such a thing

Or such a sweet myth

When my sister and brethren lay in eternal sleep

Or they bar behind those cells silently screaming

Woe is me

A body, another hashtag

Blind to the body cam

Black Bodies

Black Caskets

Black Hearses

Black Bleeding

Black Masses

Black hurting

We’re hurting

I’m hurting