The Justice Salve

Black and brown bodies
Have been desecrated,
Sacred structures
Have been desecrated,
Democracy
Has been desecrated,
By hungry hands,
Seizing power,
From lives, minds, hearts,
It is taken,
To feed a machine,
That converts likes
Into hateful rhetoric,
That converts hateful rhetoric
Into costed lives,
We stand on stolen ground,
Watered with the blood and tears
Of ancestors,
Who could see but not fully know
The scope of all,
Of what really was,
Or was to come,
We stand because our forebears fought
For the right to stand shoulder to shoulder,
To link hands,
In community of giddy multitude,
That makes the powerful quake,
We stand because
We have been desecrated,
And justice
Is the only salve
For these wounds.

Lungs

“I can’t breathe,”
He said,
And the choke held,
And he couldn’t breathe,
Until he couldn’t live,
We can’t breathe,
We are dying,
Everyday,
Physically,
Mentally,
Emotionally,
The choke holds,
Until no air can pass through bruised lungs,
Until no life can fill our vessels,
This is all part of the plan,
The slow deflation of lungs.

Reasons

August 13, 2017
I want peace
You want peace
While the powers that be
Tear us into pieces
White
And Black,
Red,
Yellow,
Brown,
You were not my enemy yesterday
But today you demand blood
And power
And strip others
Of their rights
Of their skin
Did they tell you
Why to hate the darker,
There must be a reason,
There must be a good reason,
But no matter the reason,
There is always a reason,
To love