#LovedOnes

They say

If it’s not on Facebook
It didn’t happen
Even though I am not seeing it
I’m pretty sure it’s happening

We keep saying
Never again
Until the next hash tag
Digitally memorializes
The next Black name
Slain
By blue bullets

I can’t watch another video
We shouldn’t have to hash tag
Another father
Hashtag daughter
Hashtag love one

And they don’t get it
They say shit like
What was he doing for the police to shoot him
#AmadouDiallo
Why was she so mouthy?
#SandraBland
Black on Black crime starts young
#TamirRice
Just co-operate with the police
and you won’t have a problem
#TanishaAnderson
#MiriamCarey

It used to be
every 28 hours
but now
They can’t even wait a full day
And I shouldn’t have to wake
To another snuff flick
On Facebook
To prove it’s happening
#DelrawnSmall
#AltonShelton
#PilandoCastile

There is nothing we can do
To change
Being born with black skin
In America
#TreyvonMartin

Our terrorist
Don’t pray to a foreign god
Five times a day
#OmarEdwards
#HowardMorgan

We don’t see something
Say something
Every time someone speaks
Arabic
At a airport
#WhiteterroristkillmorethanMuslimterroristinUS

Our terrorist
Don’t believe
Forty virgins wait for them
In heaven
For every Black life taken
#Copskillmorethanboth

Never again
To us
Is like Amazing Grace
A song
Written by a slave trader
We try to find solace
In reclaiming its meaning
For ourselves
But has as much usefulness
As Nazi forgiveness
During the Jewish Holocaust

The holy cost of equality
Is so sacred
Like forgiveness
It’s only given
To brothers
Fathers
And sons who serve and protect
Blue lives white covenant

But I have a daughter
Aren’t I a father too
Am I not MaeDorothy’s son
Michelle and Nicole’s brother?
Do I not deserve equality
Like forgiveness
For living while Black
In a country where I can’t breathe

When a baby is choking
They tell the baby
Put your hands up
Over your head
To open the airways
So the baby can breathe
I wonder
If #EricGarner’s mom
Said
Just put your hands up
Baby
And breathe
Before he breathed
His last

It’s like they train to kill us

PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME!!
#DanielShaver

any attempt
To defend ourselves
Is an act of war

I’M NOT RESISTING
#FreddyGrey

It’s on Facebook
It’s on Twitter
It’s all over YouTube
It’s real
you can Google it
I want to call this police porn snuff flicks
They have to be getting off on this
They must have a running bet
Who can have the best
Amateur video taken
winner gets
GoFundMe’s for their defense
Ranging in hundred thousand rewards

After the shooting
Of seven Dallas police officers
Ex-representative Joe Walsh
Declared war
On President Obama
And the Black Lives Matter Movement

Dear Ex Congressman
There are no hash tags
Before those police officers’ names
No makeshift memorials
Where those officers were slain
No digital media press play icons
For us to view
Over and over
Desensitizing Americans
To gun violence against police
Like it is for gun violence perpetrated by police
Killing unarmed Americans

If it is now war
Then I guess
The constant and continual
Murder of People of color
Is a Holocaust
Redlining practices
Chunked out American concentration camps
and instead of sewing stars on our lapels
we simply just had to be born

No gas showers or
brick oven human roasting rooms
just brass encased hot lead handcuffed baths
in asphalt and concrete blood pools
#MichaelBrown
#OscarGrant

It’s no wonder
State police uniforms
Look more like SS than US
I mean
Look more like Nazi
Than us

Dear America
If I am pro something
I am not against something else
I shouldn’t have to choose
Between the police
And the people
The police are sworn to protect

This is not a Black problem
This is an American problem
I don’t want a hash tag
In front of my name
Just because of my skin color
And don’t tell me
All lives matter
Because if all lives mattered
Then Black Lives Matter wouldn’t exist

TheNcredibull, 2014