Post the Tenth 2 or Remembering Trayvon

The judges gavel cracks

My head split in two

Not

Guilty

Innocent slain

Yet cleared of all charges

One more drop

In a swift moving river of blood

–

But this drop

Is an ocean

An expanse stretching back 500 years

Not the first nor the last

A steady stream of souls

Every 28 hours released

Slain

In cold blood

By jackals who fear majesty

–

He was just a boy

And we were just children watching

A farce on the screen

Knock knock

Whose there?

Motherfucker

His life was not a joke

And this is not justice

This is a travesty

A tragedy branded upon our scalps

I ask myself

Are you human?

Are you made of rock?

How do you not see this black boy slain

How do you not SEE

Take your face and press it against the glass

Of his coffin

Grab you by the wrist and force your hands to feel

The stillness of his chest

Pull your eyes open and show you what it looks like

To mourn life

–

I am driven mad

By this wondering

The knot in my throat

Pushing me to desperation

How is your heart so cold

Your mind so calloused

Your conscious so numb

That you don’t see these lives

Human

6 women

Representative of our world

That sees blackness

And cowers in perpetual fear

Sees blackness and thinks

Criminal

But they are not the ones

Who crossed the ocean

To burn and steal and kill

They are not the ones

Who subjugated whole people

They are not the criminals

These 6 women

And the lawyers

And the judges

And their whiteness

Are the criminals

Murderers all

Whiteness is a hell of a drug

–

But I refuse

To lose any more sleep

Worrying about white people

They don’t deserve my energy

Today

I worry about my Black sisters and brothers

Today

I wonder how we can eradicate anti-blackness

In our communities

In myself

Today

I will do what I can to keep my lover safe

Today

I remember Trayvon

Today

I fight for Trayvon