Black: Behold Limitless Anger and Cold Knife blades
Do I matter — or only when we’re at Dave & Busters?
Am I too dark for safety or too light for belonging?                                                                                            Will always be seen as armed and dangerous when your skins a weapon
Bodies

Disabled: Doubtfully Invisible Says All But Longing for Equal Deservance
No chair beneath me, but pain still builds its throne.
If they don’t see it, will they call me a fraud instead of human?

LGBTQIA+: Living Guilty Becuz They Quiet Individual Advocacy
I’m not confused — or am I?
My existence is not a debate;
I am a real (Wo)Man, whether they choke on the words or not.
Bodies

Fat: Fitting All Tropes
Every step, a verdict.
Every glance, a sentence.
They call it “the easy way out”                                                                                                   While I carry a lifetime of shame like armor I never asked for.

Jailed: Jacked And Incarcerated Living in Empty Darkness
Does dignity only belong to the unarrested?
Can I get common decency without starving for it?
Is a calendar cautious— or just another thing denied?
Bodies

Protested: Posting Radical Only Tweets for Everyone to See The Everlasting Death
The heat took everything, but their cameras took more                                                                Do you smell that?                                                                                                                    That’s a life unraveling while they chase the perfect angle.                                                           Did the flames illuminate enough for your feed?                                                                        Was someone’s final moment bright enough for you?
Bodies

Don’t eat. Don’t drink. Starve. 

Don’t fight back. Sit there. Take it

protest. 

Break windows. Throw fire. Stand up

March around.  Yell out. Break rules 

^_PROTEST.

Same word, different meaning. One vs the other yet still the same. 

Working towards different ends and starting from the same beginnings yet different.  

Black lives matter 

     All lives matter

My body My choice 

       Their body their life 

No justice no peace 

      Law and Order 

Always a double edged sword that’s never dull.

Never a solution to what’s always there.  

Two sides of the same scream.

Both believe they’re saving the world.

Both afraid of being forgotten.

December 10, 2003. Baltimore Maryland. 6lbs 7oz.  7:30pm.  No pulse. No breathing. No movement. Dead on Arrival.  Blue skin.  Purple lips.  Silence.  monitors sound.  Doctors try to revive her. still no pulse.  Time of death 7:31.  Try one more time. A voice of desperation.  Try one more time…

Some may ask, well what happened. Who was it?  How did the parents feel?  Did the baby die?  Did the doctors try again?  You can’t just leave us on a cliff hanger like that. Where some see birth as a moment a life is born.  For some it’s a moment of grief.  Some a moment of fear.  Some a moment of happiness.  Some a moment of death.  But whose story is it to tell?  Is it the baby being born or the parents who endeavor that pain or that happiness in that moment.  Who is it to say that a baby doesn’t want their story to be told?  They have no say with their own story.  The world can’t write its own story with no pen.  Yet there’s world history.  People can’t tell their own story with no voice.  Yet there are echoes that never fade.  The art of story telling isn’t always just about WHAT story you’re telling.  It’s WHO’S story you’re telling.  Take the pen out of other people’s hands.  Write your own story. 

…December 10, 2003. Baltimore Maryland. Silence. Sound. Silence again.  The story doesn’t end- it just waits for someone to tell it.  Maybe it’s already been told.  Maybe you’ve heard it before. Or maybe…it’s still being written.