Unequally democratic,
Laws made equally,
punishments biased.

Kills for the Black man,
Patience for the white.

"I can't breathe"
He cried.
Phones recorded,
Yet
He died.

A black man's life,
At a packet of cigarettes price.

A white man kills,
Yet still alive.

Justice we seek.
What they had promised to provide.
Yet we take on these streets.
Again, to fight.

We take on these streets with your name in bold.
History books will proclaim you as gold.

In hopes that your name will be the last.

We will fight 7 years for your 7 minutes.
We will breathe.
We will breathe.

Dear George Floyd.

I write this to you today in hopes that your soul is in peace.

I write this in hopes that your martyrdom won't be another headline or simply another name in the papers. I write this in hopes that perhaps another man of Color won't lose his life to racism.

I write to you today to let you know that we will fight. We will fight so no man has to lose his life because of the color of his skin. We will fight so no race is called "thugs" again. We will fight for another 7 years for those 7 minutes of pain you felt.

Our fight is not over. Our fight has just begun. No man's life will be as cheap as a packet of cigarettes again.

25 May 2020, and George Floyd will be remembered.

Cut like diamonds
with parts undesired
he stood on his lonesome
while heaven admired
the curves of his shoulders
and behaviour to be scolded
he was feminine but potent
neither David nor Moses
caught me like a net could
with the softness of manhood
both eyes and mind and brothers understood
like he knew they would
swayed in a dance
melted like glass
oh to understand
the essence of man

I.

Bless the salt,
not from tears
but
from the water
from the air
from the Spartina grass
that laps it all up.

Bless the Plough mud,
full of nutrients, exfoliants,
that'll have you sinking, sinking, sinking
if you dare to enter.

Bless the beach.
Bless every shell,
broken and whole,
still beautiful.

Bless every dead jellyfish I saw
washed up on the shore,
managing even in death,
and still deserving of life.

Bless the dolphins
who've made this place
home.

Bless every pelican
which must
hunt relentlessly,
which must eventually
die for the hunt.

Bless the Carolina Gold,
which in the end,
tasted like regular rice.

Bless the history of this place,
the good and the bad and the ugly.
May we not forget any of it.

II.

Remember.

Remember
what t felt like
to feel toes in sand,
salt in hair,
cold, cold water lapping at feet.

Look at a shell
and make it mean more
than a vacant home.

Remember
the hunger of wanting to know
everything about this place.

Take that hunger back North,
where you must eventually go.

Remember
what it felt like
to move your body
to see something other than
city streets and bars.

It sounds cheesy,
but you need nature
more than you know.

And
you may never come back here,
but
remember
you can always find it.

Find it.

like water
I poured myself into her until she was overflowing at the brim

like reinforced steel
I bridged my heart to hers and welded myself to her soul

like the sun
I filled myself with light to cover her darkness

like a blanket
I shielded her from the harsh world underneath the covers

like magnets
I orbited her aura until we inevitably collided

like a seed
I felt myself growing up from her

Then, like an idiot
I could tell she felt nothing.

Sometimes I breathe
Sometimes with ease
Sometimes my breath even gives relief
But sometimes like most times in life
Breathing and believing that it should feel nice
Is nothing but a dream when you've been suffocating on inside