Your name is a sharp thing on their tongue
and they always mispronounce it
and it always has an odd way
of sounding like boy
as it leaves their mouth

they are still spitting the last syllables out
and already their teeth
are full with your ******
and their eyes can’t see
anything wrong here being done

now that you aren’t breathing anymore

and your fifteen minutes of fame
have stretched out
to a twenty minute story
on sixty minutes

if you weren’t already boxed
in oak and velvet
and buried under the ground
maybe you could have enjoyed
the lime light of it all

but there is no joy
surrounding your name today
but thanks to the alchemist
who turned the pound sign
into a hashtag
you’re part of the movement now

hashtag slogan

hashtag your name

hashtag another body breathing
at the wrong time
in front of the wrong fear
being pierced by an old hate
bullet after bullet after bullet
till it isn’t breathing anymore

hashtag slogan

hashtag your name

maybe I already forgot your name
maybe I’m guilty of mispronouncing it too
maybe I’m just too tired to say it
tired of being tired all the time
tired of watching things get worse
tired of knowing we could be better
tired of knowing we should be better

tired of the painful burden of hope
as someone else’s name
falls in line
and becomes part of the movement

hashtag slogan

hashtag your name

i don’t know what comes next
or where you might be

I hope wherever it is
It’s somewhere better than here

Somewhere better than us