From his balcony above a man watches down on a little town in Missouri,  
he pinpoints a bleak silver container as it slingshots into the darkening shadows above.

It yells to him,
"help, get me out of this awful place."
A trial of slate grey smoke follows the container as if it were it's overly attached mother and within a second pulls it back down into the atmosphere.
After descending the container skids across a schoolyard, rolls off the sidewalk and crakes into minuscule pieces.
From the cracks tear gas spills out in all directions covering the once quiet little down in terror, relinquishing it of any tranquility that remained.

The man on the balcony sits and observes the events that have unfolded.
From his perch he can not tell black from white.
He can not tell man from women.
Turban from top hat,
child from elder.
he can not see if interlocked hands declaring their love and denouncing death that blares from police megaphones, are hetero
or ****.
He can not see who's pride is enflamed by blue uniforms
or who's mouth's are covered by dew rags to prevent themselves from speaking a death sentence.

The gas covers it all.

He can only hear footsteps running away,
guns shots following the footsteps,
and unfinished prayers as bodies stain the side walk.

In this moment,
the chess game of life becomes not black versus white
but human versus human.
And the man wonders, from his balcony above,
why it must take weapons that destroy equality,
to make us see each other as equal.