Sometimes, I am in love with myself.
I force them to witness my love for my melanin
because they would love for me to hate my melanin.
I know that I am seen, but I want to be heard, 
The first amendment allows me to speak, but they refused to hear a word-
that comes from my mouth.
My lips stereotyped as too black.
My diction too proper to act like this,
yet my slang is too ghetto to act like that...
Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to be white.
I hate being stared at when I speak in Spanish.
I never know if it's in disgust or in comfort, 
because the sound of the double "r" rolling off of my tongue
sounds like the ricochet of the bullets they fire from their guns.
Since they no longer can enslave us like animals, they slaughter us
because, "if I can't have you no one can."
I refuse to be put down.
I refuse to shutdown.
My brown skin threatens,
and you all should be afraid.
Because I will banish your negativity with my Latin American flow,
speaking in Spanish with the Bachata tempo filling my veins.
My Ebonics is iconic, 
and I refuse to be put in a box when the world is a sphere.

I... am more... than this.

My Country Tis of Thee,
Sweet land of liberty-
Or so we sing.

Land where my fathers died-
But my forefathers died in a battle
Trying to keep their slaves;
My fathers killed your fathers
For trying to run away;
My fathers **** your fathers
Cause it's late at  night, and
He's reaching for his gun-no, wait,
His ID?

Land of the pilgrim's pride-
But so often we leave out of history
How if it weren't for a Native American,
The pilgrims would've died.

From every mountainside-
Like Stone Mountain in Georgia,
Where Rebel Generals are memorialized,
Where the **** was revived-
God, help me, I can't hear freedom's ring;
I can only hear white-washed history.

From every mountainside-
But these days, the mountain is in my chest,
And liberty's ring sounds a lot different,
And a lot of folks don't like it.

Let freedom ring-
And I want to fight for freedom for all-
#BlackLivesMatter-
I want to help-
HANDS UP, DON'T SHOOT!
But-
I
Can't
Breathe.

Let freedom ring!-
But peaceful protests turn into
Bloodbaths as those who have sworn
To serve and protect are sniped down.

Let freedom ring!-
I try to educate myself
On the side of history not taught-
I've always felt that Nat Turner was the bad guy,
But these days I'm questioning it.
I read "The Meaning of Fourth of July for the *****"
by Frederick Douglass
And I read "Bury Me in a Free Land"
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
and I read "Sympathy"
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
and I read "Letters from Birmingham Jail",
"The Mountaintop Speech", and
"I Have a Dream"  
by Dr. King.

When I was younger,
I'd research Dr. King & his colleagues
For fun.
I'd  wonder, "If I lived in the Civil Rights era,
What would I have done?"

But when I turned seventeen,
I realized, "I live in a Civil Rights era;
What am I going to do?