They think that cos they wearing badges that
its power, feeling it be like they wild west.
          thinking they catching outlaws.

When they the ones letting the shots hit unarmed
                                           hands on his head.
but they not moving as he shouted gun.

It wasn't even a mobile, they just trigger happy
                       in blue as the family was in black.

Tears aren't bringing his last word back,
                       Mum, Daddy,
last cherished thought his baby girl.
Tears fell silent as they had knees on his neck,
                         what the **** he dead
yet you thinking he needs cuffs,
                                   morality took a side step.

No one is on their knee no more,
         hands held at height trying
to reach the fallen to show that they
still being reached for.

I promise we ain't forgetting any fallen,
       we'll reach high walking the streets.
   They ain't holding pistols to this many.

Hands-on heads showing peaceful metaphors,
          we shouldn't have to be scared
of a badge that's meant to protect
                               not a knee on a neck.


Or a gunshot on an unarmed person,
                   due to his demographical heritage.
                     another fell like a tree in a forest.

But every flower has a camera and nothing
falls silently anymore.

The illusion of elegance,
copied from her mother.
Childhoods left undealt with,
but she wears her traumas
around her neck in that
beautiful southern style
passed down from her mother.
Enforces her new rules,
ignoring the past that got her there
for a new sense of priority.
Her pearls are lost,
sold long ago by someone else,
and she has forgotten
what they stood for.

invisible umbilical chord
ties me to you
feeds me love
even in your death

i inherited your fight    
to make sense of the nonsense
you live in my rebellion
against the world

i’m bleeding out screams through
words on the paper
if I don’t make sense that’s because
death doesn’t either.

will you protect our
heritage?

will you tell mom the
truth about us?

would you die for
me when they shoot at
us again?

last time nine
bullets hit me as i hustled
to save
tizzop

We board on the lazy sea crawler,
us cowards, in tea and cream and glory.
Martha, hands in her hair, in her sweet age;
We lurch, cold, remaining in sweeter earth,
And I into Sam's cloud of august.
We are hearts only bent on fame,
While the ashes of our cousins —
A new lineage in lieu of dirt —
Begs us in their choral aching for a keening.

My hair is black and yours is yellow
But they never call it that;
Blonde, or like spun gold
Stunning, precious, unattainable.
But you have it,
Like I’ll never have you.
My hair is black but my skin
Is yellow
They call it that
“Slant-eyed”, “foreign”, “unnatural”
At eighteen, I broke black locks with bleach
(I’ve always wanted to be blonde)
And it didn’t look natural at all
I will never be blonde, I will always be
Yellow.
They ask: What are you?
“American, like you”
But they roll their eyes
They tell me to forget my native language
And I don’t know how to tell them I already am
Black and yellow
I think of me then think of bees, and recall
Being stung in the first grade, and how
Ever since, I’m paralyzed at the thought
Of black, and yellow
Black and yellow
Save the bees! on shirts and posters
But no one is saving me.