It seems a silly, foolish thing: obscure
abstracted expectations heeded sure.
However, comfort found or shred in thread,
defiance! Liberation for the dead
to overthrow, reject, deny decrees
imposed from fears that freedom means disease.
Because it chokes, barbed-wire laceration
began with shouts of divine damnation,
outpours a strangled, blood-laced river with
no end—laws unaware of gender’s myth.

To them, I am a thing one can acquire.
Behind eyes worn,  I tire— Oh! How I tire
of worth and value foisted most unjust.
Disgust conceals (reveals) clandestine lust;
they loved (and also often hated) me
for what I am and what I never will be.

Regain, redeem
Resign, retreat
Dare you Overlook again,
The potential beneath,
Jump higher,
Fall again,
Dive deeper within,
Blind the empty eyes,
Mute the shallow words,
Painful rather than dead inside.
Bleeding scars, sarcasm dies.
Bullied emotions, scared and dried.
Wrong views, ill news just glance and deny.
Write your pain with passion for life.
Flood your rights with ink you buy.
Speak for the weak and pull down lies.
The power of your pen
is beyond what you deny.
Don't see wrongs and scroll ahead.
Write the revolution and turn those heads.

Every day the delirium grows
That our actions don't change our fate.
It's only the scarce few that know
That what we do determines Earth's expiry date.

The more forests that we set ablaze,
The weaker our planet gets.
The more companies that say that it's only a phase
The more people begin to forget

That countless children
Are failing to see a future
Countless children
Have never seen the beauty of nature.

But if we stand together
And we don't fall apart
Everything, we will weather
And a change we will start.

Countless humans
Are begging for a planet to live on,
So countless humans
Must stand up and be relied upon
To make that possible for their fellow brothers,
Sisters, friends and everyone who suffers.

Compassion informs my outrage,

Skinny black kid,
super sensitive
playing the violin
for kittens,
pacifist vegetarian
tried to tell policemen
“I am not violent.
I’m an introvert.
I am different,”
as they choked him
then had paramedics
dose him
with ketamine.

Buds of pain
do not bloom
but burst, spray,
and sprain
my brain
that was self-trained
in the art of
kindness and reason.

It takes
less than five minutes
to break a mother’s heart,
to tare her world apart,
to shatter and claim
that they are not to blame
after unloading a full clip
on an autistic thirteen-year-old
who wasn’t mentally equipped
to do exactly what he was told.

Love and mercy
should rule the day
but cops make
violence great again.
Human suffering
is not magic
just unnecessarily tragic. cont.

Micheal Brown,
Eric Garner,
Tamir Rice,
George Floyd,
Freddy Gray,
Breonna Taylor,
Elijah Mcclain,
Linden Cameron,
Jacob Blake,
and so many other names.
There has to be a better way.

Some spark brighter as the days grow darker,
Beautiful torches lit as the world gets ugly.
My friend, you burn too fierce for your own health.
My spitfire comrade, you rant against the system,
You glow like a warm hearth in the rain.

Our doctor darts around lightening the burden.
One kind heart shines like a candle in a window.
The mourners on the hill stand rose-gold in the sunset.
The singers around the massive drum in Kitigan Zibi
Strike the ear as a bonfire strikes the eye.

It gives me hope. My friend, you give me hope.
I will feed it with the glee of a pyromaniac.
Wildfires rage in the dying forests; we rage back,
Sparking bright as the days grow dark.

Couldn’t be bothered to remove your knee
from a man’s neck.

Couldn’t be bothered to protect
the huddled masses of poor,
when you and your buddies can make more
from building machines and waging wars.

Couldn’t be bothered to tell our youth
the deep and painful truth
about our history.

Couldn’t be bothered until you were
inconvenienced;
Until your bosses see this
and you get in trouble
for vile rants.

Couldn’t be bothered to be
a decent human being,
and you wonder why
people cry,
let it burn.

We are the youth
Full of "fcked up kids"
Up to "no good"
Trying to "fck with you"

We are the youth
That wants something new
"Live in this world
But have no clue?"

You try not to see
What we could be
If you would stop making us bleed

We fight for our lives
'Cause we're nothing to you

Just walk in my shoes
And see what you do

I'd rather be part of this youth
Than stuck in a loop
Of narcissistic views

"No one is safe with these kids on the loose
Trying to take the world from you"

Listen to us now
We are the youth
We are the youth
that won't be subdued

We fight for our lives
'Cause we're nothing to you

Frustration I can understand,
Devastation I cannot bear,
King saw the promised land,
In the dream that we all share.
Tear that falls or persevere,
Across the land of ‘opportunity’,
Where do we go from here?
Chaos or community?
We sat through hate in Woolies,
Walked past Birmingham’s barks,
Rose a people ravished in slavery,
Yet in this stand tarnish Parks.
Voices are clearer than crackles of fire,
Change must be built peace by peace,
Though I know the situation is dire,
One must show beauty to tame the beast.
We will never see the coming of the lord,
Through the suffocating smoke, of the horde.