I wanted to leave it all behind,
but the thoughts kept coming back
to me, each time intensifying, rearranging
itself in drastic measures, breaking
my cells, cheeks dispelled, lips filled
with sluggish tunes as I shouldered
the pain of killing so many black men.
I wanted to take it all back, rewind those
cold and dark nights when the white mob
and I gunned down various black *******,
hanging them to a tree, torturing them
with a flaming torch, staring as they screamed
to the blackened sky like it would come
to their rescue, incessantly laughing,
smoking a cigar as their bones roasted.
The vivid images were horrendous,
extremely excruciating, making me
***** fallen diction, flawed fiction,
crushed consonants streaming to nowhere,
and I remembered it all, the crazed days
I participated in ****** slave men,
showcasing them in large crowds,
snatching their masculinity, all the things
that made them a man, all the things
seeping in my bloodstream, making me
more powerful than they could ever be.
And as I stood outside of my home,
watching the silent blue sky, the tremendous
trees swaying back and forth in unsettling
rhythms, making my heart stop and restart,
the breeze around me filled with madness
and sadness, my soul unable to rest as these
thoughts kept coming back to me,
forcing me to relive every transgression
buried in my existence, every black man
I shot in the heart, staring at them as they
slowly died, every black man that pleaded
for his life, every black man that burned
up in flames, the smoke smelling of their foul flesh.