| Soldiers march inside my mouth
|
| Slide down my throat, crawl inside my womb
|
| And leave a hand grenade in my son’s arms
|
| Pre-birth occupation.
|
| You wait for them to grow up and shoot us unarmed
|
| Dear black Madonna
|
| How many hail Mary’s?
|
| Project holy water. |
| bless these loads we carry.
|
| Pregnant with potential but birthing silence.
|
| Tears taste like violence
|
| Born with middle passage anxiety
|
| Why can’t you feel the God in me?
|
| A million angels follow me
|
| Your system don’t acknowledge me.
|
| Born free
|
| My prayer mat close to me
|
| I’m my ancestor’s priority
|
| Which sound is closer to God’s voice then children laughing?
|
| We the beautiful balance goddess on my block
|
| A special kind of hell.
|
| Razors wrapped in feathers.
|
| Our bodies, wishing wells.
|
| We raise our daughters and pray our sons just make it home from school
|
| We need new rules
|
| Queens created out of red clay dust
|
| Pushed into classroom terrorism. |
| Girlhood rushed.
|
| Our black boys born kings
|
| You try to crucify em
|
| They built with steel and dreams
|
| Who’s the criminal when the global blood is on your hands
|
| We indigenous these streets been our land
|
| You not supposed to see death this early in the morning
|
| If God is an American, then God must be lonely
|
| More killed by police in our cities
|
| Than Afghanistan
|
| The underestimated. |
| Outliving our circumstance
|
| Some of us don’t dance. |
| Some of us got plans
|
| We don’t smile for you. |
| But our laugh is hard
|
| Our new religion includes tearing down privatized prison bars
|
| Black birds fly far. |
| I know who you are
|
| Your bravado. |
| you a super star.
|
| The science of Imhotep
|
| With the heart of 'Pac
|
| We the ones they couldn’t kill.
|
| The chosen. |
| We won’t stop
|
| This is the time for hustlers and scholars
|
| Sunflowers and gun powder
|
| The lies just get louder.
|
| Shout out to the doubters
|
| She can write surahs and psalms
|
| In the same breath cook poems
|
| And write dinner with her left
|
| Rock a mic with her right
|
| And pray her own seeds will be able to
|
| Exchange the heavens for a mirror
|
| And see themselves as the greatest reflection of God |