Skittles Tea

I’m on ten

so much is being said about Trayvon

I don’t want to speak

the thought of it  fills me with anger

and hopelessness

but I know I can’t give up

I know this is what the beast does

this is white supremacy this is injustice and this is not new

we know this beast oh too well

and that is why though angry and sad many of us were not surprised

it happens all the time

on  grander scales everyday

multiply one black boy dead with nothing but skittles and ice tea  in his hand

with over 100 other unarmed black men killed by men in uniforms just last year

with all the women raped last night

plus all the black and brown bodies behind bars

fighting for sanity struggling to hold on to their humanity in the the dungeons of the PIC

plus all the seniors on fixed income who are hungry and huddled around boxed fans in 80 degree apartments

counting the last of their medications which are slowing killing them to keep them alive

but what does all that have to do with Trayvon they will cry

there will always be those who deny whats clear as day

they are invested in the myth of white supremacy

they lust after the spoils of capitalism

they benefit and profit and find comfort in it all

whether consciously or subconsciously

their just happy to be middle class or at least not one of those lazy poor people

they believe he must of got what he deserved

so much is being said about Trayvon

its a sticky hot summer night and I am boiling with sweat and melting in tears

its just another painful reminder

we still 3/5s even less than that

the stats of this judicial system boast

so the struggle continues

yes “we who believe in freedom can not rest”

but I don’t want to be equal with white

in order to be valued

After all shouldn’t freedom equal rest?

talking about why the verdict was not guilty

trying to find reasoning in a corrupt system … insanity

I’m so angry I just want to punch Zimmerman’s smug face

I don’t want to kill him

he’s not worth blood on my hands

just punch him around a bit

let him know we see right through you

you are the suspicious one

with your brown skin worshiping whiteness

upholding this status quo

murdering a child thats a special kind of low

what makes us want to have children in a country

that continues to devour our young, starve the old, and jail the strong?

Sometimes it gets thick

the weight of this struggle

the reality of our plight

sometimes injustice spits in my face

I weep and wipe sour saliva from my eyes

tonight they are stinging with the pains of a good cry

tonight slow sad songs are playing

my liquor is pouring

and I’m humming along for my life

for the lives lost and the burden of those still living

today I read of a black woman who watched a old white man

shoot her 13 year old son

he accused him of stealing  guns

what made him think he could

look this boy’s mother in the eye one moment

and shoot her son point blank the next

insanity, white supremacy 2 sides of the same coin

I weep for him for her

for those of us who walk in the skins of the “suspicious” ones

for every woman who will be told she deserved it

for those of us who’s capacity for greatness

is overshadowed by lust for power, control,

and the comforts of an identity rooted in the misrepresentation of we

tonight Luther,Jill, Chrisette and Kem

are singing me through my grief

I’m grateful for the way their voices

guide me to the depths of sorrow

with gentle romantic soothing alto baritones

their melodies remind me pain is not new and love is still real

every lusty, sultry, melancholy note screams

its ok to be angry, to weep, and to love as the struggle continues