Lovers of the Dead

When did we become lovers of the dead?

Where did we learn to sugar coat early deaths?

Supplanting the celebrations of life in order to

make room for celebrations of lives unfinished.

How did we teach you that there was value in

dying in a blaze of glory rather than encouraging

you to write your own story?

When did we learn to yearn for the touch of lifeless

limbs as opposed to the touch of another warm body?

How did we teach you to value a black man dead

more than one living and breathing? Who

taught us this bullshit?

Who taught you that the tears of a black mother

belong in a glass jar on a shelf in a closet? Why

must we hide our pain from the world?

Who taught you to mourn publicly the passing

currency of the death of another black body?

Who taught you to seek validation through the

collection of black bodies, the accumulation of

skeletons for the mass grave in your thoughts?

Do you not hear the voices wailing from the ground?

Or see the blood soaking the dirt under the silent

weight of the quiet love of dead black bodies?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind