A Poem in Two Movements

For the men I have loved and the sons I didn’t give birth to. The truth is not that I have been taught to not love you, the miracle is that I continue to love you, despite…

Movement I

How many more sons must we invest

in freedom before we’re actually free?

The blood that flows through the streets

has become the rivers where we baptize

our dreams and our sons.

In the midst of the rivers of blood

we witness the drowning of our dreams

as it becomes the site where

prison walls are erected on the foundation

of our apathy.

We tuck our sons’ still-warm bodies into the

cracks of a society that has bastardized them.

Black people are America’s love child,

the ones they don’t want to claim. We were

ripped from the arms of our motherland

and made orphans and step-children

with no place to return home to.

Blood-soaked memories run through our veins.

Our bloodlines are fractured along the seams

and we now wear our brokenness

like a satin shawl to cover up our shame.

Can you not hear the people wailing

in the streets? We want to be heard

but we forgot how to use our quiet voice.

Movement II

My heart gets broken, it seems, every day

I can’t take another heartbreak;

so many broken hearts will cause the heart

to disintegrate completely. Every time I see

your blood flowing through the streets

I fall to my knees, to try to wipe away

the bloodstains and the blood memory.

My arms are so damn tired.

Either I’m trying to carry you or I’m trying

to destroy you. – My maternal memory

implores me to seek the face of who you were

once, before they labelled you.

Labels sell false dreams and

they sold one to you. Did you

have to buy it? Consumerism:

the ability to sell you your brokenness

and you accept it like it’s

a birthday gift or your birthright.

The tears in my eyes glitter like diamonds

but from those, you look away. You don’t

want to see the pain you’re causing. Because

they’re not trying to sell you the pain you’re

causing me. To you, this is just part of the game.

I’m just someone for you to get over on.

Somehow you miscalculated the sum of all

my fears, missed the obvious truth: that I’m

crying my eyes out for you. Considered an MVP

you think you’ll win every fight you’re in,

but this is one fight you will not win

because I’m willing to fight for you

to win back that little boy soul that was stolen

from you. Many years ago a trickster stole

what belongs to you…and to me…you were

supposed to be my destiny, not my misery.

But they told you you were dead and you

believed them. But because I love you

I came to uncover the mystery of your death.

You were never dead. Just sleeping. And I

don’t need anyone’s permission to love you.

I already do. And because of that love

I will fight to the end to show you

that I need you, we need you. Whole.