As I

As blood gushes out of my wound and spills onto streets that someone in mine or yours were slaves on, 

I do not think about #BlackLivesMatter or #AllLivesMatter.

I think of the full ride scholarships I have to Harvard, Howard, Princeton, Morehouse, and Yale.

I think of the culture I have given up, the styles I created but refused to take part of, the music that I created but never listened to. 

I think of the mindset that I have made for myself  that belittles an essential part of me. 

A mindset created for pure survival...

I think of the role I played from the moment I open my eyes in the morning to the nights I lay my head down to sleep.

Without skipping a beat I gave up the thought of living in hopes to exist.

I wanted my Emmy in the form of existence…

I think of how I am now a statistic and so is the white cop that shot at me.

I want you scream right now! 

I want you to scream like my mother did when she heard I was shot and killed.

I want you to taste my pain as I bleed out.

I want you to feel the color of my skin as I realize that I acted exactly how a black boy should to survive here 

and it didn’t protect me from the bullet that entered my pleural cavity.

I think of my friends that will cry hoping that the tears they shed would bring me back.

How they will ask themselves questions that they are too young to even think about let alone answer.

I think of the smiles I gave to them that were never genuine.

I think of the culture I never saw the beauty in.

I think of the fact that the story of my life is not my own in any sense.

It was the irony of America.

My name is Patriotic.

I plead with you not in anger or sorrow but in relief.

I no longer wonder will I pass by one of the many good cops or am I going to get one of the few ignorant and entitled ones.

A relief I thought that  would only come with money and power.

I blame no one for my death. Not the shooter, not the person who trained him, and not the social norms he grew up around but never questioned.

I blame no one for I was never alive.

So live for me.

 Live so that #MyDeathMatters

 

 

This poem is about: 
Me
My country

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