One Million Shattered Souls (America the Beautiful)
"The Land of the Free"
Was written by White men
As they fearlessly planted their feet on the black and brown bodies they burnt and bled to get there
And did not stop to smell the irony
397 people killed by police this year
(As of May 3rd 2017 6:01 pm,
Doubtlessly to be updated by tomorrow
Or perhaps in another few minutes)
"To Protect and Serve"
Read the bloodstained badges
And smoking gun barrels
Of our public defenders
As they bellow at dead-men-walking:
Put your hands up!
As though they are not the modern reapers
Born to sow death where they walk.
This is not a country made great
When our brothers and sisters
Black and Jewish and Muslim and Female and Gay and Brown and Trans and Wrong
Walk with their lives clenched in their fists by their keys
And in the pockets of their hoodies
Wondering:
Is this the day I die?
Look me in my weeping eyes
To tell me this country is great today
And I will show you the corpses
Of a million shattered souls
Who believed the same thing as you.