I'm a 17 year old man.

Black as can be. 

Raised in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Where they hang us from trees.

Like a low bearing dark fruit,

swaying in the breeze.

Rabid animals circling round the suffocated corpses,

looking for their next meal.

Scars across my back

from when they took me to the field.

They said this is all I'll ever amount to.

It's either crop work or jail.

All these people that claim to be Christians,

putting me through Hell.

I went home and cried to my mother.

Did I mention that this was third grade?

Where I saw men with hoods

and my brothers getting flayed. 

You grow up in this oppressive environment

and they wonder why we act out.

It's because you neglectful niggas 

never heard our shouts.

So many of us want out of the hood and dream of far off places.

But y'all keep us down in the dirt. The dirt you shove our face in.

Fuck your anthem and fuck your flag too.

I'll show you my memories

and how they're stained with red, white, and blue.