Working on America

I'm getting tired of all these songs singing but nothing of riches and bitches

Stacks of money flowing out my guilty until proven innocent hands

Popped a molly but it's ok because I uber everywhere

Driving a fancy car but they don't think it's yours, you must have stolen it

Maybe, just maybe, you're doing something illegal so it's ok

Let the punishment match the crime

 

Death matches the crime of looking threatening for choosing to have skin that blends in with the night sky

And when your life doesn't cost a dime it gets dropped just as quickly and rubbed off as an accident

But they don't care because all money matters right?

They tell you this while handing over pennies and dimes to the people with permanently curled hands from stitching each thread to a shirt that'll cost twenty dollars, but somewhere, someone else is collecting hundreds

But you don't care right?

 

Because you got designer everything

Can't walk through your home town, though, because they'll steal the shirt off your back as the anger fills their empty eyes that have long ago given up hope and lost their glow

Realizing this system was not built for them and to make it work they must either sell their soul or work twice as hard, but the moment they find a way out then there's a mother crying out because her sons blood has been spilled on the ground with hundreds of others while the earth cries out "I'm full"

 

And so fear seeps in and they don't dare to dream instead turning to another fantasy that promises to take them to another world while giving them all the money they ever dreamed of in this one

Only that fantasy comes with a price

Their life

 

Either at the hands of one sworn to protect them, or it's their own hands reaching out saying "I never knew you" because you stepped on the wrong block, looked the wrong way, said the wrong thing

Disrespected them as though they haven't already disrespected themselves

And you paid late taking them one step further from their fantasy

 

And they're willing to pay this price of their life because all lives matter right?

But theirs isn't a life because they're 3/5 of a person

And so since theirs isn't a full life it doesn't count; it's a discount

They're here on lease; now here comes the repo man to reclaim this one, but oh it's damaged, let's place it in the trash bin

 

You messed up just once and that was enough to get you sent back

But they won't pay your way back, and in some places there's nothing left because they stole the riches of the glowing jewels and precious metals and brought it back home to feed their families all while building their throne on broken bones, all while wearing their beads and clothes and finding pleasure in their life forming anatomy, all while murdering the product of their beastiality fearing what they cannot categorize or place in a box

And no they will not share

 

They come from broken lands run corrupt from greed and power and now they've made the same mistakes- gone feral with greed and power

So those looking for a helping hand can't come in and you claim it's because they just barged in while ignoring the fact that they knocked at the door but you did not answer

Failing to remember the time you barged in yet were met with friendly hands that fed you while you gifted them with weakened systems and left them in cornered deserts to die saying it's ok because now they have Jesus

 

And when we sing these words we are not heard

We are silenced unless they fall from puffed pink lips naturally lightened by the genetics of the rape baby that survived and is viewed as a prize Their profiles read no blacks while they glorify that redbone but she or he is nothing but sexualized

They are ignored from the community that's most affected by their words because no one listened when it was the male clothed in mother earth's very own life forming dirt that dared not be complacent and uttered the very same words

But we did not ignore them rather we did not hear them because the TVs brightness was turned all the way up

Their message was not delivered

Error message not received

It did not reach all audiences the same way it did when a man with eyes of the moon dared speak the same truths

 

But it should not matter because we are one family all on the same mission to fix this household

All of us should be screaming the same message until our father answers us rather than purging us so they don't have to hear our cries

Like a child unwilling to let go of their toy because they do not want to share

Equality looks different when seen from the eyes of someone who has seen the world from a mountain rather than the patches others stand in

 

So let's sing our songs of bitches and hoes as though that's all the world has to offer

Ignorance and sex and drugs and money earned yet you do not get to claim

Caught yourself a redbone or a light skin because somewhere along the line we evolved into two races

And then they'll sing our songs of bitches and hoes and suddenly it has meaning because these words have not fallen from the lips of thugs, hood rats, ghetto bitches

And it is no longer rap or hip hop but "melodic poetry"

 

I like to sing a song that goes "oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me"

Because while we are not in chains plucking cotton or cleaning your rooms, we are judged based off our names, denied jobs supposedly because we do not meet their qualifications, and so we can't afford to pay for the schools that will give us the numbers to pay our way through colleges  and we put our future on an injury hoping to afford that education by throwing balls and running through fields because that's the only time they care about us-

When our muscled bodies are bringing in the big bucks

 

And we are stuck with lower scores, higher unemployment, lower income, broken families, misrepresentation that leads to enforced stereotypes which keeps us in this life or death game of ring around the rosy pockets full of broken dreams unless ashes ashes we all fall down

Then we get to go home to the ultimate slave master that you've given us

 

And so I say that today we are not free

Somewhere out there we are still stuck in the oceans our bodies have been dumped in, on the overcrowded ships filled with crusted vomit and deteriorating feces and piss, in the sun burnt fields, in the alligators stomach, in the woods and rivers where we tried to run without knowledge that we are forever entrapped in a mental torture chamber that drips drops falls into each generation below us while we hang from trees and they call it suicide

Yes we are angry and depressed over the cards we've been dealt and so we play the victim because we are the victim and it's a game we don't know how to win

And you shoot us in the back while we wave our white flags saying fix it we’re broken I don't want to play anymore

 

No we are not free

Yet

 

But Blacklivesmatter is not a statement

It's a movement trying to make the statement all lives matter a truth rather than a sentence

Because if all lives mattered then there'd  be no problem in us finding our self worth and learning to love ourselves from the broad nose kinky curls magic we possess to the price we deserve to be paid rather than be cheated from at the pawn shop

They've grudgingly cut our ropes while also breaking our wings and then they say be happy little bird you're free

While scattering our families, devaluing our lives, degrading our minds, leaving us with nothing but our dignity if we are lucky

 

It's time to find our self worth rather than objectifying ourselves  

Because we are whole

 

This poem is about: 
My community
My country
Our world

Comments

Additional Resources

Get AI Feedback on your poem

Interested in feedback on your poem? Try our AI Feedback tool.
 

 

If You Need Support

If you ever need help or support, we trust CrisisTextline.org for people dealing with depression. Text HOME to 741741