[Poem: Jessica Care Moore]
~#**************#~
Soldiers march inside my mouth
~#**************#~
Slide down my throat, crawl inside my womb
~#**************#~
And leave a hand grenade in my sons arms
~#**************#~
Pre-birth occupation.
~#**************#~
You wait for them to grow up and shoot us unarmed
~#**************#~
Dear black Madonna
~#**************#~
How many hail Marys?
~#**************#~
Project holy water. bless these loads we carry.
~#**************#~
Pregnant with potential but birthing silence.
~#**************#~
Tears taste like violence
~#**************#~
Born with middle passage anxiety
~#**************#~
Why cant you feel the God in me?
~#**************#~
A million angels follow me
~#**************#~
Your system dont acknowledge me.
~#**************#~
Born free
~#**************#~
My prayer mat close to me
~#**************#~
I’m my ancestor’s priority
~#**************#~
Which sound is closer to Gods voice then children laughing?
~#**************#~
We the beautiful balance goddess on my block
~#**************#~
A special kind of hell.
~#**************#~
Razors wrapped in feathers.
~#**************#~
Our bodies, wishing wells.
~#**************#~
We raise our daughters and pray our sons just make it home from school
~#**************#~
We need new rules
~#**************#~
Queens created out of red clay dust
~#**************#~
Pushed into classroom terrorism. Girlhood rushed.
~#**************#~
Our black boys born kings
~#**************#~
You try to crucify em
~#**************#~
They built with steel and dreams
~#**************#~
Whos the criminal when the global blood is on your hands
~#**************#~
We indigenous these streets been our land
~#**************#~
You not supposed to see death this early in the morning
~#**************#~
If God is an American, then God must be lonely
~#**************#~
More killed by police in our cities
~#**************#~
Than Afghanistan
~#**************#~
The underestimated. Outliving our circumstance
~#**************#~
Some of us dont dance. Some of us got plans
~#**************#~
We dont smile for you. But our laugh is hard
~#**************#~
Our new religion includes tearing down privatized prison bars
~#**************#~
Black birds fly far. I know who you are
~#**************#~
Your bravado. you a super star.
~#**************#~
The science of Imhotep
~#**************#~
With the heart of ‘Pac
~#**************#~
We the ones they couldnt kill.
~#**************#~
The chosen. We wont stop
~#**************#~
This is the time for hustlers and scholars
~#**************#~
Sunflowers and gun powder
~#**************#~
The lies just get louder.
~#**************#~
Shout out to the doubters
~#**************#~
She can write surahs and psalms
~#**************#~
In the same breath cook poems
~#**************#~
And write dinner with her left
~#**************#~
Rock a mic with her right
~#**************#~
And pray her own seeds will be able to
~#**************#~
Exchange the heavens for a mirror
~#**************#~
And see themselves as the greatest reflection of God
