When it was ruled no longer a crime to kill boys with dark skin,

The earth piled her willpower like death warmed over

And left it to rot.

When the justice system traded in its law books for a color wheel,

The cries of anguish shouted through hollows

Of loved one’s broken bones

Became routine procedure.

When the following acts in combination were deemed criminal:

Walking alone at night

And wearing a hoodie

While being black,

The winds shuttered at the force of this wrong

But were silenced

Between the closed doors of a courtroom.

When a gun learned how to change meaning

In the hand that was holding it –

A weapon in one, a safety measure in another,

Status became currency and traded trust for hate.

When racism was encrypted into textbooks,

Lurking thinly beneath the veil of social structure,

The sparrows who swooped to uncover its identity

Were struck down by lies carried on the sharp tip of a swift arrow.

When police brutality was thought

To be a relic of the past,

Ghosts awoke to tap shoulders and summon

Those who remember and are willing

To call violence by its name.

When white privilege was said to be a vicious rumor

And truth switched out for words spilled sticky sweet

Like honey dripping through pale pink lips,

Integrity closed its weary eyes and kept sleeping.

When the Mike Browns of the world

Were criminalized for being shot dead in the streets

And the Darren Wilsons made holy for their accurate aim,

The shed blood of history began boiling in the

Dirt belly depths of hurt

And rose from both headstones and

The worn soil of unmarked graves,

Spilling, rushing, rising, and seeping

To wash clean

The blind eyes of unbelievers

And restore their sight.

When the sky drew water from the ground

To weep sorrow over creation

For the bruised and broken men

Who cannot cry on their own behalf,

Who have lost the chance to tell their stories

Or see home again,

Humans selfishly shielded their own bodies from this salty rain

And expected flowers to grow,

Fertilized by the decaying flesh and teeth

They had not wanted to notice.

If we are expected

To come to terms with “the way things are”

And accept smoothed over half apologies

As pathetic replacements for fact,

Then I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.

I cannot relate to a people

Who would burn their humanity to keep warm,

And I could never love a god

Who would call his saints to worship

Over graves built from the splintered bodies

Of black children stolen from their mothers’ hearts.