BLM

Since my son Cliff has been better able to express his thoughts and feelings on the movement, I’m sharing his latest poem with the hope it sparks change, and provides inspiration to jump start my own writing.

---

We are each but one voice
Screams into shielded faces
Cascading chants
Words calculated and calmly spoken into a lens
scribbled
typed
stories
poems
Each but one voice
Gaining power as it transforms into a chorus
Attempts to silence
I can’t breathe
My eyes cannot forget
A man’s death over loosie cigarettes
I can’t breathe
The glassy eyed stare at the onlookers
A badge meant to protect and serve
As he choked the life of a man
Another father
Another son
I can’t breathe
The words become louder
The crowds rise like an ocean tide
And somehow this feels different
It has to be different
A time for change
Hands up, don’t shoot
Bullets fly and pierce through flesh
A crime to be in one’s own home
When black
Black voices that can fill your soundtracks
Black hands that can catch your ball
Black bodies in your uniforms
Defending your freedoms
But you won’t extend the same liberties
Because of the color of their skin
So one voice
Becomes two
Which makes way for more
Until the voices of the unseen
Unheard
Drown out all others
The noise
All lives
Respect the flag
Simply veiled racism
And now the cover has been lifted
Exposing the wounds
Hundreds of years of injustice
For all to bear witness
Voices in unison
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
Repeated
And Repeated
Until the words sink in and are truly heard

Advertisement