A few days ago I spoke with a poet about courage, so, here is my courage in poem form:

WHILE BLACK

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I hold our truths; their tatted on my skin in new news headlines.

I feel them in my brain.

Circling like vultures actions pick at my entity.

Pumping in my blood words simmer down to society's perception of crime.

While black is the crime-

Please feel free to call me culprit.

In the grips of authority my life becomes of game of which one.

Should I die in the streets like an animal or be raided like pest?

While black.

That's my crime.

To walk, maybe jog, skip, or hop I become a threat.

Disney's imaginary villain.

Taking part in this act I become another face in the smoke of black outrage.

Who am I to play with toy guns? Walk home from the store, sleep in my own bed.

I don't have the rights, right?

I'm a criminal.

The bad guy.

The one mommy zips her purse for, the one daddy shoots down for looking in the wrong direction.

While black is the crime.

Face to face with Karen and her telephone I'm not allowed in comfortable spaces- even the one's that just happen to be my own dorm.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness fade into the background; the sound of freedom bells are over rang by the jingle of handcuffs.

My palate of skin is offensive, threatening, too much power, history and story.

Too much truth.

Too many roots.

While black becomes me.

The words assume position in my mind.

I'm not a citizen, but a negroe caged in the zoo of institutionalized racism, capitalism, and hate.

The funny thing is...

they don't even know my name.

I'm just a face, another number, another black looking to live in the world that doesn't shake when I open my eyes.

While black is crime, while living, breathing, feeling is crime.

We aren't equal.

I'm just another villain in a diluted story full of fictional victims with real guns.

I am George Floyd

I am Breonna Taylor

I am Ahmaud Arbrey

I am my community

Another face, another number, another movement.

While black is not a crime.

Just a second more

A moment more

Let it be just a little longer before you go

I want to learn of those shackles

Feel the pain first hand

Just so when they tell me I dont understand

They can be corrected

When they whip me with the words,

"Cotton never touched your hands"

I can respond with that minute longer

A sugar cane beat prolonged

Melanin bleeding over a little longer

Just a second more