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Broken steps, cracked by the pressure of dreams deferred
Tangled mess of red, white & blue
hung like a noose around the
necks of brown-skinned girls and boys
Brown will eventually turn blue, cold
& potential wasted will
cross the lips and hushed tongues
in the shadows where poverty’s bounced checks are written by the hour
on depleted funds in accounts with names unrecognizable, skin color undeniable
We were never meant to thrive
Institutional oppression, big words that carry the fate of the world on a silver platter, high in the clouds out of justice’s reach
because the notion of justice has been color tweaked
So the world within our minds & hearts becomes a battle zone fraught with fear and protective intentions,
distractions from accomplishments with survival as the means to an end
but it never ends
And faces begin to look real familiar behind glass walls, bars, at desks & on paperwork done with
ink of lost souls, each page more saturated than the next with
societal lies & hatred
We wrote the books on lives unlived with the pain of our silent scars
etched in backs, arms & legs
tortured for centuries by colorless beings who can’t see through our skin to reach our worth