Sweet
The walls cried tears of what resembled molasses.
Sweet,
were their imaginations of open doors shedding unbiased light.
A reflection of opportunity,
where color is no longer an ambiguous hue.
You are simply, you.
The streets cried tears of what resembled molasses.
Sweet,
the days they thought the revolution had come.
Yet bodies moved from swaying in trees to bullet filled by non indictees.
And they tell me I’m radical.
They told me if I stayed in school and read their books,
dotted my I’s and crossed my tees,
I wouldn’t be wearing one with endless names yielding rest in peace.
They tell me.
I’m radical.
Your political hands wrapped around communities…Stop, we can’t breathe!
The day our nation understands the tears that resemble molasses,
when all lives really matter,
when one group isn’t carrying the weight of unjustifiable remains.
It will be sweet.
When Black Lives Matter,
it will be sweet.
I volunteer with middle school kids, and this week they had a poetry contest, the topic was about love. Some happened to write about the love of their race, and how they hope to be positive reflections. Two days afterwards, I went to an event for work that discussed the continuance of racial segregation in schools through housing and zoning policies. It frustrates me that these situations are still occurring. Maybe that’s where this poem got it’s fire. I wasn’t expecting the first line to lead to the last, but I hope it adds fuel to a successful revolution.
