BLACK BOYS WHO DRIFT TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN

Give me my sons back

Give me our sons back.

Black boys are endangered species

I don’t want no more gloomy days

Six and handcuffed.

Eight and assaulted.

Twelve and charged.

Fifteen and drowned.

                        All were black,

Black boys

are made into offerings for America.

Little black boys die

and the media raves

about them being criminals.

I know black boys

Who have drowned.

No one ever tried to save them.

Where is his safe space?

He is a martyr.

He knows hunger better than his alphabet

knows gentrification better than his times table

knows at 5 the streetlights come on and he can’t be a kid anymore.

I tell them

“do not make fun

when he scarfs food down

like he’s eating for two.”

He’s  compensating

for the meal he’ll sacrifice to give

over to his little brother later

while being lectured by pop on it

being  a ‘dog eat dog world.”

Restraint, is key in survival.

This is a man’s world.

No room for religion.

He doesn’t know God exists to pray to,

Doesn’t know Church.

Only  knows men tattooed in “Keep God first.”

How do you teach  him prayer works?

Don’t we love our black boys?

So why we kick them like buckets

Black boys die and don’t hear the “I love you,” until after the burial.

Whispers like-

I love you Tj and I wish I would’ve told you more and I wish we could’ve had more time because you were my baby and I should’ve protected you.

Graveyards are the new clinics for black moms birthing brown babies.

How do we convince

black boys they matter?

Before they drift too far into the sun.

Before we can’t see them anymore.

How do we convince black boys they matter

When racists patrol them,

America rents its black boys

Killed off after they can no longer be exploited.

What happens when breathing

makes them brute.

What happens when breathing

When society forgets

To Let black boys live.

Let black boys dream.

Let black boys feel.

Let black boys cry.

When they are no longer just an endangered species.

Just trophies to wear on white men’s necks for hunting sport.

And a museum for us to remember only what they once were to us.

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