Amerah

When you lose your art

you cry.

your music,

your drawings, your poems

gone.

there goes happiness.

there goes memories.

there goes progress;

and problems.

there she goes.

I was on a plane

I don't know

the rest.

My sadness reaches down my mouth. 

Her cool slippery hands snatching the breath i have left to breathe 

She persuades my anger to do the same; 

They love to torture together. 

What do I do,  

as a black woman, 

when they get control?   

When the consequences 

don't matter anymore? 

When I watch my people 

get bullied, 

Let freedom ring

a ring we won't get to hear

the ringing of silence that won't come

the world is becoming loud.

soon will start the riots

the protests, the fights,

the deaths.

Red:

The color of blood

The color of the hearts that are going to be ripped out

ripped out and thrown aside.

Red,

the color this country became

as of... yesterday?

White: