Featured Image: Nathan Dumlao
Derek Chauvin is
Guilty of second-degree murder
Guilty of third-degree murder
And guilty of second-degree manslaughter.
Are the first words I wake up to
This ugly truth I always knew
But they wrapped up under that statement
It was one bad apple
Asking, What was George Floyd doing?
As if it mattered
When his only weapon was his Blackness
Yet they plastered his death to Instagram, Facebook,
Snapchat, anywhere I could turn my head and look
At another one of my skinfolk murdered
And turned into entertainment or some great moment of revelation
For white masses that turned their heads away
From the swing of Strange Fruit
Or the ravings of problematic uncles at dinner parties
So when they yell this verdict
I fall apart yet again
Watching as blood flows
Where I think I’ve cauterized this Grief
This Black Pain they carved into my skin
Before my eyes even opened
And my tongue began to wag
A newborn carrying the weight of an ugly history
I now bore the scars of
This pain I’ve carried because this skin offends them
In a world where being Black
Will always come with consequences
This White World where my anger must be calm
And my grief some soft thing
To be analyzed under expert white eyes.
So I fall again in this pit of Grief
Grinding my teeth where this pain pushes again
Deep inside of me
Forcing out this peace I’ve glued together
Out of the tattered remains of my sanity.
But then they plaster Sacrifice
Next to George Floyd’s name
That ugly word they speak with ease
Saying he gave a great sacrifice
Like some sacrificial lamb that decided
To walk right into a white man’s slaughterhouse
All for some damned Greater Good
Though what good is this White World
That swallows Black and Brown bodies up whole
Only to spit up lies and crocodile tears?
But that hideous rotten word drips in my mind
Sacrifice
Like being murdered for being Black
Is some great honor
In this world where to be Black
Is to be guilty until proven innocent.