When you’re shot down in cold blood in the streets
When you’re choked out for selling loosies pleading “I can’t breathe”
When you’re still breathing lying helpless on the ground under white sheets
When GoFundMe’s are set up for funeral costs and killer’s lawyer fees
When the system’s been broken, ain’t no justice, no peace
When another hashtag and video footage makes you madder and sadder
When paid administrative leave leaves pigs pockets fatter
When I’m in a constant rage cause it seems Black Lives don’t Matter
I’m still unapologetically Black
You can’t break my spirit
You can’t make me fold
You can’t kill my vibe
You can’t take my soul
After slavery, lynchings, bombings, Jim Crow, and mass incarcerations
My people...
We’re STILL unapologetically Black!

I am an example of resistance
I hang from manufactured rope 
On the Tree of Life
I didn't live a Brothers Grimm fairy tale
Conceived into oppression
I was wise beyond my years 
But I've never received a White man's education 
Only domination 

I was bought and sold like sheet metal 
I've been called boy 
Inferior to my Superior 
I've been violated and raped
No one heard my screams
I was tamed like an animal
I was a field hand and a house nigger
I've picked the fabric that creates
My Master's shirt 
I've wiped his children's noses 
And prepared his daily meals 

I've tried to escape to new freedoms
Only to be brought back to plantation land 
My footprints were imprinted in Southern soil
I've been beaten without reason
My whips never healed 
I was fed up with His rules
I rebelled

Now my lifeless body dangles
Helplessly 
Before you from a noose
My legs sway to and fro
My eyes are blood-shot red 
I am an example of resistance
​
This is dedicated to my ancestor's who paved the way so that I may live freely today. 

I was listening to Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" and my mind wandered. I imagined the "strange fruit" telling his life story to the people who watched him die.

*A poem from "Just My Thoughts: Mind, Body & Soul", published July 18, 2006. ​