[Poem: Jessica Care Moore]
Soldiers march inside my mouth
Slide down my throat, crawl inside my womb
And leave a hand grenade in my son's arms
Pre-birth occupation.
You wait for them to grow up and shoot us unarmed
Dear black Madonna
How many hail Mary's?
Project holy water. bless these loads we carry.
Pregnant with potential but birthing silence.
Tears taste like violence
Born with middle passage anxiety
Why can't you feel the God in me?
A million angels follow me
Your system don't acknowledge me.
Born free
My prayer mat close to me
I’m my ancestor’s priority
Which sound is closer to God's voice then children laughing?
We the beautiful balance goddess on my block
A special kind of hell.
Razors wrapped in feathers.
Our bodies, wishing wells.
We raise our daughters and pray our sons just make it home from school
We need new rules
Queens created out of red clay dust
Pushed into classroom terrorism. Girlhood rushed.
Our black boys born kings
You try to crucify em
They built with steel and dreams
Who's the criminal when the global blood is on your hands
We indigenous these streets been our land
You not supposed to see death this early in the morning
If God is an American, then God must be lonely
More killed by police in our cities
Than Afghanistan
The underestimated. Outliving our circumstance
Some of us don't dance. Some of us got plans
We don't smile for you. But our laugh is hard
Our new religion includes tearing down privatized prison bars
Black birds fly far. I know who you are
Your bravado. you a super star.
The science of Imhotep
With the heart of 'Pac
We the ones they couldn't kill.
The chosen. We won't stop
This is the time for hustlers and scholars
Sunflowers and gun powder
The lies just get louder.
Shout out to the doubters
She can write surahs and psalms
In the same breath cook poems
And write dinner with her left
Rock a mic with her right
And pray her own seeds will be able to
Exchange the heavens for a mirror
And see themselves as the greatest reflection of God