All lives matter
Is the way I was stopped at 3 am in suburbia center
And how I feared my mother’s disappointment in me
More than my fiery breaths turning to smoke and I am suddenly aflame
And all my other friends are smoking in the fire pit
With marshmallows between their cuts and bruises with bones glued back together just before their funeral
Nobody works in a hospital anymore
So I found some old duct tape in my garage and adhered my hope for the world back together
All lives matter
Is the way I took my dog for a walk at 1 am after a party and a white man buttoned up with a shiny badge and a taser in his side pocket offered me a ride around the block for no charge
I want to say their names
But I feel guilty for singing at sunrise with coffee stained on my shorts while they rot in a place of inequality
We can’t say their names
Without clicking our tongues like playback videos of unarmed black men dying right on the streets I walk my dog on
I can’t breathe
Not because I have bullet inside of my flesh
But due to a life like mine
We say all lives matter
When we really mean
Why do black lives matter?
I can’t breathe
Are the screams we hear when we feel the bullets in our brain dislodge into the world
And there’s just another bullet to bite
But these people lose their teeth when they die