Sandra Bland put out your cigarette,
she said
“you slammed my head into the ground
do you not even care about that?”
I fear what would happen if you do not even care about that
I fear that black women are saying they promise to never kill themselves in police custody,
just to be sure,
just to be safe,
safe like dancing on a ladder in the middle of a lake,
are they ever truly safe?
and even if their heads are slammed to the ground they will not kill themselves.

put out your cigarette,
what would Sandra Bland have said about this if it were another black woman,
another black woman who didn’t put out her cigarette
and ended up with her mugshot on the news
and like dreaming of an ocean full of wine,
Sandra Bland wanted it to be known that black lives matter,
that her opinion matters,
and that whether or not she killed herself, police bias toward her skin
indirectly or directly ended her life and

the Texas Department of Public Safety said she was argumentative and uncooperative,
because she wouldn’t put out her cigarette.
the officer said with a taser in hand that he will
“light her up”
but not her cigarette and instead her body.

horror,
a garden filled with fire,
the horror only a family can understand,
the horror of having to say please don’t politicize my daughter,
my sister,
my cousin,
my niece,
I’m poemicizing her and I’m sorry but Sandra Bland is a poem,
a poem about a person with thoughts and a family and a mugshot
and a cigarette.