Reparations
A Collaborative Effort With walkerjo lee |Music: Jill Scott-My Petition
pay me for the many bodies slain in cold blood at the hands of their protectors for simply being alive for walking down an unfamiliar street for pulling out a wallet for covering his child with his body for revealing a water gun for breathing air that is free in a country that charges me for water in a plastic cup bound to kill me twenty years from now
for a woman knowing her rights and unafraid to back down when faced by fake authority for gentrification for replacement of all things familiar in a neighborhood that needs complacency to build it up during its struggle
pay me for scheming my ancestors moons ago with slanderish tongues bathed in honey for neverending lies for belligerence for bigotry for disguises in broad daylight for the Ku Klux Klan
that will burn my community by dawn’s early light.
oh, say can you see? for i am owed, much more than can be repaid!
therefore, i have the right: to take a knee on any new age plantation field to reject the bullshit that white supremacy truly is to dodge PEACEkeepers that have a badge to kill
they serve money and the news/poliTRICKS and corporations have quotas and dues/bait trucks filled with shoes?
my country tis' of thee — WE the people, will lose.
i have the right: to be this color face zero damns left to give sacrifice this lie that's become a goddamn disgrace still it questions the I in ME?!
i have the right: to choose an alternate reality to love and live.
i have the right: to be this black moon these copper colored blues to travel with these autumn colored leaves decorated in this auburn flesh skin tones thick with tribe standing with bronze feet in gold suns
textures of faith armed with all this love they said, i couldn’t have/i couldn’t be this speech, touched by godS/moved by ancestors/guided by winds
like, trees/ocean bottoms/creation i ain't to be moved
I AM owed!
i have the right: to not have my skin rigged a weapon against me! how can i be victim AND criminal?!
fuck this place as a nation! i have the right, to be this color of pride
pay me, nation of forgetfulness for years of contemplation and misguided ways for unearthed demons in positions of power for silencers and AK-47s and Mac10s and the nerve to say we asked for it pay me for everything I am due and increase it tenfold
but, how do you put a price on a dwindling race in a nation that wants to annihilate it?
©Tremaine L. Loadholt & Walker Jo Lee, 2018. All Rights Reserved
*No one else could have written this with me. It came to me when it did and I immediately sent the draft to Walker. Thank you for reading.