THE ULTIMATE PRICE
Ever felt much weight on your neck
That makes it feel like you can't breathe?
You can't move your neck?
I have

I can't breathe
I'm struggling finding the balance
between life and death
I've been handcuffed by humans
But it feels like a monster is on me
I got so much to say but despair
whispers and tells me, "Don't speak"
I been living on earth
but today they go strangle me
and I'll live in the hereafter

I can't breathe
I been lost in mind for a minute,
I'm searching for something to do
I look right at the ground and I cry,
I'm helplessly in pain
Earlier I wish mum should have passed away
Now she be alive to see her heir gone
To the land where none ever did return
I got all of these people around me
but I do feel the pain alone
They are helplessly threatened

Then I reflect and wonder
Is this a fellow human on my neck
I have begged and cried
Yes, I've wept
Does he have stone for a heart
Have I earned all these
Or I'm I ilk to Eric Garner
I die like he in the Bay Street

I can't breathe
What's my death-deserving crime?
Being born black!
They put Garner in a chokehold
while arresting him
That's how he died I'm told
And he died for being black
But if being black is a crime
Why not convict me
For being black
And sentence me to death
In a procedural law court

I can't breathe
I'm not even tired, but this is dampening
I'm drowning in pain, it's getting too deep
This weight is enormous
I'm crying for help but don't nobody see
I've been screaming for life
I'm hurt, my hearts full of rage
And blood clots are it its edge
My death is a book that they can't even read

They didn't read I can't Breathe;
A killing on Bay Street
By Matt Taibi
I've been beeding on every page
Our people killed too young,
We're tired of commenting all on their page
We just said a prayer for one survivor of cops purge
and another had his breath cut short
Today it is me
May I know if it's better in space
I hope that you hear while I pray
To God me say
For on way me is

I can't breathe
I'm pressed against the ground
I'm no longer struggling between
They have ensured I've drown,
but they didn't know who I am
I will die and they wont live forever
My blood will water the tree of hope
My death give life to equality
My burial bring systemic racism to deathbed
I rest in peace not a deadbeat bastard
But a symbol of equity
I will rest in peace and blessings
For with my blood
The 'land of the free' will be cleansed

©DMN, 2020