Activist

I don't want to be an activist today cuz

I'm tired cuz I can't remember all these

names 

There are too many names 

Look. I got

evicted from my apartment 

the IRS keeps

stealing my lunch money 

the love of my life is too busy with life to love me back 

and on top of all the shit that

goes on in my life 

the TV told me another tragic 

Another Story 

Another antagonist cop 

Another protagonist shot

if you plant black seeds you might grow a tombstone 

see this show is called ghetto graveyard 

and here I am again

screaming at the screen when the plots thickening

I want to cut the umbilical cords of the Bullhorn in my stomach cuz

I feel more like an Undertaker than an activist 

I'm tired of writing this poem

I'm tired of cleaning the blood 

Social media writes on my fingers

making Twitter feed eulogies 140 characters

Posted Instagram pictures

say all Fox News got is mug shots 

Crying mothers don't make good women crush Wednesday 

see Facebook is a # mausoleum full of # melanin hashtags

are just open caskets for those who

couldn't attend the funeral 

See sticks and stones will break your bones

but a click and a post will turn your empathy into confetti 

I don't want to be an activist today because because I can't

protest tonight 

I got to go to work in the morning 

and I don't want to go to work in the morning 

where I have to eat lunch in my car to avoid the fucking debates

I lose my appetite when I eat with privilege 

I can't eat while biting my tongue
my tongue will poke up my back, my spine, or crawl out my mouth 

there's a revolution rioting in my rib cage 

and I can't mute this mutiny in my body 

This Heart hasn't repaired itself from the last time it broke 

all over the Huffington Post 

I don't want to be an

activist today because I'm tired of drinking morning in my coffee 

because a guilty verdict isn't a resurrection

because it's not that I'm tired of

fighting

I'm tired of having to fight 

last bloody Monday

I woke up out of bed and felt a blue wall of Silence dealing down on my neck

so I sung a Luma Lai a prayer to quami

teray I

 screamed a Mandela so loud I

woke Fred Hampton about his sleep 

and I joined the Stampede of elephants who

love to forget for can't hide their tusks

or unclench their fist 

See, I was born with this war paint on my face and I can't wash it off even if I wanted to

because I am 

because we are the people's army 

and we're here to make ghosts bleed

so the world remembers they were

alive