Striving to walk harder

(poems go here) Striving To Walk Harder 1. A 15 year old black teenager was 2. Arrested for the death of a 3. 26 year old teacher 5. A 30 year old black man 6. Was arrested for being in the possession of 7. A 32 caliber hand gun 13. 2010 14. America’s first in history 12 year old murder 15. And sentence to prison 17. And I’m scared, mama 18. Its’ hard to walk with expectations 19. When America expect for you walk with ignorance 20. Strap to your Achilles heel 21. And we looked at as if 22. Education is our last priority 23. And me, Oh I’m going to be another lazy black man 24. Abandon his child 25. And leave them clinked to question marks like mother clinked to babies 26. Wondering what was their mistake 27. Mama 28. Do you remember telling me that just because 29. I was dyslexic 30. I am more than what people label me as 34. So I will rip off diagnostic labels 35. That try to box me in about not being the poet I am 36. I get on this stage with the oppression of a proud black boy 37. I’m bending backwards 38. So that God can hear me loud and clear 39. Because I’m like a acrobat somersaulting, 40. Flipping flash backs of my mother 41. Tight rope walking on the grace of God, 42. So I need you to have a seat, and 43. Hear here 44. Because this is the only form of praying I can do 45. For my mother on this stage 55. In her eyes, she’ll never understand 56. That being on a slam team is only souls sharing their stories 57. I’m not that Gang bangger hiding bullets under his garments in fear of cops 61. But mama 62. I only use my tongue to alert ears that this is what 63. We Black males are looked at as 64. Because this stage is my neighborhood 65. Being out there is where I could be arrested for being another statistic 66. One out for four teenagers to graduate high schools 67. So that means the person to your left is 68. Less likely to graduate high school 70. And in the zip code 10456 is highest rated in the Bronx 71. To have STD’s sexually transmitted destructions 72. Dieses that make human bodies 73. Look like walking coffins 74. But here I’m not scored to be another statistic, 75. But for loving to slam this poem 76. Remember this poem 77. As the award winning poem in the best selling book 78. And the author your son. 68. Mama 69. I don’t want to be another black boy to die 70. Wrapped in a cocoon where the crowd isn’t rioting for me anymore 71. But sobbing soliloquies 72. In the remembrance of who I was 73. And I don’t want you to be another black mother 74. Regretting that she didn’t let your baby boy go 75. To write us pass that slavery terms America has us labeled as 76. Because I could have been 77. That lost child strung out on drugs 78. Trying to steal love from the pockets of your purse 79. Or you visiting me through a window 80. Talking to what could have been the next black brotha to die 81. But instead im here 82. Interceding in my secret Just like you taught me to 83. God, 84. Help her understand that this stage is a 85. Sanctuary