THEY PAINT THE PAVEMENT WITH OUR BLOOD AND CALL IT JUSTICE. THEY CALL ME SLURS AS IF IT WAS MY OWN NAME. THEY GUN US DOWN BECAUSE IT'S LAW. AND THEY TAKE OUR RIGHTS TO FUND THEIR PRIVILEGE. OH AMERICA! YOU LEAVE THESE STREETS IN SIN TO FEED YOUR STARVED STAR-SPANGLED STOMACH WITH US MELANIN MARTYRS. ALL WE CAN ASK IS: WHERE IS THE LAND OF THE FREE?

your justice is just another word for murder. but i'm just another gangster to you, eh? the type of boys to slang cocaine in the hollow jowls of alleyways, slippin' crystal rocks to junkies, tote guns through the loops of our pants, treat the peaceful streets like a battlefield-yet a another war we weren't drafted for by the wrinkled hand of our dear uncle sam: shooting whoever's dressed blood-red and veined-blue, except the white that bleached out our culture.

we're the type of boys to sag the jaws of their pants, wrap their black heads in the embrace of a durag, slur their words and drip their tongues inside the sea of african-vernacular and waves of cusses, and who worship the words of an unraveling madman instead of a passionate poet on the radio.

you called it: rap. i called it: poetry. you called: violence. i called it: news. you called it: trash. i called it: art. you called it: the problem of america. i called it: this is america.

but i guess it doesn't matter since i'm just another gangster to you, eh? like that black boy you shot in the convenience store on that monday night? what a thug he was! slithering his dark-chocolate hands onto that milk-chocolate bar, and inside the maw of his baggy coat pockets. he was committing a crime, you say? he was a young boy. a tired boy. a hungry boy. a thieving boy. a black boy. a negro boy. you just couldn't wait till he turned around, your milk-ivory hands caressing, itching to pull the black trigger on the poor nigger.

like a young buck, frightened and scared, he ran. and you could've grabbed him by the hand, he was there, in your grasp, you could tell him to put it back-but that would've been too good for a black boy him. a thief like him. a pickpocket like him. boys like him never learn you said. that's why you had to pull the trigger. the steel claws of your bullet ripped through my brother like a unheard crescendo, as if moses had ruptured clean through the threads of his tendons, the tongues of his tissue, and the twine of his tender flesh-splattering his beating heart on the cold isle floors, a red gory sea enveloped a boy of ten as he was declared dead and dismissed as nothing more than another criminal

"clean up on aisle 1! there's a dead boy in my store! he's sinning up these aisles with his innocence!"

"clean up on aisle 10! there's a boy crying his heart out to a world that won't listen. he's staining my tile floors with his tears!"

and on the contrary to your belief he bled red. not black. but red. i could tell that you were surprised-from the warmth of his pure blood poisoning your peach-palmed hands. he bled scarlet-red, ruby-red, crimson-red, rose-petal red. it was as if you were surprised his blood was the color of yours. something living and human. but he's just dead and doe-eyed now. nothing more than just a dead black boy to mark off your check-list-just so you could feed your fallen melody with his heartbeat as your drum.

i called this: murder. you called this: justice. i called this: pain. you called this: beauty. I called this: death. you called this: art.

but i'm just another gangster to you, eh? and i find it funny. my attire, my clothes, you deemed ghetto, and uncolonialized, and uncivilized-fits those cotton-fed kids so well. what a style they say! they're making such a statement! it suits them so well! can't you see? how those cornrows crown their aristocratic-kingly heads so prettily? how those braids-the same braids they cut off my sister's skull-look so cute on little becky and her friends? it's trend! it's a fashion, haven't you heard? the fashion-fashioned from their lack of compassion for the boys and girls in the ghettos who die wearing the same thing sends a certain passion in my throat, and keeps on thrashing, till i can't speak no more-

the buried poet beneath my lungs and the passage of my ribs begins to scream-

EVERYBODY WANTS: to be black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to see black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to act black. BUT DON'T NOBODY WANT: to be black.

EVERYBODY WANTS: the power to say 'nigga' but as soon a cop pulls the trigger, they scatter! as they all watch a black man's blood spatter-seeping onto the floor, no one keeps score, as nobody says anything any more. always. they keep their silence. as nobody wants a black man's violence.

BUT EVERYBODY WANTS: to speak black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to see black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to act black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to move black. BUT DON'T NOBODY WANTS: to be black.

EVERYBODY WANTS: the chocolate complexion, the flesh of confection, fetishized in all ivory directions, but they pull off the brown when they go outta town, cause nobody wants to get pulled over for a beat-down, yet you dare wear my color as your gown. as nobody wants to carry my fate-as nobody want's to carry ebony's burdening weight.

SO PUT ON YOUR COSTUME AND WEAR THE WHIPPED FLESH OF A SLAVE! HIS VEINS AS YOUR SLEEVES! HIS PAINED LEGS OVER YOUR PANTS BUCKLE! HIS INSIDES AS A DECOR AND HIS SOUL AS YOUR CROWN-AS I WATCH IT ALL GO DOWN!

EVERYBODY WANTS: to dance like negros feet, but they don't know the rhythm of defeat, they don't hear black thunder recoiling against the streets, that's why their legs struggle against the roaring beat, their fingers wriggle like rancid meat, their torso's harden like expired sweets, their feet falter as if swimming in concrete, everybody wants to mimic negro's tone but they don't know words that come from bones, and since they don't have a culture of their own, they'd rather wear mine over their rusted throne.

BUT EVERYBODY WANTS: to be black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to feel black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to act black. EVERYBODY WANTS: to move black. BUT DON'T NOBODY WANTS: to be black.

AND YOU'RE WELCOMED TO BE BLACK AS LONG AS YOUR READY: to seethe black, as long as you're ready to rage black, as long as you're ready to fear black, as long as you're ready to hold back, as long as you're ready to cry black, as long as you're ready to fight black, as long as you're ready to die black

OR DO YOU PREFER TO GO BACK? as lightness never fades-but darkness never cracks

but i imagine i'm still another gangster to you, eh? the type of boys who're violent by nature, ruled by the laws of the streets and savagery-the type of boys who destroy things until there's nothing left, the type of boys to leave destruction in their wake with the talk of retribution in their mouths. and if i am a force of nature, i imagine myself to be a storm. a storm with tempest for teeth, with fingers wreaking havoc like heaven's wrath. a storm louder than a heartbeat rattling against zeus' skull, louder than thunder clamoring in the awning sky-a storm that captured calm and put it to death because a storm lives once more. but boys like me aren't storms, i suppose. boys like me are nothing more than a dark reckoning of sudden executions and false accusations

and i guess you're right. i am nothing more than a gangster. i am nothing more than a gangster with gangly black arms. i am nothing more than a hoodlum with hooded-eyes and hungry heart craving true justice. i am nothing more a ruffian with rough earth for flesh. i am nothing more than a thug with thick skin and thin vows. i am nothing than what you paint me to be. so i guess i am nothing more than a fallen poet who bleeds sickly sweet sonnets, burning ballads, empty elegies, weathered worthless words, gospels of vicious verses, lying lines of lyrics, and unholy ominous odes-as i am nothing more than a pile of bare blood and bones

as i ask myself was it worth speaking to you as you pulled the trigger-a bullet right in my back stopping me cold in my tracks-(i forgot i had stolen something as well)-lying in the puddle of my blood i say your wrong. i am now nothing more than a statistic. a dead boy. a black boy. a dead boy. a black boy. a dead boy. a black boy. a dead boy. a black boy. it all adds up to the same thing: a dead black boy.

but tell me was it out of wickedness or weakness that you killed me? tally up your numbers, and tell me, how many of us are dead? is it the birth of a nation that sets the land and boys like me free? am i just another melanin martyr with darkness in my skin with dying light in my soul? please tell me as the streams of blood is reaching my throat, making it hard to speak-

i know you feel me staring as i watch you file out the police report: a failed robbery (a failed boy, a failed system, a failed child, a failed future)-you forgot to write all that in the pages of blank paper; the bleak future of our america. i hope that you'll tell them how i screamed for you to stop and how your bullets pulled me apart-

but i guess it doesn't really matter in the end because i'm just another gangster to you, huh?

"in another life your death had mattered. although i can't promise to give you justice i can try to make your death an art."