July 21st, 2015
The class of 2015 has experienced a great tragedy today
Just a mere 2 months since graduation and one of our own has fallen
A casualty in a war none of us asked to be fighting in
How is it that news like this travels like running water but only in the black community?
He was just as important as any Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, or Bree Newson
He was an innocent forced into an impure world and taken down by the purest form of steel someone could fit into a cylinder
Our youth are marching one by one into the war zone we call home
Living life like toy soldiers dreading the day these streets get tired of us and shoot us down to the bottom of the toy box
Since when did black teen dead go from headline to punchline?
Angelo's dead because none of our people could offer him a lifeline
A lifetime of accomplishments, failures, mistakes, heartache, stolen
At the speed of a bullet
At the cost of an iPhone, pocket change, someone's ego
Unfinished
I can't help but think that we're all just unfinished stories waiting for someone to put a period at the end of us, a coffin underneath us
I don't want to be someone's short story, their motivation to live their lives as full as can be, a hash tag on someone's instagram description
A chalk outline on a Milwaukee street, teddy bears on a random tree
I don't want to be
Period.