Dear Jordan Davis,
When you felt 8 foreign metals scratch its way through your chest,
did it drown out the music?

I imagine that man is scared of you,
scared of the liberation
that blasted through your car’s speakers
so the only way to settle that fear was to stop you.
Did you know that your blood crimsoned your friends palms
as if they were the ones to blame?
That evil man didn’t even have the audacity to ever leave his car,
he drove away so fast you’d think
that Satan and all of his minions have been trying to get him for so long.

Jordan,
thank you.
Thank you for not blindly following a man that claimed to be authority.
I was taught too that resistance is the pathway to strength.
But I’m sorry it led to your death.
As if liberation was something to die for.
You are a martyr,
among the thousands that have refused
to be a puppet in this society’s sick show.
People that look like us have never even had center stage.
I wonder if you could’ve been more than what news
and lawyers call hoodlum.
Just because songs in your heart couldn’t be contained anymore.
So you let car stereos served as that link.
Sound, should never be anything to die over.
And they dare to call you troubled and hood
without even knowing that you were top of your class,
without knowing you will forever wait for your 18th birthday,
no thanks was given 2 days after your death,
and that you had a father to look up to.
As if stereotypes can justify a child’s murder.

They are scared of what our people have to say.
They are closed minded
so we must stay closed fisted,
as if our knuckles could kiss the sun.
Jordan,
I’m just seeing death around me
as if people don’t cry about it anymore.
Do you see the 26 angels from Connecticut
that found a home near you
way too soon than expected.
Bullets raped their flesh,
just like it did you,
and many others
on an endless list that is only there to represent human selfishness.
Us in this society is falling in love with blood that is not ours.
And becoming obsessed with a people's silence,
and a person's screams.
As if people had the right to hold the burden of death.

Jordan,
I'm just scared of raising a black son,
he's victim before he even knows what that word means.
You are among the many black youth
who found their way to death too soon.
Deaths that are too black and too white
to ever be deemed as reality.
I'm tired of hearing the words "what if" next to names like yours.
Jordan,
there was so much you could do
if your life wasn’t stolen.
And I’m tired of hearing that guns is never to blame.
I dare them to feel the bullet wounds that that tattoo the death
of over 30,000 people in America each year.

Jordan,
I'm sorry about your fate.
I'm sorry you have to look at us humans repeat the most terrible mistakes.

From a girl who won’t dare forget you,
like the media does.
My name is Mariam,
I hope you can see my fist from up there.