I should have the words Don't Shoot tattooed across my open palms.
That way when black turns to midnight, the neon dye will shine like a beacon of my innocence
Highlight the glint in my eyes that says peaceful
That says college bound
That don't say victim
They blink future as in I should have one
Not history, as in get over it, you lost
Don't Shoot
In bold, black, ink
Like I'm written
In bold black me

It wouldn't matter
Them red white and blue lights can't see no different
They only illuminate stereotypes like no good
Thug
Like drug dealer, nigga
Magnify the hostility of the victim
Project "she was asking for it" in bubble letters across my murderer's lips
Don't shoot
And when he claims he never saw the cursed black ink that ran rampid across my sweaty blood soaked palms
When he conveniently blacks out the reason he took that steel black out to smother my hostile black out
I hope he sees the blacks out and feels the way they stomp those chants out
Like
Why he shoot that black out?
Tae Tae locked up but Zimmerman out
They can't cleanse our black out
Red white and blue, he in there, but no wonder they left the black out
She was going to college, why they always take the educated blacks out
Screw that nigga, man I hope they take that pig out
I hope he feels the power he unleashed by letting my blood spill out.
And I hope it haunts him in every crevice, in every shadow, in every glimmer of a teenager who has that glint in their eyes
You know, the one that says they gone go somewhere and do some things
Make a difference in people that act like him's lives
I hope he can't turn his back to the mirror out of fear that one day even his reflection will see the blackness in him
And want to rid the world of something as dark as that poor little black child he shot down
I hope he can't close his eyes
Because the blackness mocks him from within his eyelids
And when he sees red
I hope it resonates that my blood and his blood are the same color
The color spilled on this American flag
The color spilled in these flashing lights
The color spilled on the concrete that night
I hope
When he thinks color, he thinks me
And my blackness never leaves his memory