When you look up at the sky I wonder where your eyes wander first

 

Maybe they search through the white clouds or just stare at the blue hues

 

Maybe the grey of the clouds or the yellow of the blinding sun catches your attention first

 

But I have learned not to look up for too long

 

You do that and you'll risk growing confident 

 

Feeling like the sky somehow owes you for pouring rain on your face

 

Learning to keep your head down and stare at the cracked sidewalk that is never going to be fixed

 

Hearing sirens pass you and momentarily praying to the sky that it doesn't catch its eyes on you

 

Because, despite not doing anything, those blue and red lights can change your entire life depending on how threatening you look and who is inside

 

The threat of being pulled inside the screaming car unable to move your hands

 

Screaming to everyone outside to help as the blue and red draw the guns of their truth

 

But everyone pulls out their own guns

 

Capture this moment instead of fixing it

 

All too busy with their guns to not realize that all of us are choking on the smoke erupting from the lungs of a little boy too young to understand that he was born the wrong skin color

 

We are not just aliens

 

We are not still shackled by the chains that your ancestors put on us 

 

We are all switching between being proud or being scared and when I say that, I don't mean just us that are considered the minority

 

I mean all of us

 

Whether your skin is white or black or anything in between.

 

We are all afraid of life and we're all just trying to get with it the best we can but we shouldn't be the ones holding each other back. 

 

We are all people and we need to stop giving each other reasons to be afraid of each other

 

We're all just afraid of each other 

 

Fighting between not understanding and stereotypes put on us by those in power

 

But, yes, I acknowledge that we aren't the only ones struggling

 

Yes, we are all dealing with things that can't compare to each other

 

We acknowledge that we're not the only ones having to deal with things but it's not fair when you have to search for the answers through roses while we're left with the thorns on the fence all compiled in a garden named equality.

 

 Sure, we all pick from the same place but some of us are no longer allowed to pick anything more than the shriveled, easily broken petals of a flower we named after our freedom. 

 

Then you ask for fairness like all lives matter wasn't simplified in ours

 

I'm not telling you, that because you're more privileged that you can't go through hardships.

 

You who have pale skin can go to hell and back and maybe it'll hurt less than ours or be a hundred times worse 

 

But that is a personal problem while we're dealing with an economic one.

 

One that cuts off the hands of those in

 

One that wraps around our neck and sinks it's teeth into us as to not let go because we can't just let go. 

 

I wish we could

 

We've begun planting seeds next to our unwatered crops, letting the sun shine on our already darkened skin

 

Picking out the weeds and apologizing to the grass in the process

 

The once pure white roses growing on the fence that keeps us separated splattered with red from our hands 

 

A reminder not to pick at them

 

Despite being tainted and vandalized the pure red of those once white roses calls to us

 

Edges us to that measly fence

 

A measly fence that keeps us worlds apart 

 

A door was built in but those on the other side have control over it

 

So we all crowd around it hoping we are the few free to go to the other side 

 

Some of us want the door to stay open

 

For anyone to come and go as they please but it's a rather meaningless idea if the fence was no longer there

 

The idea that the world didn't divide us

 

We wouldn't work to take the hinges off the door

 

We would work together to pry those roses off and let the fence crumble before us

 

To be truly free of it

 

A fence put there by someone none of us can remember and each of us holds a part of

 

In that idea, we all must bring down our own piece

 

Sure some might leave theirs up but as more people begin to tear theirs down we see the other side of the garden

 

Not just roses and dead flowers but a true garden were everyone works to keep it alive because that's all they have to worry about

 

That's everything we want to worry about

 

In this world where we are truly free, we are able to look up

 

And the sky is the most welcoming thing