This poem is for everyone. It’s for Tony Robinson and Brandon Jones and Denzel Brown, for Nicholas Thomas and Jason Moland and Frank Shepherd III, for David Felix and Terrance Kellom and Freddie Gray, for Nuwnah Laroche and Jason Champion and Sandra Bland. It’s for everyone who was accidentally in the way, everyone who moved a bit too quickly or made eye contact at the wrong time. It’s for everyone who made a mistake – just one – and didn’t have the chance to grow from it. It’s for every human who can no longer claim that title as their own.
This poem is for change.
“Changes”
Just a reminder:
it’s not actually
Okay
to kill someone.
It’s not a shame
it’s not unfortunate
it’s not a newsflash
it’s not a report
it’s not a statistic
it’s not another name on another list
it’s not a shortcut
it’s not a solution
it’s not even a mistake,
not really.
What
is
killing
someone?
It’s the obliteration of a miracle.
As soon as a trigger is pulled,
the second a bullet enters a body,
the moment a pair of eyes goes blank,
a miracle is destroyed.
A miracle is
stomped on
torn apart
ripped to shreds
incinerated
destroyed.
A voice is stolen
a heartbeat frozen
thousands of paths that might have been chosen –
Gone.
I know, it’s hard to believe
that it changes
Everything
but it does.
And it’s hard to remember
that everything
Changes
but it does.
It changes
Everything
Changes