Blood, tears

Blood, tears

Blood, no more tears

There are no tears

There are no tears

There are only fears...

Fear

Fear for my loved ones

Fear for myself

If Sandra Bland lost her life

Am I next?

Should I just resign myself

To the same fate

Of Tamir Rice

Of George Floyd

Because I am Sandra and Breonna after all

Though we are

Years apart

Miles apart

We are one

Their pain is my pain

Their death is my death.

Blood, tears

Blood, tears

Blood, no more tears

There are no tears

There are only fears

There are only leers...

Leers and fears

Of Black bodies

Like Atatiana

Like Sandra

But

I am in no way better than them

I am not smarter,

I am not prettier,

I am not less of an angry Black woman

As if that term could ever encapsulate

All that we Black woman have to be angry about

As if it’s that easy.

Blood, tears

Blood, tears

Blood, no more tears

There are no tears

There are only fears

There are only leers

There are only stares...

Stares

While I lay here bleeding

Stares

While I die by the hand of those sworn to protect me

Stares, while you tell me

“Oh, he shouldn’t have resisted arrest”,

“He shouldn’t have been playing with a toy gun”,

“He shouldn’t have been running”.

Stares

As another black body

Becomes bloody

By a system

That was built

For years,

By bloody black bodies.

Blood, tears

Blood, tears

Blood, no more tears

We give you no more years

Years

Of pain

Of blood

Of death

Years

Of being told our lives don’t matter

Our lives do matter

Black lives matter.