As if I had not awakened
from a slumber of lies
baptized in tradition’s rebellion
As if I had not been unplugged
From the matrix of deception intoxicated by the signs of the times
I finally understand
As if you had not left prophecies etched on the calcium of my bones
Like you didn’t leave your footprints in the sand drenched blood
dripping from the curse of our ancestors lips
Like you didn’t carve your every scripture into my very skin
like a big brothers reminder that there is always a rainbow above our father’s head
And above your sister’s head
When it rains
I understand now
You see Endurance
the prominence
comes like a splashing dose of faith
like a car accident that knocks me off my feet
and kills me
I get it
18 years later
The irony
Of life and death
finds itself a home in this house of poetry
scattered somewhere across Yahoshua’s piercing skin and these broken bones
for this I know
somewhere between the compassion of Moses intercession, the call of John’s cry
to the forgiveness of my wretched sins
They mock you more than they did back then
today
Though you chose to wear the bravery of our lustful scars upon your skin
Your narrations written a thousand times greater than the stars
that your faith taught us never to put our trust in
cause milky ways never shed its blood for us
I swear
Of all the times I daydreamed in childhood
I never saw chocolate fall like snowflakes of obedience hammered to nails
Cause Cocoa beans never gave itself for me
But your salvation’s never been a fairytale
But they mock you now
As they did back then
And sell your story for gold encrusted tithes
they don’t know why
or what it’s like for a father to give birth to a son
For salvation to give birth to the sun
You are a millions times braver
Than the best solider and your skin shines brighter
Than the sympathy beating inside the chest of broken legs and wounded body parts
You are far braver than one trillion purple hearts
Or bleeding pens on the white paper of a soldier’s goodbye
deaths footprints on cold caskets
we should be ashamed
cause we value metaphors and similes like the colors of picnic baskets with healthy fruit
but there ain’t enough poems about the day they hung you
the burnished brass of your skin tone and the wooly texture of your hair
centuries before we knew what a lynching was
but at least we understand
that you was, and you are
and you will be
this
I do understand
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