There is an endless brutality
Mixed inside this gentle soul.
And it takes it out,
On the one most ill-suited to sustain it's relentless attacks.

To understand it requires:
A Kindred Spirit,
With an Unrequited Love...

It isn't that I feed off negativity,
I simply force myself into a dark room
and light a single candle.
I take the dark, and t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶
Transform it into something else....
Entirely different from the shattered form,
Others saw it as.

Think of the earth
With all the roots
Stabbing the soil.
How they may sprout into beautiful flowers,
Given a few tears,
And the light of the sun...

But I work in the opposite way.
I live on in dreams.
Picture it, Hope.
The one emotion that seems, ever so far away.
But we cling to it!
So, I feed on Hope
............Continue,
Without it,
I will die!

Light a candle  
For the night that swallowed, The black boy whole.
Light a candle
So that his path to the after life Is as bright , as the police lights That ended it.
Light a candle
For the next boy, As a warning That this is desecrated land.
Light a candle For his father, To hold weeping.
  Because he  fueled the fire In the small boys heart for  Revolution, and freedom.
But never expected  His little boy...  to be extinguished.
Light a candle
For the last fist in the air The one that never dies out When everyone else flees like scattered ashes.
Light a candle
Because even if he is gassed, beaten burned, or killed He never let his fire go.
Light a candle
for the loved ones we didn't love enough to teach them to survive. Light a candle
So that no more black, boys  Have to die in the dark... but instead may live..
with a little bit of light.

Shoot me, You might as well, cause I'm a threat
A threat to your system, a threat to your net
profit and status quo, so pick up that gun shoot me and pray to the ground I go, and when you bury me you better call me a madman and pray that the martyrs don't grow

You may as well shoot me Mr.Police officer,
It may put your employers at ease
One bless black man with a heart of power
One less antibiotic to your disease
Don't forget to tell me I'm resisting, don't forget to tase me til I fall
Don't forget to choke me so those listening won't hear my struggles, my calls
Don't forget to have the media depict me as a ****, and a criminal and a menace to society
Don't forget to  reprimand and berate me
Remind  your older white listeners that my kind, my skin color
is still not considered American Propriety
But more like American property, disposable goods

So **** me, the cameras are recording but don't worry you'll get off free
Might be just a conviction but your *****'s new henchmen and ***** still got the key
A couple months paid administrative leave so you can sit on a beach, drink some ice tea
Mad that you can no longer put chains on our wrists so you put handcuffs instead
No longer pulling whips across our backs so you bury hot burning lead
No longer working your fields for all to see but instead privatized free prison labor with your warden holding the key.

Martin told me when he us that he had a dream
I got his same DNA in my bloodstream
And in every cell in my body I feel the effect, I teem
I boil I scream, when I see a black mother or father gunned down by police men and the children witnessing the death, the blood, the stream.....

I scheme, and when I sleep, I dream
And when I dream it's bad news for you
to avenge those we lost by crimes, undue
To put a stop to all of you.

When hell's demons took over the politicians
Nobody noticed
When black mothers cried for their children
Nobody heard
When we cried out for justice
Nobody listened
When  we were desperate for a change
Nobody provided
When the blind man asked for a penny
Nobody granted
We are the ones out for blood
And yours will do

I was held hostage
By a white man in uniform
Wasn't a policeman, private security
He wore his gun on his belt, seemed nice
Approaches me in the night
Approaches me who is minding my own
He's talking to me, but I have no where to go
I can't run, I can't leave, I'm stuck
He's talking to me, about life
Talking about how he hates paying taxes
Talking about how he works for his own
His words are acid, an ignorant eruption
I have to bare this, I can't risk it
I do not dare. I do not dare risk it.
To tell this man to leave, this white man
With a gun, in uniform, patroling
Maintaining the peace.
My heart is racing, I want to escape
But I'm his hostage, socially bound
To the mercy of this white man and his gun.