Scrimmage a heart

Scrimmage every child’s tongue

Scrimmage the holy traditions

Scrimmage a bone and its flesh

 

How many of you are there

Bejewelled by student loans

Guilt of dead plants and the blood

Of children in the Congo in Sudan and in Palestine

 

Today, I am alive only by luck at this point

Dining in this, stained by this, bleeding from this

Learning through this, thinking of this, tryna run from this 

I shun myself from being like this, but I might end up like this

My hands full of dust and tears and rage and prayers and us and this 

Cursing because of this, my daddy dead because of this

Who, who in their right mind used their bad juju and spelled us into this

This human stain hungry to leave a desert out of bliss

And who is here to unfuck my throat tonight

 

I see us mangled

Scaring each other in the name of power

I see us deteriorating 

Slaughtering each other in the name of love