Lost

Fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we inadequate;

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

I can't completely agree with that.

When you are what I am

You learn to fear other things much more.

Things such as

An angry white man

That has something against you,

The sheen of the sun off the badge of a police officer,

Or the flashing red and blue lights that carry death for so many of my people behind you when driving.

You learn to fear the system

Because it was designed to keep you oppressed.

You learn that one mistake

Will ruin the rest of you life.

The ebony of my skin is a rose.

Its beauty incomparable,

But it is plagued by thorns of oppression and racism.

My roots run deep under oceans

And spring up as trees in the Garden of Eden.

But my roots, my roots that run so deep,

Have been tied into countless nooses,

Fashioned into bullets,

And used to dot the trees and streets of this country with the strangest fruit you have ever seen.

My roots have been dug up and used by ghostly figures

To stoke their fires of hatred and fear of

My people,

People who did nothing but exist.

Hatred is a dangerously contagious disease,

And this whole country has been infected.

My chest tightens every time I see a police officer,

But not because I've committed a crime.

It happens because

When you grow up a minority in America,

You learn at a very young age

What the majority can do to you.

                                                                                -J.M.