Trigger

I will show you something 

I don’t care if the world can see 

Here I am on bended knee, praying 

That you and your race will know 

Your place, your place below, 

Yes, even six feet deep 

This is torture,  

Touching you, 

Listening to your whining, nigger 

I guess I should have  Done like the others, 

Like all the others  

And just pulled the trigger  

Triggered by the horror  

On the TV screen  

Blacks and white unite  

Slowly, very slowly,  

Whites are learning 

Some of the countless troubles  

Blacks have, too long, seen  

A father fears to walk his pet alone 

A patrol car might dog his avenue 

A husband fueling his wife’s car 

Those car seats in the back?  

Why should they belong to you? 

A man watching uncaged birds  

In the sunlit park  

Gets screamed at and threatened  

Well, his skin was dark 

A child walking home with candy 

A man reading a book, 

A woman looking out her window 

This was all it took  

To become a suspect 

Before a barrage of bullets ensue 

By those paid 

To serve and protect  

Uncharged, acquitted, not guilty 

Verdicts from the courts  

Is it because black lives do not matter? 

Their blood senselessly splattered 

Is still red like rage, or a face being choked  

A black man walks into a bar 

And lived to tell about it 

This is not a joke