On your 19th Birthday I wrote...

Happy Birthday Trayvon,
I wonder what the moon said to the rain,
on the night you were slain,
I imagine the bullets were sad leaving the gun,
nothing wants to destroy something beautiful,
nothing right does wrong without regret,
the world is filled with tools for freedom that are used to oppress,
I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP HOPE YET,
No,
I'm a dreamer,
the only way I know to stop the hurt I feel,
knowing your story, is to make stars of boys,
Who bare a resemblance to you,
All-american boys with nappy hair,
Football players, and future rappers,
The kind of kids who wear hoodies and eat skittles,
they hang on my words, look to me for guidance and direction,
My opinion matters to them, they actively listen to me,
So I tell them,
their hoodies make them look suspicious,
To crazed hateful men who would kill them,
because that's what your murder taught me,
Ain't no agenda in that,
that's the profane truth, a truth so loud and so constant,
it drowns out the sounds of progress,
it makes old revolutionaries and so called radicals say; see I told you so,
the fact that you're gone and I have to tell my boys; be careful wearing your hoodie,
please be careful wearing that hoodie,
boy they will shoot you out here!
some crazy man with a gun will run you down,
say you're looking into cars,
because you're dressed like a gang member,
young gang members,
whom many would call thugs,
dress like children because they are,
because the last three generations of men in America,
were much better at raising guns and bottle than sons and daughters,
the last two generations way better at first person shooter video games,
violent rap songs,
fascist faux patriotism,
Vigilante cowboy justice,
and other misogynistic, selfish, narcissistic fantasies,
than existing in the reality that human life is precious,
and children need to be taken care of,
protected, valued and taught to strive for something more,
so they can be something better than the world they were born into,
I indict the United States of America for your murder,
I refuse to accept what that man did, on that night like,
he was performing some type of service,
enforcing the law that you, me and people who look like us,
have no business in his neighborhood,
have no business in his town, no business in his country,
it all runs together, it all sounds familiar,
like Jim Crow and apartheid,
like caste and class structure and the brown paper bag test,
like old cop movies, and fireworks on the fourth of July,
I charge America the beautiful for stealing your 19th birthday from you,
and not even looking guilty because she got away with it,
I think of you on cold nights when my boys wear hoodies,
I hear them laugh as they run and play,
I wonder how your father feels today,
I hold myself responsible to tell all my boys,
black, white, brown, beautiful shades of all three,
to be careful wearing their hoodies,
because if America kills one of them,
that bitch will have to answer to me