Russell Wardlow

This is a call
for more to be invited

This isn’t just
a moment of excitement

This isn’t even a victory
because a few indictments

This was overdue
a match thrown over a trail of gas once ignited

This is a kerosene lamp tipped over
in the midst of scurrying about trying to hide it

This is what it looks like when black lives matters
because all lives matter
proof in the streets with the mixtures of cultured colors united

This is what it looks like under an umbrella of oppression
with human leftovers protesting still trying to fight it

This is what it looks like when America has been the biggest party
but some of its architecturing residents are rarely invited

This is what it looks like when the guiltiest minds turn a blind eye
and hide their thoughts behind the guise of their eyelids
acting as if they never knew or seen, with faces full of surprises

This is what it looks like when people have lived a life of compromising feeling compromised and settling no longer for compromises

This is what it looks like when the status quo is riled
and the stood on people and their allies form a league of defiance

This is what it looks like when remedies have been substituted with vices
and all content is parental consent
saturated by subliminal advertisements
geared to keep our minds idle-
worshiping idols sex and violence

Distracted from our own trials
and the vile styles
constructed to profile and corral
nonconformists and urban crowds
viewed as hostile

And pile them single file
for miles
in the same aisles
of blame and maimed with aimed projectiles of bile
labelled as chow

And we eat up those spoon fed lies like a child
looking at how we live, with fear defeat and shame aroused
every attempt shunted until we throw in the towel
all the while

Being the caulk, holding together this country’s tiles
laboring just to afford a house
or high end textures for style
just for respite from people seeing how
we really live, so maybe we’ll feel better in “outfits” of denial

Preferred sleep to an awakened state, living in doubt
of change, in chains, insane, in shame
shrouded in dark clouds
running from the past and now
tears flowing like the Nile
unable to see, what the time is

This is what it looks like
when we’ve changed the climate

This is what it looks like
when imprisoned freedoms become a mass of noncompliance

This is what it looks like
when uproar broke out from a peaceful kneel in silence
to a murderous knee taken to obstruct a peace being forever silenced

This is what it looks like
when the once small alive voices
speak out in unison from their graves as one great giant

LOOK America!
this is what “WE” look like

Now Watch and Wemember America!
because this is what “WE”
looks like

Because this is what it looks like
when the silenced have broken their silence

This is what it looks like
when allies awake face and embrace the challenge