Long, Hot Summer

Blood can boil

At a certain number of degrees 

Coiling under the surface,

An organism of trees

Three-branched and broken

Yet still holding swings

Sending children through the wind 

Where bodies used to swing

In a long, hot summer

There, where inequality stays

Veiled in words like

“Progress” and “free” and “civil rights”

But mainly just

“Progressively free to be civil”, right? 

Some cells swinging open

But the prison is still locked

A battle to be heard

Isn’t supposed to be fought 

Until the most powerful

Ones have sought

To give away all they have –

To make something they cannot

And what a disgusting, familiar refrain 

Cycles like seasons

Repeating again

This hot air we’re breathing

Is equally stained 

By demons that won’t

Be legislated away

In a long, hot summer 

At our best, we flirt

With some social ideals 

Waiting for courage

To be corporeal

Perhaps, this time,

It’s somatic-ally clear

Some human bodies

Aren’t

Human beings

If our honesty was as brutal 

As the many batons 

We are seeing – 

Wielded like

Plantation beatings

In a long, hot summer 

And I don’t care if this ever gets heard

White, middle-class

And privilege-yielded 

Apathetic words

I need to shut my mouth

Open my ears

Lean into discomfort

And insecure fears

I need to fail by trying

To understand pain

That I could never

Fathom to feel 

And follow a chorus

Of slaughtered ghosts 

Leading me somewhere,

Anywhere,

But here