The hashtag says black lives matter

The toe tag says they don’t

We’ve been labeled and tagged 

They put bullet holes through the price tags of our lives because to them we have no value

If they did our people wouldn't have to talk to our sons and daughters about choices as they are young enough to ride around in car seats

Driving down the streets trying to explain why

We seem to gain more of a voice once we’ve lost our heartbeat

So welcome to black Friday 

Where the best things in life are free

Except air

Now a days men are waiting to exhale too

You know the cops shop
 I mean strangle 
I mean shoot till we drop

Then call for back up 

Instead of an ambulance there’s an amber alert out for common sense and a bulls eye pressed on the back of all black men

But you’d rather press the red dot on your phone than record the red dot aimed on his head instead of calling the Red Cross

Shout out to my man Cross Eye Red who was shot by the cops at the local pound burger

Ironically the pound button was the last thing he pressed on his phone before being murdered

And as his blood lines the streets

His blood line is ceased

You use your bloodline to tag your peeps in a video you posted to FaceBook

But it won’t matter because cops don’t facetime

So let’s face facts

When it comes to blacks too many are tagged by the trigger

Maybe more cops should be on twitter since they love to follow

And retweet I mean re-beat I mean repeat the plight of the black man

Ps. I can breathe

#Freddiegrey #Ammado 

#I'm not through

Julian Cartie

Notice he didn’t get a hashtag and

he was a US army vet but all but he gets is an unsolved murder in my memories of identifying my brothers body as they unzipped that black bag and a casket draped in an American flag as they handed my mother before  they lowered my brother in the ground

Pound rest in peace bro

Pound Trayvon Martin

Pound Mike Brown

Pound Prince Jones

And I admit his name I had to google on my phone because I’ve never claimed to be an activist or a revolutionary

It’s just scary how social media tends to dictate this worlds trending topics

So instead of immortalizing our deaths 

I’m trying to immortalize our future that’s why we post so many pics because nowadays it seems like our lives really don’t have too much value unless you can get them to trend 

so I found myself on Instagram scrolling down a little bit and I see a pic that said black lives matter but I can’t help but reply #sincewhen 

Since it won’t matter a week later when some football player hits his wife on an elevator now you’ll have something new to post about  

Domestic violence is nothing to joke about but when the weight of the world is measured by the pound sign we begin to wonder how many hashtags does it take to fill a coffin?

Black lives only matter during black history month but blacks become history so often we should dedicate a season

Spring showers leads to summers flowers for the fallen leaving our hearts as cold as the winter leaving us as memories

And you will remember me

I swear to god you will remember me

but before I become I become just another memory

I feel like the only way you know we exist is because our lifelines gets posted in your timelines and because it gives you the option to share you can act like you care

So tell me do black lives really matter or will we continue to be considered as the country’s cancer

Take a minute

Think about it and then you can hashtag your answer

CREDITS
poem written by Black Ice, Chief the Poet and Prentice Powell
edited by Mina 

Sandra Bland

Aiyana Stanley-Jones

Charleena Lyles

Atatiana Jefferson

Renisha Mcbride

Breonna Taylor

*no one should have a hashtag to memorialize them
*We are more than the hashtag
#blackwomenmatter
#blackgirlsmatter