still sit outside your mothers doorstep

wickless and tired

from burnout

scattered amongst hammered hennessey bottles

all perched below banners

begging you to come home

but newspapers dont cover how we grieve

instead

i find pictures of your builleted body

buried below tarps

hiding picasso painting splattered

across sixtyforth ave and foothill

your backpage death lost between

captions

and

just another teen death in oakland

fresh off eighteenth birthday

you finally became old enough to have your full name

disclosed in newspapers

no longer

Kenneth Ross

the tribune casually mentions you in the same breath 

as

gunman

manhunt

dead man

but tribunes only tell the facts

not the story

says nothing of

dreams of college in atlanta

basketball player/special education

eighteenwiththirdgradereadinglevel

or 

the Kenneth Ross

who grows up in eightysixth ave apartment complex 

with electricity on layaway

and hot water that only runs cold

tribunes claim you waved

assault rifles

threaten the lives of police

giving them the invite

to stop and

discharge their hello

tribune reports police never shot you in the back

as if your spine were the bermuda triangle

and their bullets flew like amelia airhart

making no entrance

only exit wounds from your chest

yet mortuaries cant make you look presentable

for open caskets

when your back leaks embalming fluid like

bleeding tear ducts at your funeral

where i finally find your name in a paper again

forever etched in obituaries

and our hearts.

we love you.