At twelve
Not an adult
Not responsible
But my body read as criminal
Condemned because of its tint
Its too dark
But its darkness was assigned a personality
One that does not matter
And when the bullet punctured my skin
I learned that black life does not matter
That I could not be a kid
That play for me and my kind is a dangerous game
A game that we often lose
Especially when we play it in spaces where our bodies are marked for death at the moment of birth
It was a just a toy
I meant no harm
But now I’m gone
Part of the pantheon of black boys and black girls slain by the boys in blue
For being a boy in the hood
Who tried to do everything good
But that was not good enough
Fuck!