Praise the closed caskets.

Praise the cover that conceals

that won’t show the body to the public,

or the bullet holes

or the blood stains.

Praise the mother in the gift shop

that can’t stop wailing.

Praise the black people who will never be free,

just the slow progressions of

fabricated liberation

& systematic goofism.

Praise healthcare

Praise modes of employment

Praise the rate of poverty

& the mass incarceration

Praise the friends we’ve lost but

have never forgotten.

Praise the cops

who know that their whiteness grants clemency.

Praise the untouched tasers.

Praise the dark nights

of news untold before white celebrities

can take our movement.

Praise the joggers

& the music blasters!

Praise the corner store goers

& the kids who play cops and robbers.

Praise the church goers

who were shipped on an

express to meet their maker.

Praise the traffic tickets.

Praise the ones that walk home

with skittles and an Arizona

Praise the reaching for a wallet

Praise those who couldn’t breathe,

that lie there like they lay in

their closed caskets.

Praise the restless souls

the tired souls that are sick and tired of being sick and tired

Praise being tired

of all of this mess.