Poems to Appreciate 2: Lost Count A Love Story

Lost Count: A Love Story

Will they ever call your death beautiful
Your life a sacrifice
Will the meeting of blood and bullet every be called romantic
A love story to be jealous of
Chris…
I remember you when Guatemalan green matching your flag on your Independence Day
Your hair was a black puff of curl and confidence
In homeroom you always had homies in the hallway waiting for you
We’re still waiting
I couldn’t sleep for a week
When you washed up water logged in the Calumet River
Puffed and purple like violets before bloom
Eddie, you were the first to say hi to me
First day of school when I stepped in with Bugle boy jeans and a high top fade and I saw YOU
Possibly, the coolest dude to ever grace elementary
September 22, 2006, 8th period
“We really need to hang out”
“Yeah, that’ll be cool”
“I’ll see you later, D”
September 22, 2006 8:30 PM maybe a little later than I thought when your path ended on Vincennes Road
Run down by bad luck…. and a police officer
Lives like these shouldn’t be shortened
Sentence fragments of a future
And in the 14 days it took us to write this
We’ve had to add more names to this list
Because in this city, before we blossom
We must weather storms unforecast because
Every intersection can become Virgina Tech
So excuse me if the news be mixed with my emotions
See being brown in Bigger Thomas’s town makes you endangered
And in the past TWO years I’ve seen over SIXTY Native Sons set…. in the graves
I guess… this is the part where, poets produce plans
And we don’t have any
In Chicago, anyone under age 20 is a target
And I don’t know how to do more than be afraid
That in age allowing me to be on this stage
Might have me murdered by Monday
I’m 18!
I play pick-up basketball games with ghosts!
Is there a reason, I’m making it out of a community that has martyred young men I might be mistaken for
I!
DON’T!
KNOW!
Will they ever call your death beautiful
Your life a sacrifice
A love story to be jealous of
How many deaths will it take
Before THIS is considered genocide

I found this slam poetry when I was browsing YouTube, though I can not relate to it I think it sends a powerful message and everyone should watch the link. The poem is about the unforseen killing of African-American teenagers in Chicago. The two boys in the video are only 18 and 17 and even fear their own death as one can read and hear. I didnt know about this epidemeic and how serious it actually is, so not only is this just a great poem its also a great way to spread the word for those blind to this, as I was. Though you can not read it in my post, there are also names, dates and places of where young people were killed being spoken behind the spoken words. A very effective way to add emotions to the poem and it really effects you. I found myself watching this quite a few times over to really soak in the words and understand them, I even found myself researching more about these killings and being really moved by how serious this issue is in Chicago to this day (as this video is from 2009). The line that hit me the most was "I play pick-up basketball games with ghosts". More people need to be aware of what is going on to the teenagers of Chicago, whether it is hate crime, kids killing kids or police brutality. It needs to be heard and this poem is a simple yet powerful way to get it heard and you feeling how the friends and famillies of the victims are feeling.