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The Daily Cardinal Est. 1892
Tuesday, May 14, 2024

I haven’t had a dream

All articles featured in The Beet are creative, satirical and/or entirely fictional pieces. They are fully intended as such and should not be taken seriously as news.

I’m a black male in America and I’m sick of writing poems about a being black male in America

I’m sick of these wars Blacks versus the Police, Blacks versus Poverty, Blacks versus Whites,

Blacks versus gangs, Blacks versus drugs, Blacks versus Blacks

Black verses in raps, poems, songs, and speeches saying black is beautiful

But I’m tired of being black and beautiful, tell me I’m beautiful because I’m beautiful

And not beautiful because I’m black, and I know it’s because we don’t hear it enough

That black don’t crack and Martin Luther had a dream

But I’ve cracked and haven’t had a dream since I realized the word nigga would always have power over me 

I haven’t had a dream since my father left and my culture was adopted as the latest trends in dance, music, and fashion and people out here pop lock and hit the folks

But when police come around can’t even stop drop and hit the floor

I haven’t had a dream since I was told I could either shoot baskets, shoot up, or shoot dice

Live in a world where we boycott the Oscars before we boycott the welfare lines, cause that system’s oppressive

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Where I have to be governed by the streets and be a democrip or rebloodlican 

Because we don’t listen to the government, that system’s oppressive

And celebrities wanna Stacey Dash the BET awards away, but we need to Gabrielle Unionize

As a people, because Urban Support is Important, that sends them a message

Yet at the end of the day no matter how revolutionary I am

Not matter if I’m a Martin Luther King or Tupac they both end up getting Shot

That even now as I write this poem, these words have been bled a thousand times over

By my ancestors and printed a thousand times over by my grandchildren and I’m sick of writing these poems, and I’m sick of fighting for freedom, wouldn’t you too if you were six times more likely to get it taken away

I haven’t had a dream in years, I’m an insomniac drifting in a grey reality 

If Martin saw the mountaintops I’m living in the valley depths

I’m a black male in America and I’m sick of writing poems about a being black male in America

If Martin had a Dream then I’m living in a nightmare

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