Struggling to Love

Love.


I've been thinking a lot about that word recently.


It's such a popular word really...
Songs tell us all about love


All you need is love...
Love will keep us together...
Can you feel the love tonight...
I will always love you...




It's such a powerful word really...
We tell others about our love for them


Our parents,
Our partner
Our children
Our friends


It's also. Well it's a confusing word.
Because I've been taught to love my enemies.
And right now I feel like there are a lot of enemies out there.
And while it's true that I do not love them...
It's truer yet...that I don't know that I want to.


In the past years...as my own sons have grown up and become black men...I've shared many blogs and social media posts about my fear for them.  This fear likely sky rocketed in 2012 when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.  I remember being so pissed that he wasn't arrested. We hadn't even gotten to the 'not guilty'...I was already heated from the fact that there was even DEBATE about whether or not George should have been arrested?  I lost many Facebook friends during that time. Really it's just continued....and seriously, I can't bring myself to care.


What has continued is an onslaught of people of color not just being gunned down by the police...but nobody giving a damn.  I know there are people that care. Please hear me. I see it around me, I have friends who I love that support my family and me.




But somehow over and over....police officers are not held accountable.
And somehow over and over....people continue to condone this.
And somehow over and over....systematic racism continues to thrive.
And somehow over and over....my distrust of others grows.




I've had a blog....an angry...full of cuss words blog...rattling in my head for days....and I've begun and deleted...begun and deleted.  And I realized all I had today was this.....




Colin takes a knee
And people lose their shit
Please be more like Martin
Well Martin? He got killed.


Stand up you no good n***er
Don't you have respect
No sir not for you
But you can't seem to connect


That the need to bring to light
The dismissive way POC die
Should make us stop and ask
How come you don't care why?


Prisons are full of people of color
In disproportionate numbers
The system is either broken or not for them
Doesn't it make you wonder?


And if not, why?
Why don't you care
Could be it be somewhere deep inside
There's racism living there?


I am threw with conversations
With trying to educate
Folks who do not care to understand
And only try to agitate


Because I have children I love
Who are struggling with those
That come against their well being
That pretend and pose


And I am struggling to love
Everyone I meet
It's hard to stay in my lane
When I only want to flee.


The anthem, the flag, blah blah blah
Are only a smokescreen
Meant to distract
Meant to alarm


So I'm struggling to love my neighbor
I'm struggling to see
Just how am I supposed to do it
When they aren't behaving neighborly?


So my circle is getting smaller
of the people that I trust and believe
But I'm learning to love them deeper
And right now that's all I need.




And that. Is all I got today.