Kandace Mack
The black-skinned figures gather in the dark.
Green leaves turn red then blue then red again.
Paint stained pavement stretches on for miles.
Cracked with pain
Crime and Punishment
The scales of justice never skewed their way.
Hoods up, hiding from incrimination.
Breaking through the white-washed brick-laid barriers.
The black-skinned figures gather in the dark.
Beating their chests
Bellowing their chants
Fists raised for rights and marching for their lives.
Songs ring and fall and swell and dull like flames.
Their firm demands still met with iron gates.
They fire
Their words
Like bullets
Like 9mm self-defense rounds
Pierced hearts.
Poor souls.
The black-skinned figures gather in the dark.
Still yearning for their promised Black Redemption.
The same stampede from sixty years ago.
Their faces changed, their pain the same.
They stand as one
‘Cuz they well know
The skin they pride is their death penalty.
The black-skinned figures gather in the dark.
Kandace Mack is a junior Theatre major and Creative Writing minor. She enjoys cats and long philosophical conversations that make her spiral (but in a good way).
