Don’t Call Him Dead

They tell me you’re in a better place now.
Say that you were too good for this world.
Too good for this cage.
If you’re not careful this thing, this hood will eat you alive.
It’s funny, how you thought you were a man.
Until they called you one in the history book.
They keep calling all the neighborhood boys men.
Keep calling them noncompliant.
Keep calling them dead.
Keep calling them everything but what they are.
They tell me that you’re in a better place now.
Say you were too good for this world.
Too good to be caged inside of my chest.
I plant you somewhere beyond the sea.
The waves swallow your body whole.
I’d like to think your mother left the light on for you, because she knew you’d always turn it off when you got home.
All black mothers do it.
In an alternate universe, the light is off when we wake up.
This cage, this jungle, has not swallowed you whole.
They call you king.
Call you brilliant.
Call you beautiful.
Everything but dead.