Red & Purple Skittles

by: Ebony Stewart

There will be skittles and short cries.

When life exits the body,

there will be silence.

A village will mourn.

A father will forget how to breathe and walk like men do.

A mothers tongue will turn to sand and mango sticky rice.

Palm trees will lean towards salt water.

A little boy will be scared to enjoy the day unarmed.

He will make his fingers tight,

someone has stolen his adventure.

Another mother, up the street, will give extra hugs to men that barely reach her knees.

Her hands will stop at patty-cake.

A girl who makes doodle to the boy she crushes on will not know which box to check… the last time she chose ‘yes’ he never got to see her reply.

A teacher,

will teach a ghost in row 3, 5^th seat from the back how to slow down.

He pauses

and leaves an indention on her heart.

He was her favorite.

The sky will be empty.

Particles will forget how to bounce and the Sun will fail the color blue.

The ocean will lose a ripple and remind grandpa this is not where you go to skip rocks if you want a reply.

But at night we will speak to the stars,

looking for God or a reason why.

There will only be static.

When children and life go back to habit,

a black woman with a pregnant belly will feel guilty.

She knows this world will remind baby that there is no such thing as being innocent.

This elephant she carries is a community.

Someone will replay the tape and sit stoic, unclenched and shuffling.

Her throat will think of the name Trayvon, Troy Davis, or Lamar Smith.

She will choose none of these.

Somehow,

her baby has purpose and a chance that the others didn’t.

My people are bloated apologies with weight 100x its bullet.

Our walks have grown longer and more concentrated.

Skittles,

especially the red and purple ones will taste differently.

It’ll feel like eating Uluru.

The taste will be lost and fit for dark caves or other places we try to show our hands.

My people will learn that you speak in chops and helicopter views, rocky roads, and self-defense.

You make us believers and Southern tales daily.

When the papers find another reason to rust at the edges,

and the news headlines another doctrine,

we will remember where we keep our plastic baggies with more tears, exhausted faces, and our riot bubbling spirits.

There is no peace here.

For Trayvon Martin's family and our Black American Villages