Spoken word poetry

after JFK

i.
ask not what your country can do for you
ask if your country is your country
ask if your country belongs to your country folk
ask if your country is addicted to blood
ask if your country is addicted to forgetting
ask if your country is an oil & power fiend
ask if your country shakes at night starving
for bodies if bodies mean your country
keeps on being your country in the same ol' ways
ask if your country was built on stolen land
and stolen breath, if democracy is a chain
tight as skin around your neck
ask if your comfort means elsewhere
someone is burying a daughter
ask if your comfort means round
the corner a man is dead cause a cop
mistook his body for a gun
ask if your comfort means broke schools
& food deserts on the other side of town
ask if your new apartment used to belong
to someone who couldn't afford to look
like you, ask yourself if all the things
you are scared to admit are shovels
slowly filling up a brown boy's throat.

ii.
all lives don't matter
the same as all lives

some lives matter
only to themselves

some lives matter
only in they hood

some lives matter
of fact & some lives
up for debate

all lives matter
to someone

but what about
this life of mine?

honey colored
& black as it is?

what my life mean to you?
am i talking to you?
do you wish me justice
or do you just wish I would just
shut up already, vanish already?