Slam Poetry: What a Cruel World?

There stood the colored man,

Ripped of innocence, accused of rape.

“You have no worth,” the crowd cheered,

The man held his place, muted,

As though his bones were connected to remotes,

And his soul was a unwanted mistake on a paper.

In that moment,

It is clear that the pale white had done the felony,

Yet, the black was guilty.

And then we say, “What a cruel world?”

As though those four words alone can change the world,

Don’t tell me it’s a cruel world,

When you have the audacity to prison a black man because of their completion,

We tie our self’s around this blanket,

Trying to hide our insecurities,

We blame a race for everything as if that can mend the problems,

As though, the problems would disappear once a man of color takes the blame,

And then we say, “What a cruel world?”

As you discriminate the man begging on the road,

Trying to get money for his daughter,

Who can’t get an education due to the skin she wears.

As you seat the black kid at the back of the class,

Because “he might be contagious,”

Yes, it is a cruel world.