Where young black children can wander past midnight
Without parents fearing for their lives
Wearing hoodies is just a layer of clothing to keep warm.
Where former nonviolent felons can sit on porches of their newly renovated houses smoking weed as they please
Maybe having a drop of liquor
Where street art creates a new geography
Of paint and flour water mixtures
Scrawled amongst the city creating a landscape of imagination and possibility
Where the old can rest their weary heads in neighborhoods where no one gets shot
And the young adults of the night can go out
Exploring love and their sexuality
Where the original owners of the land have the property
The indigenous people are the landlords, city planners, property investors
Where some area is reseved
For those who were here before colonialization
Where high rise structures collapse
Under the weight of their own oppressive autonomy
Where capitalism breaks apart and gives money back to those who need it
Or never had the opportunity to own it
Where schools give proper education
Where MLK is not just a man with a dream, but also a painful nightmare
Where black and brown women are empowered
By the legacy they fought to create
Where protest becomes parades
And in the evening we dance to our ancestors
Where blues is just another color
Of the emotional spectrum
And not a sociopolitical feeling
Where art, science, history, and philosophy are one
Where students can learn Sartre and then turn to Ptolemy
Sustained by generations of people who are taught the value of the Earth and what it provides to us
Once we return to the dirt
We will not be gone, but apart of the never ending universe
Where death doesn’t come soon
Or violently, ending life prematurely
But welcomed like an acquaintance
I must be asleep to believe it
