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1982 Pontiac

Remembering Yusef Hawkins

By Ezekiel XanderPublished 10 months ago 1 min read
Yusef Hawkins was chased down by 30 teens in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, NY and was shot and killed.

On a hot summer day, a day like any other,

Gleeful urban youth, run and chase one another,

hydrants cracked open to cool melanin skin,

Siblings, cousins and friends and all forms of kin,

As the August heat melts, the big rotten apple,

A vulture sits perched upon the oldest living chapel,

I am death cried the vulture, and it was decided then,

That soon he will feast on young ghetto children,

Inquisitive souls idly walk, oblivious to what looms,

Peering out of the darkness, what will bring them to their doom,

Standing on the corner, of the racial divide,

I bare to witness, with my own naked eyes,

Two opposing forces, ready to collide,

Stomping through concrete jungle, bellowing war cries,

One swing from his scythe, and the prey has been slain,

Malcolm turns in his grave, for he feels Yusef’s pain,

An unjust act, that will surely be avenged,

In the following weeks to come, protests of violence to end,

A perpetual problem, we’ve seen too many times before,

Whether your rich and successful, or destitute and poor,

Decades of victims, carousel in my dreams,

Equality is never equal, it is exactly as it seems

By. Ezekiel Xander

fact or fictionheartbreakvintagesad poetryOde

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    Written by Ezekiel Xander