Buried Voices

The next generation

Is being plucked off one by one

On the streets, in schools and in prison

Little ones snuggled

In small coffins

Buried voices have many stories

Voices from down under

Have a lot to say but no one bother to listen

Buried voices speaking in harmony

They want their justice

Hunting the soulless

Young spirits creeping in the minds of the old and wary

Their hit list is endless

Years of abuse

Caught up And can't get loose

Black, young and disabled

Always been labeled

Home was not stable

Elders set in their ways

They want to lock us away

Can't teach old dogs new tricks

Christopher, Seth and Dion

Blacks disabled boys can't grow up to be Black disabled men

Buried in mainstream news

Buried in the community

Can't breath, can't hear, can't see

Layer after layer

Ism after ism

Wrapped up like a mummy

Buried voices are singing in the cemetery

voicing their short and painful history

Buried voices rising with the sun

Young disabled corps walking the earth

Talking back and heading north

Now everybody is scared

Running in fear

Cause judgment day is here

Parents, teachers and politicians

Listen to the voices

They demand your attention

Buried voices

Are always with me

They are in my head guiding my pen

I write with the blood of disabled youth

I'm their agent

Writing and speaking their messages

And they told me to tell you

Many are still in pain

Bullets and fists falling down on them like pouring rain

Poems can't bring them back from the dead

Do you hear that, buried voices want me to speak the raw truth

This poem wants you to think with your heart first then your head

The truth hurts

But it also heals

We need to get real

But I feel the tension

Every time I mention the reason

Why I wrote Buried Voices

Disability Poetics