July 7th and All the Time

When I wake up and swallow my throat feels too slick and I keep swallowing but whatever it is I can't get it down.

This must be grief. I don't know for sure because I don't think I've ever felt it.

When I go to bed my heart just ain't beating right.

I feel it irregular near the base of my throat like all the slick grief is clogging my arteries and my heart is going to burst with it-

unless I pour out that grief, my heart along with it.

It is impossible to take one out without the other now.

I don't remember what I am grieving all the time. I grieve the death of black people at the hands of the police.

I grieve for the death of all people at the hands of a corrupt system.

I grieve the loss of my own peace of mind.

I grieve because I don't know what you call it when you don't have time to mourn one death before you mourn another; hunting? Genocide? Tradition?

My grief is all here in these words, along with my heart.