In Case I'm Next

So excited so share that In Case I'm Next, the spoken word short that I wrote and performed in won Best Directed Live Short at LALIFF 2021! Check out the trailer and piece below, and you can read my article on why I wrote here.

In case I’m next

In case the next time you gather here is because me.

Make sure to burn my body

Scatter my ashes at the beach and save a sprinkle for the LAPD

Play my last words like their sirens

And make sure the echoes drown out their silence

In case I don’t make it the next time I go to the store, go for a run, or sleep in my bed,

Don’t make me a hashtag

Make me a sentence, it’ll be simple- I died. Wait- make sure it says I was murdered.

Don’t leave flowers where they broke my body

But paint the stories that I left unwritten

In case the next protest is screaming my name

Make sure they pronounce it with all its syllables

Let them taste my culture with their tongue,

Chew the richness of where I came from

Say my name and add my face to your timeline,

don’t worry If I’m lucky

I’ll only stay relevant long enough

for my life to be dragged through the mud

Long enough to be crucified by nails of “the skeletons in my closet,”

and hung by “I resisted arrest”

If I’m the next video you have to suffer through

Don’t skip watching the life drain from my eyes and just offer your prayers

Don’t argue in the comments that they’re not all bad

Don’t say “you have friends on both sides”

Don’t let them kneel with the crowds because they’ll get back up to shoot them with gas

I want you to rage

Rage to make them see me

Rage to make them understand

Rage to let them know I was made in His image too

Rage at the injustice

Rage at my blood poured out for nothing

Just don’t call for peace, not yet

Not until you see changes

Because sooner or later

you’ll be back here again

With another name on your lips

And I’ll go from the next one

to just another name on the list