Unassumed Innocence Poem by Joshua Bantum

The blood must have ran quick
with her young heart as afraid
as it was
Her tears must have kept wet
and not dried due to the storm
descending upon her cheeks,
like moist soil being tendered by clouds
consumed by solace from a funeral below.

Alarms and gunshots
screams
'WE'VE STUCK HER'

But her fear has passed
the last remaining sounds fade,
her beat trails into memories
hands slip from the wheel,
eyes slip from the mirage
of colors...

And she's dead, sentenced before due process
sentenced
her name quietly on a list

A suspect like those overseas
with drones targeting heart beats
convicted before due process,
signed to the grave by countries miles away
while these heart beats finish breakfast
planning dinner later with their parents.

Those responsible are not terrorists against foreign
governments,
or foreign uprisings,
but these highly paid officials are terrorists
against justice
suppressing concepts of truth with the pen
that add names quietly to the list
in privacy,
where you
and I,
Can not ask for them to justify

As a county,
our grip is slipping from the many necks
we grasp at with means of control
and we are afraid, which I embrace
for in life,
there are deserved times to be afraid...



She's Dead before hospital beds
were stained by a mistake
of unassumed innocence.

Alone without parents there
or friends by your side
alone in the ambulance
with your murderers
staring at your fading life
while they plan their stories of preached
innocence.

A calm destruction saturates the remaining threads
of our freedom condemned
and we stay
in
our phones
in
our jobs
in
our homes
in
an artificial self
out
of all the reality
that is rushing towards us like a hurricane which
takes flight against a city.
and we will crumble
and we will die
but I would rather do both
because of my mistakes

not somebody else's.