The Bullet

"Are you afraid of them?", the reporter asked It was a blatant question, a bit too crass One on the bleeding edge of ruthless Even if it came off seemingly toothless I contemplated my answer, as one should with the media And thought of all the past shootings, from my personal Wikipedia And responded with an allegory, to get the point across For with the media, the truth is what often gets lost "I am not afraid of the bullet, as it sits idle Be it on the ground, chambered as a round, or hanging from a bible. It is not the gun, nor who pulls the trigger It is simply the end result of something much bigger It is used with the intent to resolve a problem Though the means is crude and is quite confused with how to solve them So it does so the only way it knows how By tearing into the problem, and pulling life out The thing I fear is the path it follows It chases dreams deferred and leaves heart hollow It passes through walls with wanton endangerment and presses into more lives in a lethal entanglement" The reports were silent, cameras clicking quietly As I looked at the room, seeing a sample of society I sighed to myself, quite done with the politics This parade of charades and the tired bag of tricks "Lets talk about what really ended this young man's life Was it the bullet itself, as it caused trauma and strife? Was it the weapon it was fired from, with a standard flashlight? Or the officer who fired it, claiming he feared for his life? Was it the concerned citizen who called it in? Who gave inaccurate information that started this spin? Information that clearly displayed the trend That she hated the color of his skin I say this without remorse As a society we are fighting a symptom while ignoring its source He died because of his color, and his color is not a sin But what killed him was a hate that never ends This is not something that can be solved with a bullet It is a systemic issue, with the lives to prove it This is an issue bigger than what we agree it to be It is old as class warfare, as old as slavery So my answer to your question I must say I do not fear the bullet, no not today What I fear is the fact that we don't talk About the hate we see, and the path we choose to walk