If you asked me what my last words would be
Now that I know what that means
I would say I wouldn’t want my last words
to be robbed from me
by an act of police brutality.
Unfortunately, I have the privilege to do so.
But I’m just a white girl
from a Long Island cop family,
so what do I know?
I know that if my mother
was faced with what happened to
Kimani Gray, a boy of the same age
as my little brother when he died,
she’d do a lot more than set fire
to the hand that fed her.
And the same mouth
that said “Mike Brown got what he deserved,”
that he was a thug, or this, that and the third
would fall silent.
See, the only good thing about this privilege,
is I’m not afraid to deny it.
No mom, I will not be quiet,
because of what I know.
I don’t have the privilege to ignore it.
So please, mother officer,
put me out of my misery,
and record it:
my last words will be,
“In every last word, is a story.”