This week, the Beat will be posting work from writers in the Writers in Baltimore Schools (WBS) program. This work was created at WBS’ Young Writers’ Summer Studio, a six-day writing camp held each year in August. This year, the Beat’s Lisa Snowden-McCray and Brandon Soderberg worked with the students for two of those six days. Some of the work here and much more will be published in WBS’ Writers’ Studio anthology out soon. We began with a piece from WBS founder Patrice Hutton and yesterday, we brought you a poem by WBS writer Abigail Mokuba. Today, it is WBS writer Jahi Heath’s turn…

Black lives matter

They really do

Not just because i’m black 

But because i’m telling the truth 

When we put our hand up please don’t shoot

 But you still shoot 

Shame on you

When you shoot us down

 More of my race falls to the ground

The more we die 

The more we multiply 

Letting your bullets fly through the sky

Our riots and protest are our freedom cry

But you’re covering the truth up with a lie

You prevent our message to go through 

WITH YOUR AUTHORITY 

The problem isn’t us 

It’s probably you

This is all a huge lie 

And I call this the Black and Blue

Crime

Black skin isn’t something that could be removed 

It’s an honor the black people take pride  of

But you don’t stop there i guess because you want to be above

But this needs to stop before it’s too late 

Because way too many innocent lives are stake 

If we don’t make the change now  

The future is gone

And would all the victim’s families possibly move on 

Stop this now before it’s too late

This only your decision to make