"for (insert name)" by Roya Marsh

A Bronx, New York native, Roya Marsh is a nationally recognized poet, performer, educator and activist. She is the Poet in Residence at Urban Word NYC and works feverishly toward LGBTQIA justice and dismantling white supremacy. Roya’s work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, Flypaper Magazine, Frontier Poetry, the Village Voice, Nylon Magazine, Huffington Post, The Root, Button Poetry, Def Jam’s All Def Digital, Lexus Verses and Flow, NBC, BET and The BreakBeat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket 2018).
In Spring 2020, MCD x FSG Originals published Roya Marsh's dayliGht, a debut collection of experimental poetry exploring themes of sexuality, Blackness, and the prematurity of Black femme death--all through an intersectional feminist lens with a focus on the resilience of the Black woman.

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                                                                          for (insert name)


never knowing how to label a dream
until you want to tell your children apart
 
you'll forget how
to tell your children apart
 
not wanting your baby
to die on a cross like (insert name)
or in a cross walk like (insert name)
 
not wanting him to be like (insert name) lying in middle of the street
 
not another (insert name) crying he can't breathe
 
or (insert name) shot at the doorstep
 
'cause black fist against door
equates fist against body
'cause guns ring out
more than doorbells
 
or (insert name)'s brains
splattered
in that alley         'cause a cell phone could be a lot of things in the dark
but an unregistered 9mm semiautomatic fired over the shoulder
can only be one thing
         an eraser
 
a broken taillight in broad daylight
        a reaper
 
eye contact, a counterfeit bill
        a death wish
 
you ain't gon let your son go out like
how they let (insert name) run
just far enough to think
himself safe
before they shot
 
you won't let the last time you see him
                  whole
be like when
they threw (insert name) in the back of that van
 
hands cuffed behind his back like (insert name) but he still managed
to shoot himself like (insert name)
 
his spine in pieces like (insert name)
 
you want him home
like putting curfew on (insert name)'s soul - too black to be out at night
 
you ain't gonna be asking the news
why they say (insert name) when they really mean (insert name)
got Obama and Kamala callin' us (insert name) like they don't sit around
callin' him (insert name)
 
'cause isn't that the right word?
‘cause you know ALL lives matter
except (insert name)
 
how lucky am i,
to have (insert name)
in my bloodline
holy                  the way (insert name) keeps pushing my pen from heaven
 
i flap my gums
show the world the fist in my throat
in honor of (insert name)
 
but my mother begs me home from the protest
says she can't go through what she went through with (insert name)
 
says this hype over (insert name)
will die just like
(insert name)
 
and i tell her
i'd rather die for (insert name)
a million times
than die like (insert name)
                                                                                 once