Dear America,

I used to hate you. I only knew you as the home you built for me. I knew you as gunshots and brutality; as corpses and discrimination. I only heard Trayvon Martin and Breonna Taylor’s names when I spoke aloud each letter of your name. I could only see the headline: “Martin King Shot To Death: Gunned Down in Memphis” in the creases of your laugh lines.

I lost this hate when I began to understand you. We, the people, are not the police, or the gunsmiths: we are the bodies and discriminated. I hear now these names in fury and love; each syllable a reason to stand and scream and shout. I see now the legacy in the ink written on my mind beamed from the paper through my eyes. I see now a reason to love. 

And you should too, dear eavesdropper. You should find love in this land, the songs of the trees’ soughs, the whispers of wind carrying rain to stain our face in tears. This land we sprung to life atop is being taken. Love lost to lies, broken promises. So I ask, rise! Rise like the skyscrapers and stand tall against this oppression. Stand alongside your fellow Americans not in anger, but for love. Stand before it’s taken away from us Forever.

Regards,

Lonan Shaye Jennings.