Does my life matter?

June 2020 Does My Life Matter? Felony After masked men in the name of the law swerve and jump out Guns drawn Traumatic Terroristic On the same corner that I seen police frisk Yo-yo and Tracy Pulling out wads of cash The most at the time that I'd ever seen Years, over a decade later, it’s me Waiting to buy drugs And for what? What was left to us? My brother, cousins, and daddy used and sold drugs And all have been to the County I just took it a step further Convicted for murder Serving my sentence I've learned systematic injustice and disenfranchisement Much too late to fully know what I’m up against School to Prison Pipeline I was an Honor Roll student Still, I supplied coke to be stuffed in a pipe and put to fire Why? Can I blame it on injustice in a system that existed before I was an infant? Raised in the Crack Era Born into Reagan To fund a war Flooded drugs in communities like mine Racist Been killing us Now prisons filled with us From a War on Drugs Laws setup by the same mutha fuckas My crime Being black Tryna get some stacks In a game I'd never win at My opposition was the cops and the robbers Crackers and niggas who hate Why bother? Tryna escape? Not money or education can save me from The United States Me not being a human is in The Constitution I'm a slave because of the 13th Amendment Minority communities heavily policed to put blacks back in slavery Amend it! All the contributions we’ve made to this country Acknowledge it! How better things could be if we’ve had the resources Invest in it! I wish I had it I would have been an Engineer But instead I’m here Do they care? Could they understand my fear? Scared that I wouldn't see 18 They didn’t out line me in chalk at a murder scene But they got my ass at sentencing A different lynching But does it matter? Live from the Pen, J. S. Russell