In Case I'm Next
So excited so share that In Case I'm Next, the spoken word short that I wrote and performed in won Best Directed Live Short at LALIFF 2021! Check out the trailer and piece below, and you can read my article on why I wrote here.

In case I’m next
In case the next time you gather here is because me.
Make sure to burn my body
Scatter my ashes at the beach and save a sprinkle for the LAPD
Play my last words like their sirens
And make sure the echoes drown out their silence
In case I don’t make it the next time I go to the store, go for a run, or sleep in my bed,
Don’t make me a hashtag
Make me a sentence, it’ll be simple- I died. Wait- make sure it says I was murdered.
Don’t leave flowers where they broke my body
But paint the stories that I left unwritten
In case the next protest is screaming my name
Make sure they pronounce it with all its syllables
Let them taste my culture with their tongue,
Chew the richness of where I came from
Say my name and add my face to your timeline,
don’t worry If I’m lucky
I’ll only stay relevant long enough
for my life to be dragged through the mud
Long enough to be crucified by nails of “the skeletons in my closet,”
and hung by “I resisted arrest”
If I’m the next video you have to suffer through
Don’t skip watching the life drain from my eyes and just offer your prayers
Don’t argue in the comments that they’re not all bad
Don’t say “you have friends on both sides”
Don’t let them kneel with the crowds because they’ll get back up to shoot them with gas
I want you to rage
Rage to make them see me
Rage to make them understand
Rage to let them know I was made in His image too
Rage at the injustice
Rage at my blood poured out for nothing
Just don’t call for peace, not yet
Not until you see changes
Because sooner or later
you’ll be back here again
With another name on your lips
And I’ll go from the next one
to just another name on the list