I Have a Reality

A spoken word piece shared by a youth presenter during our Reimagining New York City Online Forum, reflecting on participation at our Youth Forum to Reimagine New York City.

—

I Have a Reality

by Y.D

I wonder what it would have been like to not have witnessed a shooting at the age of 17.

Or to have seen a friend who was supposed to graduate high school and go to prom laying in a casket at 18.

I wonder how the gun control laws we have now, could have stopped it.

Or if we would have just done a little bit more activism to get stricter drug prevention laws.

Is the constitution enough to end colorism? Mass incarceration even?

Children of color wake up in this world breathing and believing that the laws passed before them

will protect them in the world we live in now.

Protect them from who? And what?

What about our safety and our education?

A new world and change is a public outcry.

Enough blood has been shed.

Enough stories are told.

Let us all mold this coulda woulda shoulda world into a proactive action taking,

community outcry hearing, guns off the streets seizing, education rights for girls granting,

healthcare accessibility conferring, free therapy offering, student debt relief awarding world.

Just give society the word.

So our communities can come together and kick this mess to the curb.

Martin Luther King Jr. said “I have a dream.”

Well I say I have a reality.

A dream without action is just a dream.

Let’s make a reality out of this dream.

Take action.

Together.

Reimagining New York City is a citywide series of visioning sessions and exchanges to incorporate the wisdom, imagination, and creative practices of community cultural organizations, artists, and neighborhood residents in decision making and transformative change.