Black & Blue
by Joshua Hegarty

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​I will go on living without
knowing if I would have survived
that December night
with my mother’s skin
instead of my father’s.
Stop resisting, he said.

I’ve read the reports;
alarming how
watchmen find reasons to
reach for their arms.
Stop resisting, he said.
Self-defense exercised
with wide discretion.
Stop resisting, he said.
Stop resisting, he yelled
as he broke my nose.

I, a child, pinned
beneath three hundred pounds
of state sanctioned violence.
Children die like this
with their hands up,
children die in fear.

Was it the crowd,
my color,
or the holiday season,
that stayed his gun?
Stop resisting, he said.
But I can never stop.