Take Me to Paradise: A Poem for the 2021 People’s Response Act

Take me to Paradise
Where I always shine
Where the light is mine

Take me to Paradise
At the tip of the mountain
Let my light climb

Paradise: Where I am, first, a person. Second, a dream— the wildest one of my ancestors—and I’m thriving.

Paradise: Where I am recognized as someone who is loved before I am recognized as someone’s lesson to be learned.

Paradise: Where I am more than my mistakes, more than my bad days and my hard times. Where I am not confined by the outlines of this country’s bad dreams.

Paradise: Where I am not confined.

Paradise: Where every fresh season, the clean streets bloom, fill with the laughter and unfettered joy of the young, old, and dreamy.

Paradise: Where I get to live long enough to see the young awake from their dreaming—and make it all a reality.

Paradise: Where the jobs run free and wide like waterfalls.
Our wages more than enough to feed us, clothes us, shelter us, heal us—
Give us free reign of our days and nights and years and life.

Paradise: Where I see first the face of a healer
Before I see the face of a holster.

Paradise: Where the blessed silence of sirens and the songs of the Blue Jays
Interrupt the violent haze of misplaced anger in trivial trespasses. In other words—

Paradise: Where I can cross any street I want.
Paradise: Where I can sleep in my car anytime I feel like it.

Paradise: Where I can love up on whoever I want.

Paradise: Where I can drink from any fountain, shop from any store, get what I want when I want it.

Paradise: Where I can sit in the shade of any tree, let my feet rest. Nah, mean.

Paradise: Where I can breathe.

Paradise: Where I can breathe.

Paradise: Where I can breathe. I can breathe. I can breathe. I can breathe.
I can breathe. I can breathe. I can breathe. I can breathe.

Paradise: Where my faith in our country’s greatest minds is restored.
Our blocks restored. Our homes restored. Our land restored. Our schools restored.
Justice restored.

Paradise: Where green grass sweeps through the community like an emerald sea of hope, wonder, and light.

Paradise: Where I don’t have to wonder if my doctor sees me for the whole human being that I am.

Paradise: Where the health of my mind and my spirit is just as important as the health of my body and my property.

Paradise: Where a helping hand comes easy.

Paradise: Where my pain isn’t buried beneath doubt. Where I am believed
Where I am heard. Where I am protected.

Paradise: Where I can come up out of a cage, where I already done paid for my mistakes, and find myself welcomed. Given a chance to improve. Given a chance to build.
Given a chance to try again at this difficult and confusing thing called life. Where none of us get everything right?

Paradise: Where it’s easier to find a roof to put over my head than it is to find a bullet.

Paradise: Where I can fall asleep and know that no one—no one—is going to wake me up to kill me. Where I can sleep in peace the whole night.

Paradise: Where I can lay my many burdens down. Be held. Be forgiven. Be uplifted. Be encouraged. Be seen. Be heard. Be healed. Be trusted. Be loved. Be fed. Be happy, without worrying what comes next, for once.

Paradise: Where I can breathe. I can breathe. Where I am alive and protected.
And like I said—thriving.

Paradise. Somebody take me to paradise because it’s time. For all us.

Take me to Paradise
Where I always shine
Where the light is mine

Take me to Paradise
At the tip of the mountain
Let my light climb