the Last

I never wanted
To be the last,
At anything,
Until I realized
That we could be
The last ones,
The last generation,
Of a nation, that witnessed
What it was to watch the world
Burn in terror.
The last people to turn their back
On those who had nobody
To hear their cries.
Racism and hate would be words
Just words, used only in the most
Desolate corners of this world,
While the rest stood
Shoulder to shoulder.
We'd be the last ones to teach,
Our children what role was theirs
Because of a letter that gave them
A gender on a piece of paper,
This world would be theirs,
Just theirs.
We'd be the last ones to care,
To define what gender even was
Or who anybody loved,
Or what the color of our skin
Meant, as if music
Didn’t sing, from within,
Sinking into the soil, lifting us up
To the sky.
We'd know what true knowledge was,
What communication was,
What connection was,
All of us connected,
You to me to you to you to them to everybody
Us we, all of us somebody.
We'd be the last ones anyone would ever expect
To have history repeat itself while we were watching,
We were changing bits of this world, not stopping,
But stop, at this rate we’ll just be
The last ones.
The ones they’ll quote
As the last feet to ever walk a clean earth,
All we saw was hurt,
Change on the verge,
And we took it backwards,
Women under siege
Skin versus police,
What’s going to be
The line that you see
And say stop.
What tragedy, what war
What children, what blood
Do you need in a picture
For all of y’all to listen?
What weapon,
What amount,
What time,
What count,
Of lives lost, money cost
Until you see that
You will be the last one,
All alone.
This earth it gave birth to us,
These people gave love to us,
What do we do when all
The good ones up and leave us?
I don’t want to be the last one left.
I never wanted to be the last,
At anything,
At anything,
Until I realized we could be the last,
The last ones to make mistakes,
Fear our fates,
Raise broken dreams,
And crying faces.
We could be the last ones,
But we can’t take,
Away the dark,
Without all of our, 
And I mean all of our, 
Lights.