By Button Poetry
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Brandon Leake, performing at IWPS 2019 in San Diego, CA.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:01
but lack mental health a poem after John
00:05
teller eat’em Darrell Richards and
00:07
Shaheed vassal they’ve claimed me
00:10
mentally unfit determined I have what
00:13
they call psychosis the diagnosis deemed
00:15
deadly to my own accord I explained to
00:17
my doctors that this problem notice is
00:19
fatal but they think I’m just going
00:21
overboard not understanding that this
00:24
skin is Flint water LED heavy meaning
00:28
I’m meant to sink never meant to swim in
00:30
an ocean of blue that don’t seek to
00:31
understand the mental state I’m in
00:32
psychiatric medicine is prescribed to me
00:35
and the clinic and my appointment
00:37
doctors called these pills
00:38
antipsychotics but on the street and
00:40
stop-and-frisk police call these pills
00:41
narcotics they ask me how much you
00:44
selling these for a boy I say I’m sorry
00:47
officer I could understand how the
00:49
middle of my sentence at the worth of
00:51
the sounds of your hands clamping around
00:52
my throat but you must have me mistaken
00:54
you should be able to tell by my grip
00:56
that I’m too clutch to choke but you
00:58
ain’t ain’t afraid they take the last
01:00
shot in the series that you ain’t never
01:02
had a stake in my mama torn growing up
01:04
Brandon life ain’t no game the mama why
01:06
the hell do these cops keep playing
01:07
they hate the way we talk back but who
01:09
wouldn’t with all the spit they’d be
01:11
spraying
01:11
and that’s why whenever people asked why
01:14
black folk don’t take mental health
01:16
seriously I always say why don’t
01:18
Authority example John tell readin was a
01:23
26 year old black man who suffered from
01:25
schizophrenia Fresno PD knowing his
01:27
diagnosis still willingly gunned him
01:29
down
01:29
unarmed in the street John tell readin
01:32
was killed by Sacramento PD on his way
01:34
to a psychiatric evaluation Shaheed
01:37
Basso had manic bipolar disorder for all
01:39
of the police officers who gunned him
01:41
down knew this while he was unarmed so
01:43
yes we do take mental health seriously
01:46
but know most of us just don’t get the
01:48
chance to I still remember the first
01:51
time this realization ever dawned on me
01:53
I was eating a young black man and
01:55
calming down his father who suffers from
01:57
hallucinogenic seizures the son
01:59
explained to me that the seizures take
02:01
his father back to a war zone and as
02:04
that moment happened the dad frantically
02:06
ran by and the son said pops calm down
02:09
none of it is real but before that
02:13
exclamation mark could punctuate that
02:15
cried my eyes surveyed the situation and
02:17
wondered if that dad suffered from
02:19
hallucinations or premonitions because
02:22
if the police arrived I’m not sure if
02:24
that man would survive to express how
02:25
his wildest fears came true and how his
02:28
dad would have become more John Tell
02:29
read him than Dylan roof more Darrell
02:32
Richards than Adam Lanza more Shaheed
02:33
Basildon Devin Kelley because when a
02:35
white man claims insanity it comes as a
02:37
plea but when a black man claims his own
02:40
humanity it comes as we plead so tell me
02:43
who don’t take mental health seriously
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[Applause]
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video