this morning my best friend
was murdered
again
and yesterday in front of St. Matthew’s
he was butchered
and the day before
I swept the barber shop floor
while my best friend lay
dead by the door
and a few years ago
he broke down
screeching like the neighbor’s rat
at the bus stop where I
sat
no insurance covers this kind of
sick, mental shit
no booze buries the boy, man
jammed, reeling dead
in bipolar head
no bed is made for me
sick, they say
but
my friend was killed today
as my body rocked
in holes
shot by cops and nobody
knows how to stop
this illness
it grows and grows
on streets like mine
oh man, my best friend died
and so did I
in Brooklyn
READ MORE
Locals knew he was mentally ill. The officers who shot him did not. [The New York Times]
Slain bipolar man’s pal also fatally shot by NPYD in Brooklyn [New York Daily News]
Amy Challenger is an American expat living in Switzerland. She writes essays, poetry and fiction often relating to the plight of the marginalized. She has been published in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Tuck Magazine, Brain Child Magazine, an anthology and several other publications. She is finishing a novel, assembling a chapbook, and leads creative writing workshops in Zürich using the Amherst Writers’ and Artists Method.
Image via Linda Sarsour on Twitter.
