i rebuke you in the name of jesus: a poem for sonya massey

She held
Her hand up,
reaching for Jesus

seeking Jesus
at her time of stress,
during all of the mess,
just before her death.

I am sure
Jesus heard her,
prefers her instead
of the policeman
who took her life.

Her life was worth
much more than
the way they treated her,
was worth much more
than how they degraded,
demeaned her.

Jesus loves Black women.
Jesus heals Black women.

Jesus will treat Sonya Massey
like a victim. The policeman
who took her life, he will receive
the hardest decision handed down
to a person for unlawfully killing
a precious Black woman.

If you don’t believe
in her Jesus, then
whomever you pray to;
whomever you say amen to;
imagine what they will do

to a life taker, a life hater,
a degrader of the most powerful
women on this planet.

Sonya should still be living,
smiling, cooking, cleaning,
speaking to family and friends
on the phone, loving, praying,
hugging, happy, hopeful, doing

all of the simple things living
people do.

Instead, she is an Ancestor.

The pressure on Black women
in the United States of America
is continuously mounting. They
are praying to Jesus instead of
experiencing joy.

Say her name.

Dearest Buddha may she
have not died in vain. Please
ease her family’s pain.

And in Jesus’s name, may
the juror’s find the cop guilty
on all charges.

A life without a mother,
a Black mother, is one of the
hardest.

Copyright Christopher D. Sims
July 30th, 2024