after Compton City Council meetings

“…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”
—United States Declaration of Independence, 1776

They call it an agreement—
a law enforcement contract—
but its signature is silence,
a covenant with shadows

where justice changes hands behind closed doors,
where truth twists knees like Chubby Checker,
and asphalt splits like fractured oaths
under street burnouts and scorched rubber.

Sheriff badges flash with the grin of Jim Crow.
Gangs: Jump Out Boys, Banditos, Reapers.
They score-keep bullet-blazed bodies:

M. Hernandez (1), A. Hernandez (1),
Aldama (2), Reyes (2), Inzuza (3),
Juarez (5), Jove (6), Mabee (6),
Ramirez (6), Rodriguez (7), Coberg (8).

Tattooed bullets added with each killing—
status symbols.  

Killers hired to serve, sworn to protect—
but their ink portrays shooting parties 
and valorized death. Genocide.

These are not shields of protection—
but patrols that punish and provoke fear
in Black and Brown bodies that remember.

Police are for White folks.
Patterrollers for niggers—Executioners inked
in the blood of sons and daughters:

Donta Taylor,
Andres Guardado,
Avery Cody Jr.,
Rickie Cornell Starks,
Jose de la Trinidad,
Antoine D. Hunter,
Nicholas Robertson.

They say democracy lives here—
but the council chambers echo empty.
Their lips lock tight around unasked questions.

The water runs arsenic slick.
The sewer gurgles onto sidewalks.
Potholes devour the dreams of the waking poor.
Silence lingers as the council folds.

They wrote in the Declaration:
That to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men…

But who checks Kool-Aid drunkards
elected to serve while bodies fall?

That whenever any form of government
becomes destructive… the people may rise,
may tear down, may reclaim what was stolen.

But what of a city
where uprisings drown in White tape?
Where gold vanishes into hands
that never held a shovel.
Where mayors forget their people
as easily as rain forgets pavement.

Compton—
Your streets whisper rebellion.
Your walls hold stories painted over.
Justice won’t be bartered by resolution
or bleached in the mouths of men who look away.

It survives in the cracked hands of rebels
still walking these unmarked streets,
still sipping tainted tap,
still daring to call this city home.

Who, like Jasmine Crockett, strike through fake petitions,
toss caution like lit matches—
and rage like Eaton Canyon wildfires
when home is worth burning for.