there’s this lie
one that you must know about me
I wrestle with it
more than I do my pillow
fighting to listen to sound sleep
I don’t want you to know
me by this lie
yet you do, already
more than you know me
by anything else
or other than
something else or anything
other…wait,
confused myself
guess I just want you to
better understand the lie
you will know then
who I am, really am.
seeing what I have
been up against
you are
better able to see me
know me
hear me
trust me
help me. heal me. whole me.
but you don’t know me
by first, hearing my truth
still you can’t see
beyond my lie
far enough to
absorb my truth
and care.
but to care,
you must know the lie first,
reason being..?
you live it as well.
how does one live truth
rediscovering lie after lie?
unlearning and relearning
in years too far from childhood
it seems
the lies are the layers
which lie in procession
to one’s core truth,
core of truths.
the lies are fodder
old paint
chipped away at
or the splintered wood
chopped down
never sanded.
I was spirit
before being
I was celestial
before extraterrestrial
I am absolute
relatively speaking
I am imagination and will
manifested
I am vessel
for truth realized.
king, in one mind
god, in the other
but, I was born a lie
then became human.
before man
I was child.
and even before baby
I was black!
though your mind denies
color is unseen
and my certificate of birth
readies the lie
signed, into truth
I am a lie
you carry it out
by reinforcing a world
which accepts it.
you see me
and say
he’s black
I am and am not,
I am and am more
I am
but
the lies you tell yourself!
dressed as truths
they appear worn
picking with no sense of details
the lies I believed
trying to discover
truth.
new clothes, I’ve rarely tried on
the lie I became
knowing no truth
the truths I know–
outcastes, of lies–
have to convince you
and me
of the truths, we live
being lies
the lies we know
obscure the history
of truth’s time in the sun
so I need you to see me
I need you to know the truth
my truth
your truth!
Son shine, Sunshine!
Sun Shine!
but if the moon,
remains eclipsed
you will never will
true sight
until you understand
the dark is the truth
and the light,
the way
Frantz Fanon said
”a Black, is not a man”
so my lie
is harder to escape
than yours
a complex problem,
with too simple a solution
to be believed, in
so since the details matter
‘rejected’
is who I am
until we stop living lies