I was doomed, to be traumatized
in the womb, with my mama’s cries
in the room, where my father died
because the wounds, to my father’s pride
consumed by proof, in his bottle’s lies
my roots, are from bottled lives
boundaries bruised, with shouts and touted knives
where truth, was bound to rise
under roofs, where secret lovers drown at night
much abuse, fueled the fuse in the brownest eyes
two hearts glued, both posted in Army forces-
postmortem, post traumatic disorder-
birthed an orphaned youth, soothed by morbid music of his mama’s cries
who was doomed…to be traumatized
each other
Why fight each other, as others
I fight for others, with others
we are more One, than an ‘other’
we are more as One, than another
I may not spell brother, without ‘other’
but I can’t spell teach, nor reach, without ‘each’
I see Us, as We
We, as You AND Me
“resilience energy through plight”
To You reading this, this was a musical performance poetry that I performed at Black History Month Symposium in Our Prison’s Harambee African Cultural Club, so hopefully the substance is soaked though the complete essence won’t be fully absorbed.
It was hyped with chants of “I got that energyyyyy” from me to the crowd to depict youthful hopeful and enduring resilience, choosing not to be victim but victor of circumstance, not being a theme of bad news and bad luck but of innovation and ingenuity thru it all by having a healthy view of self and culture without shame.
Culture is a celebration of people and their uniqueness of experience and tradition, it is an invitation, exclusively and inclusively! So I invite you to never feel left out or spoken against when I speak artfully of mine as a Black Human Being merely explaining my story from my point of view.
“Resilience Energy thru Plight”
there’s too many cold cases
we killing your own
because of self hatred
blood flowing into seams,
crevices,
and creeks-
creating a fatal oasis
history lost to blank pages
but this has been the story for ages
our culture is sacred
but we don’t take time to embrace it
to the world,
a black boy is a Man
and so are his charges
so trump up his charges
even before, Trump was in office
too many of us
was slumped inside coffins
made orphans and seen like the problem
police seeing robbers
just cuz we got hoodies
speaking more of what we were
than what we “could be”
my people keep struggling
cold getting heat from the oven
and sleeping wit oven mits…
accustomed to suffrage
assistance is cumbersome
living like savages, subjugates
HUD has us living in huts
so we hustling
misery loving company
seems like a coven that’s made by a covenant
that we call government
keeping us stumbling, funneling
bundles of guns and some drugs
that come in from others to smother our growth
while we tryna cater to stomachs that rumbling
ramen in tumblers
we ‘gotta ball’, we ain’t fumblers
position and dreams are a fable, we only speak of it
no wonder we wander and wonder
we never reap wonders
and never recovered
from slavery customs
our plight gets no coverage
institutional fundament
built up a system of classists-
the richest that prey on the hunger
no funds for the humblest
this where we come from, conditions its hard to come up from
live month to month just to hunt for a come up
by stunting the come up of
of our sisters and brothers huh?!
wit no hesitation, that’s facts!
feels like I was born wit a strap
life is a war when u black!
life is a war when u black!
war is the law, in a land that was built on our backs!
they warring on crime
warring on drugs
warring on rappers-
cuz they only niggaz
and thugs
and call all women bitches
they gangsters
they saggin
and never speak english
and only sell drugs
and kill they own just to be ‘factors’
yet fractions ain’t whole
tell’em ‘stay woke!’
statistics, when we a day old
say its ‘their’ fault, say ‘they’ ain’t owed
acres and mules-
but we settled for museums
and music
and muses
amusing,
our culture infused wit
some cubics
the blueprint
of new age solutions
yet ‘we’ stay in ruins
the cost is ‘us’ ruined
pursuing the jewelers
but not for no wisdom-we foolish
medulla polluted
now all of us shootaz!
you can’t fit in my shoes! no empathy!
life of a ruler!
clips like a movie
that shooting from uzi’s
when chasing that guda
on rims for influence
instead of in school or some movements-
we can’t see a human
if we never facing the truth,
and the music of what we keep doing..
but I got that energy
I face the truth and the music
lyrical entrepreneur
I found my grind from the sewer
I had to climb out manure
I turned the soup to dijour
I did this time to be sure
now I’ma speak out like a tour
cuz I got that energy!!
we I just need synergy
speak from the inner me
way before I was infringed with obscenities
lived for affinities
chasing amenities
never made sense to me
before my sentencing
since
my earliest memories-
misery
murder was kin to me
I hated colors, said I was black,
tho
I wouldn’t pretend to be
but
complexion offended me
cuz
the system befriended me
but
I ain’t need sinister sympathy
I was just livin thru repeated history
I felt defeated and misery
promise you I’m speaking literally
they was too scared of me physically
umm…
too dark to get empathy, sympathy
too dark to feel symmetry, chemistry
too bad to feel jimmeny cricket-
identity, finicky
talking bout pain-I’m the epitome
lived wit a pit in me
been thru the rough like a ligament
was hated but I loved too much like polygamous
they seen my pigment
put in predicaments
I paid my dividends
still never made a difference
they said I was menacing
I wasn’t victim
just plagued by my history
but I got that remedy
I’ve been resilient
I’m more than a villain-
cold blooded reptilian
no longer concealing
reflection appealing
my layers keep peeling
and only revealing
that I got that,
I got that
I got that energyyyy!
charged to the game
He wanna change his life but he can’t
cuz this just what it is he addicted to the game
he addicted to the gains
he never fears the chains
he rather rock ‘dem chains
he made it out the cage
his vision like a cave
he never thinks to change
he just wants some change
embodied his family’s pain
he always felt the rain
now he rather make it rain
he came up from the mud
a lowly rose bud
his thorns draw blood
it drops with a thud…
can’t get close to hug
he’s setting up pretense
distressed and he needs friends
obsessed wit the weekends
won’t confess that he’s weakened
when stressed thru the week’s end
…his girl at home wit his kids
hoping he makes it home
she was raised right
and knows what he makes is wrong
though he’s a thug
love is a drug
she’s had everything but love…
he loves her right
so tough advice
she’s stuck inside
thru the rough-
they stayed side by side
she’s ride or die
she fears he just might die
realizing
every ‘goodbye”
could be, bye
I stand with my staff
I stand with my staff in the middle of two forces
split in half the ocean
possessed with
divine power in my body like I’m Moses
in between false prophets
and
profiteering posers
but this is where I’m pose’d ta
be, like
this is where my post is
I’m a lowly soul, playin the background like a poster
but I’m, leaning on the rock like a boulder
blessing resting on both of my shoulders
I try to hold up
like composure
temperament composes
reality, I can’t be overcome by my emotions
passion is fire in me, witness how I smolder
but I never sweat the small stuff cuz prayer catches every fall like a coaster
no apologies no mea culpa
the snake in the garden is the culprit
a cobra
my God, I made it out, I talked it out like I’m Oprah
weathered every season even okra
meditative healing like Chopra
belief running thru my chakras
back when, I ain’t have options
I was sick physically and mentally, no doctors
could read what was wrong with me, no teleprompters
people in and out my life like props
self righteous, had them propped up
interrupting me with they opinions like some pop ups
only learned right from wrong from cops cuz I never had a poppa
everybody neck inside my business like a ostrich
my heart was so black I felt gothic
I seen it all before it happened
feeling like the pilot before the crash in the cockpit
even right now I’m feeling nauseous
exhausted
fumble with the weight of my coming greatness as the topic
sacrifices come, broken love in my wake
but I can’t leave tomorrow up to chance
I been helpless too long, I’ll do anything but wait
You may not understand it
coming from a different vantage
but ima man, I’m coming of age-so I’ll manage
the cameras may pan but I won’t panic
insanity is coupled with some demons, and a deep belief most people soon abandon
vision ain’t an optical illusion
I would’ve been too distracted to see what I had if it weren’t for my seclusion
my pride took contusions
You can say I’m seeing things, see dreams are just delusions
but I’m moving in between realities like distribution
cancelled out the middle man, he was too useless
fumes from my fuse only prove what I’m pursuing
everyone has an angle, time will soon prove it
embracing every shape, even my own incongruence
grew into my own shoes, despite misled influence
groomed into a teacher but bloomed into a student
if we speaking multi culturally you know I speak it fluent
it won’t happen overnight, thank god I started years ago
but when u see it suddenly, you’ll call it lucky or a miracle
I was patient
I went thru the process
now everybody wanna tell me bout the process
speaking on my progress
but they don’t know all of my progress
so how could they properly digest
the intensity behind my mindset
if they in the blind
and haven’t realized they ain’t opened the blinds yet
I’ve already let the light in
and compared to the darkness that was there, it looks like lightening
I had my share of Poseidon falling from my eyelids
casted out to an island
but that coal pressure from confinement
helped me refine and burst out into a diamond
even thru the pain I was smiling, tho I felt bluer than violets
given the climate
that’s one hell of a alignment
black as any analogy but u only see me shining
I guess its just the right reflection caught at the right angle, or its my time and you just opened your eyes at the right timing
I’m the one jewel you’ll look back on and say priceless…
but I’m me because God’s will, so each rhyme is attached to holy consignment
living for the day to where my legacy is history’s assignment
I’m timeless
I don’t look beneath me like a giant
I don’t look beneath me like a giant
leave me to my own devices
I see poltergeists
and many guises and many guys in different disguises
despise and spite of all kinds mixed with defiance
Connectedly disconnected like Verizon
I’m sharp like a trident
I fight til my triumph
collide with a titan
so I don’t know what it means when you say you trying
just so I could journey further, I’ll push beyond resistance like a hymen
coming forth wit my demons inside me
and my conscience behind me
no mirrors, mirrors remind me
that I still can’t ever find me
feel like a vampire inside it
believe me I try to keep my sanity vise gripped
but you only hold on to those things worth holding onto, like prizes
I run from normalcy dodging like Chryslers
take heed to the blind because they see more than just eyelids
I’m living lifeless
I’m feeling like life is
fulfilling with crisis
no one is righteous
no one is right then
remember the innards of gates
the embers of hate
and what they did to your faith
succumbing to the dysfunctional family members of fate
critics dismember your name
all agendas considered til you begin to deflate
November December the same
celebrating mere moments, hello hollow days-
thank u for giving me minutes of fame
no signal but calling out timber-
my temper can’t always hang
when the temperature change
cold weather hinders the rain
glimmers of clarity, shimmered
then parody slithered and entered right into my injured yet enduring brain
I figured its pain
a symptom, system and gender of gain
numb on the surface yet my center is shame
feel like the winter, inside of me ugly, my inner is vain
but I won’t pretend to be beautiful, these are the rigors of change
I am no victim
I have the resolve of a victor
fear is evicted
u can’t fit in the picture
but I’ll pour you a pitcher, in case your image is drained
maybe you’ll get it, or maybe u can’t
I welcome the strain
I wanna get what I can’t
I battle restraint
my vivid words depicting inner symbols of deeper peace and wisdom
rekindled like memory,
deciphering details-
in dramatic paintings searching for deeper meaning between the pixels and grain
I’m just tryna behold the art inside of my frame