often we do the things we have yet to do
what started off in our mind
was still lived
just not expressed
I watched you
I went to a stall
my only privacy
from the things that pry at me
compartmentalizing-
what has already died in me
what stays alive in me,
and the things that continue to die in me
all three which disguises me
but I cried
inside of my stalled hide N seek
because you spoke a truth so potent
and sacred
that only emotions could respond
for the lack of what any words could begin to convey
I saw your pain
I was your pain
I am your pain
I ‘feeeeeel’ your pain
often looking for those with exact experiences just to decompress
but the contrast is what offers the most healing
how else can differences blend
mend
then amend
making amends
that no longer depend
to depend
with the need to defend
or pretend
but rather ascend
because all, tends to end
and then, begin
acquaintanceship, relationship, and friendship
narrated by-
a whole hearted, spiritual, and soulful shaking of hands
a knowing,
where gender age and color bear no relevance
only the correspondence between stars and earth
as above
so below
so-to-speak,
journeying highs and lows
like a ship embracing the waves of the sea
we all communed
knowing that it was life we felt
and life we sought
situations losing the need of mirrored pain
because as I recognized your story
I saw mine
possible generations gender and geographics between us
and still you reached me
because we went to the same place
and wrote it out
finding freedom,
in moments we were once prisoners of
truth is like a schadenfreude
sadist
and masochist
truth is also liberating
beautiful
and purposeful
making us all free within it
in our own dualistic ways I suppose
today,
truth made a warrior cry
I’m almost beyond the shame of it all
whether a Jewish 13 year old girl hiding to live
ultimately dying because who she was
in my own way…
I get it Anne Frank
and maybe, I didn’t just cry for me
nor just for you
but for us
us that hide to survive
and still feel fated for death
without a full chance at life
that’s been my feeling for 32 years
living your years twice
before I found the courage to write my truth
in the midst of my fear and pain
that you had discovered at only 13
symbolically, 13 was supposed to free my people too
but you know as good as anyone
freedom is more than documentation
but the people you freed in your departure
because the unlikely courage you found fleeing genocide
has spanned across the globe
and now I too, share your spirit
here in America,
one of many disciples of you, Anne Frank
the Original Freedom Writer
Culture
Addressing Life
there is a place
to which we all exist
and that’s everywhere
but there are rooms
to which all don’t fit
and that’s choice
yours
mine
and theirs
but those rooms
are in a building
to which we all live in
and that’s Life
Harambee
we can’t strengthen America
with policies that separate its families
we can’t celebrate America
when certain cultures feel left out
we can’t fortify America’s foundation
when focus leaves out communities
we can’t call ourselves Americans
if we don’t “come together”
5 Jigsawed African American History Pieces
battered black memories
black savages
blackened eyes civil liberties
yet ask for black submission and civility
black proclivities
blackened affinities
blacker enmity
blackest enemies
blacked out sensitivity
lashed black backs, brands, baggage, bondage, and boats of broken beaten beasts of infertility
black physically
black mentally
black spirits, black souls, black hearts, black eyes, and black invisibility
black inherited generational traumatic identities
black masters turned to black captives and yes’m master
black capturers castrated black buoyancy and bravado, creating black bastards
black epitome-subservience, self-hate, and misery
if black matters, its black matters’, but no different than dark or black matter
black as the anonymity
of
Black contributions to Americans and America’s History
black trinity
cope, hope, and ropes
or anger aggression and alienation
and Black History
is
Americanised African History
…
don’t give me a month, it’s too vague and obtuse, reeking of overcompensation, give me a day of reckoning, engagement, and a moment of spoken atonement
quit showing me pictures of dogs, ropes, and water hoses
the majesty of black people is throughout every bend, we never folded
still grasping life, despite every obit
we have innovated the world, America covers our blood trails, and the World acts as archaeologists excavating our footprints throughout popular culture from every corner of the globe
yet more focus in upon the broadness of our nose
our slang and the style of our clothes
our hair-how it coils, our skin, how it oils, its complexion and tone
these constant images resurrected are another act of social control
more shame and trauma relived, broad stroking each new generation with a narrow visual, desensitizing the harm done by diluted documentaries and Hollywood casting roles
…
if a person doesn’t know who they are, how can they live with dignity and expect respect back
America expects us to reflect that lack of respect it deflects back
so respect isn’t what we expect, and America expects that
laughing audaciously or appalled when you ask for respect and clash to collect that
but there’s an image and collective view and they wish to protect that
so they’ll hand out their checks and have you collect that
sign your name where the X at,
and any other issues, call first and eh…just check back
…
savages?
I guess that made it easy to clear a conscience and assert the tragedies of old and walk in the ignorant consciousness of now
but we too had social systems that influenced history and the modern world
bringing Europe out of the dark ages and America into global prominence
we were
pharaohs
innovators
engineers
scientists
sociologists, philosophers, shamans, bishops
doctors
traders, travelers, explorers
humanitarians, egalitarians, warriors, farmers
as well as slaveholders, slave traders, but not enslavers
we are the beat of culture and trend, to the very globalization of our black culture being a priceless commodity resold to us with interest, to which our only endorsement check is in the form of entertainment
while our rights are still owned yet we shout, free at last
not as a belief, but a spoken conjuring of a day we still hope to see and feel in its highest and truest essence
people who govern how I live, don’t look enough like people who come from where and how I lived, so and still, where is our interest represented
we were cowboys, the first
black wall street millionaires, then bombed
yet what is seen when you call something black…
what do your sciences and dictionaries define black as
and yet this is what my history is named after?
we were equatorial people, yet are celebrated in the winter, when most are behind closed doors keeping warm
but a holiday is for all people to celebrate and yet again, we are isolated and alienated for a full month, not knowing how to confront our own month
you show horror, but we are much more than that
this month feels more like obligated mourning than celebration, with no name more famous than the one that made white people most comfortable
…
an African proverb says, the axe forgets, but the tree remembers
captors and their axe, have no depth perception of what they do to the roots of the tree they have uprooted, they only live in the moment of their immediate need,
well I tell you, as my people excel they still ail from the axes that severed their roots, their very identity
generational trauma is a concept sounding too much like an excuse to the axe man, he simply just waits for another tree to grow back, throw seeds to create more trees, and while he waits, he goes to chop others down
while praising the contributions of the trees vaguely that it keeps chopping at by idolizing all the tree does for him, but not naming the tree or its region, only the many ways the tree benefits him, like money, paper, oxygen…until there is no more…but then, where will the axeman head next?
I’ve connected and communed with my captors, even those that realize and don’t, that they still have that mindset that views me as less or dependent.
if that isn’t trauma resilience and strength, then you tell me, if the tree could speak, would it ever be comfortable any time an axe was present or lying amongst it
could it see the axe for being just a tool, not one specifically meant to destroy it, although it can at any moment, yet still embrace it with love, tolerance, and humanity…
or would its roots shake and its branches molt its leaves at the mere mentioning of the axe?
..
black history is more about self-reflection, for those that made it
and those that created a reason for it to be celebrated
and still, like most American History,
it’s unjustly onesided
but we as a people, a nation do not have to continue being…one-sided
we’re a jigsaw, and it only makes sense when we come together
Roses are Basic
Violets are deceitful, duplicitous
and second-tier
and Red is too common
and choices are too similar
and symbols are conditioning
and conformity is comfort
and values are double standards
and morals are policing
and status quo is structure
and policies are profiteering
and popularity makes you right
and power is patriarchal
and the spirit is sugarcoated
and strength is testosterone
and religion saves us savages
and prisons protect the saints
and schooling indoctrinates understanding
and knowledge is hollow
and so wisdom is shallow
and history is forgotten
and culture is consumerism
and truth is misleading
and adults corrupt our youths
and youth is ignorant and immature
and privilege is color-coded and inherited
and money is life
and fear is God
and love is foreign
and war is natural
and hate is formal
and its all the Devil’s fault
and life is typical
and days are anticlimactic
and thoughts are basic
and creativity is despondent
and intimacy is detached
and oh,
I got you some Red Roses to match!
Evolving Dream
A once hoped for, and seemingly mythological speech,
spewing words of radical liberation and equality for All, from a martyr of strong conviction
such beliefs and convicting desires,
that once stimulated a beaten people, propelling them forward from their fears finding strength, while gripping the rest of the nation, enthralled in his message and its implications for their world
beliefs,
once met with bats and batons, ropes and nooses, dogs and horse mounted policeman, burnings and fire hoses, roadblocks and barbwires
beliefs,
once when there was no extremism, just the ism of a nation
the ism of hatred
the ism of survival by all means and of the fittest
the ism of one size fits all
the ism of one color and religion
the ism of a supposed god-favored people and divinely ordained and manifested land and power
the ism of greater than’s and less than’s
the ism of exceptions being made on one side, and no exceptions for the others
the ism of exclusionary views and practices
the ism of supremacy
the ism that fought hardest against inclusion
the ism of when extremism was just considered the norm, our country, and patriotism
but this isn’t patriotism
this is Nationalism
where views,
get spewed,
used and abused,
absolute power being a corrupted power infused,
lighting inequality’s fuse,
depending on which side you choose,
or what side chooses for, or against you
–
to a society-
preferring the heartburn of its racy relations detached practices, vomiting separation-
this is indigestion
to the multicultural coalition of people-
championing equality, humanity and it’s sacrificial costs-
this is insurrection
to black people, brown people, and the colored others-
this is resurrection
resurrection of a day when fighting for equality was their worst fear
resurrection of a day when living at times was their worst nightmare
resurrection of a day when the voices of darker pigmented people counted for nothing more than the sounds of a pack mule
“We Shall Overcome”
and its poignant yet persevering melodic and nostalgic tone, ringing like church bells, ineffably transcending generations and the innumerable words and actions that have followed in its wake, by either tarnishing it’s majesty or adding to its resilient kinetic power energizing generations to come, almost now, at this very moment, sounds like, “we shall overrun”
we shall OVERRUN everything and anyone in our way
we shall OVERRUN everything and anyone that opposes us
we shall OVERRUN when we have all power to do so
we shall overrun because, yes, we can
and we Will
or else
but I utter the echoes of it being darkest before dawn
that this moment is a testament to the generations ready to move, progress, and power on
that this doesn’t sully those on the other side that believe in the interests of humanity, righteousness, equality, liberty, and this country’s foundational democracy and nationhood
regardless of political ideology,
that this only further emboldens the surge forward of a united front, that had wavered through recent years to the alluring fangs of oligarchy and corporational bottom lines over the many lives on the bottom
–
but to those many lives on the bottom,
that are now being seen and becoming the new force of reckoning,
to you I say,
that this vindicates the wretched unheard cries and screams for justice finally in a life that has only experienced injustice with cold steel gripping their wrists,
peace,
in a life that has had every remnant of it stripped forcibly away
existence,
to a person that has only known the shadows,
redemption,
to those that feel death and taxes was the only promise kept,
freedom,
in a life that has only felt trapped and endured the longsuffering of internal entrapment
promise,
in a life that has only known pain, let downs, tragedy, and trauma
hope,
in a life that has only known the tilted scales of imbalance,
and truth,
in a life that has only heard and herded towards the hypnotic illusory sirens of lies
because freedom is a ringing,
and its ringing loud, hard, strong and with a new vigorous vibrato and tenaciousness
the heart of freedom,
is pumping the blood of equality into overdrive
and the gears of change,
have never been so charged and eager
ready to see a light so luminous,
as if the very lips of God had spoken it into divine immediacy for such a time like this
the march on capitol did not set the manifested and prophetic dream of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, back
the march on capitol was a gift from the grave of our late King,
gifts of coming sovereignty
gifts to only be understood and in time apart,
because perspective has been the poison of progress,
for those that look high
and those that look low,
but how else and at what better time than now, to remember the speech that rang through all corners of our planet
this is what the dream looks like
there will be comforts lost in the short term
and there will be the appearance of brief iniquities and inequalities all in the balancing of those who were left without the bear rights of their humanity, and it not gripping strong onto them to enforce the balance they had been left without
there may be some others that feel more shade than the sun they had grown accustom to feeling, for those who had been forced in their dark quiet corners, suffering in silence, fearing the possible punishment of exposure, not allotted the same shine that had once bronzed the skin of the privileged
but this lasts only but a second, though change is scary, I ask all to come out embracing their fear
fore right now we cherish the struggle, the strife, the strain, and sojourn for a new day, a new day of
“We Have Overcome”
because the dream is what we live, but to keep and stay worthy of the dream, we have to be willing to understand life in new and better eyes,
to understand people in new and better hearts,
and to understand freedom in new and better minds,
so we can properly appreciate those like Dr. King Jr,
whom died to make our life, the reality
the ever evolving dream