Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow
lost myself losing things
lost things lose people
people lose things
loss seems like self-lost
thing people
people things
time loss loses things
things lost to time
more things one finds
more self becomes blind
things vanish, lost in time
with no frame of mind
occupying space and time
degenerative minds
the self I lost, chasing things through time
when all I’ve lost, is my mind
do you hear me?
let me be black in peace!
your way is not,
interrupted by the contrast of me
let me be black in peace
if black is who I am to be
then let it be
let me be
I possess no power
to affect you at large
only individually
but my blackness
affected as a whole
in a way which
keeps us from being whole
as a whole, separated
by your ways
too many to name
so all I ask
is for my name
institutional structures
systemical codes
and legislative craftsmanship
work like swordsmanship
why can’t I live a life
that doesn’t have to go to you
beg you
live the shame of your denial
ignorance and privilege
reinforced by your names
gentrification
redlining
black codes
Jim crow
voter intimidation
discrimination
convict leasing
war on crime
war on drugs
prison industrial complex
mass incarceration
legal segregation
let me be me
if you prefer to hyper criminalize
my blackness, speech
culture and fashion
when I had my own
I was stripped bare
by force and strategy
when I attempted to regain
and rebuild
I was conditioned to death
why can’t I succeed aside you?
why is my success such a threat?
what then when why is asked no more?
when you have new growth
and you grow in a place outside which you first grew
then you go back to the place which you first grew
trying to find someone in a place which you outgrew
and you can not find what you grew into
because where you grew
is beyond where you were first grown
therefore you have to look outside of your comfort zone
to reap the harvest of your growth
because the places you once knew
no longer recognize you
no matter how familiar they may be, you now see them differently
so the desires you now have
can’t be found in the place where you first recognized yourself
because now you have grown into someone new
an adult
and prison did that
just as you can’t go back home and search for a new family
you can’t go back to prison to search for freedom
love don’t live there
and if it lives there, it only rents there
therefore, love don’t last there
go into a different field, a place that can bear your growth
a place to which you have not outgrown
no adult spends their free time in a play pin
manifesting a higher stream of consciousness broadens your horizons
you do not look for light nor definition in shade
so the partners you pursue have to be of an environment that compliments your growth
you have to look beyond the small peaks which you originally hailed and sprang from
make sense?
I explained this to a friend about my search to find a conscious woman
conscious in culture history spirituality and the human condition
at least having an opening inclination for broader acceptance of things not here or deeper scope of intrigue in things that are her
mindful but confident in the intuition she naturally summons at a clip higher than men
he has one, but I do not
the only woman he knows who is like that, he loves and has
that’s beautiful
and I know several, yet have Nada
that’s beautiful too, in its own way
the reason for this whole talk is because people scale the people they know, based solely on their own experience or where they came from
and to most prisoners leaving, who have bettered their selves
have to seek in the same lake which they have outgrown
and most of the people there are still as they were…maybe a little jaded
so they freed prisoner will either intrigue them
overwhelm them
or suppress himself, dumb his self down just to fit back into the place he outgrew
because being larger than life is damn near impossible
becoming larger than the life you once had is damn near crucifying
so you either remain diligent in your new identity
especially if you are incapable of having the resources to move anytime soon
or you just stow away all you learned for a rainy day when you’ll actually need it in a crowd that makes growth less miserable to possess and more normal to express
and readapt to the place you should now be king or queen over
yet by pressure to fit in, you have reduced yourself to a peasant once more
and so the cycle repeats
and this is how society polices and marginalizes itself by design
the structures hold
and growth seems so oppressive, better to blend and be dwarfed by assimilation
so opposites really attract, especially if you do not realize you are opposites, training yourself to believe you are the same
because what is life but searching for self everywhere you go
but who you are, when you deny yourself and become someone or everyone else just to fit in seamlessly without struggle
and then you date that version of self, and call it happiness and love
while deep down…well you already know where I’m going with this
no wonder so many people feel empty and so much love fails
because we have failed ourselves
by deciding to settle for less than we are
‘the mind, once stretched by a new idea, can never return to its original dimensions’- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I feel if
I don’t come out all tough
then it’ll seem like prison
wasn’t hard enough on me
because I don’t fit the stereotype
of exiting after a decade
if I come out all silent
then I’ll be pitied
seen as traumatized
too much cautious space given
and tiptoes echoing my surroundings
but if I come out happy, then what?
am I crazy?
did prison not work?
did it not pummel and beat me into submission?
will you not take heed to the trauma that I endured
because I’m not expressing it outward?
why do I have to be a certain way
for you to acknowledge or keep in mind
what it could have been for me in here
without it dominating my disposition?
I’d like to live life and not have the mug
paranoia and emotional dysfunctions prison creates
I want to be sensitive and let go
I want to be able to cry and laugh
while still saying, yea, prison traumatized me
I struggle at sometimes more than other
yet everyday is battle like recovering addicts
but I get by because I aspire to strive thrive and
do more than just survive, because I am more
than prison
but if I don’t come out worse for wear,
how many will not get the attention they need
because I showed up and came out looking alright
I’m not the norm, listen, I am the exception
trust me!
I’m prideful enough to hide my wear and be armor
so I can have enough in me to go back and be a benefit
I have always had to fit some stereotype my whole life
can I just be soft cuddly and emotionally available
tend to a woman’s tears or maybe in some
distant universe we can share tears
and only the warrior surfaces when the time is pronounced
this is so heavy and draining
I have to think about what you think of me
that I can’t think enough of what I think of me
and what I think those thoughts should mean for me
so I can do more than think of who I should be
because I just wanna be
but you may not know this
you need an indicator to verify a stereotype
or to cancel one
so it can help you decide what action to take
stop looking for signs
everyone hides
faith isn’t seen, yet it is
neither is disguise, except it is
someone just tell me, tell us that it is alright
alright to just be, and there are people out there
that can handle and embrace us in their lives
why look for something already pure and perfect?
make it so
I just found out…
before my mom went back to jail
she started using again
abusing to blend
the outer influences that have ruined her when
she was truant losing parental rights,
consumed by polluted solutions
diluted for illusions
even the acoustics
of broomsticks moving
couldn’t remove the doom and gloom from the room she was in
prayers for a truce in her sin
mistakes and detached love has been her truth and the rue of her kin
plagued by a traumatic history and the hue in her skin
the rooms starts to spin…
the truth which tombs her within
til her roots spruce on the bend
giving into the ruse of delusions
to get through any mood that’s she’s in
desire and coping habits to the hopeless, are like a noose to her wind
her air cut off, and this is nothing new
this is something I should’ve knew
but the news of it is
she was doing great blooming
til covid became the new nuisance
she couldn’t get any break, so how do you choose when you can’t win?
and this is what I’m used to
this is proof to,
how they debilitate spoon feed and groom you
til you’re set loose from the pen
you’re never free from prison
because prison imprisons
til you’re fatally doomed in the end
and the view is too grim
yet they’ll always have a room for you here
it’s hard, I fight shame frustration and embarrassment
but I’ma still love you mama
I learned this kinda love ain’t learned, it’s inherited
of many things, this is the favorite part of you that I’ve parroted
even through the ups and downs of life’s parodies
you deserve a break, after all you been through, it’s merited
so I’ll be going even harder, and any extra weight you pick up, I’ll help you carry it
the truth is, this is more than a physical collapse, this is mental
I know that battle is actually a war, it’s far from simple
consistence persistence resilience diligence,
what I mean is that I’ma follow-through because it’s essential
after all, experience in this side of life is the best credentials
plus I’m up on my studies,
being a successful healer to me is existential
if my empathic understanding isn’t evidential
then the proof is in the R.U.S.S. initials
because I know emotions are a Cold War like Russian missiles
so your truth won’t be concealed like tucking pistols
no matter what love comes into my life
I’ma represent you right, and not throw you to the side
saying, ‘those just my mother’s issues’
trust and believe, the day you free, I’ma come and get you
so if you fall in your own home, it’ll be your own walls that you’re running into
this is my life, I can never do it part-time
because even the future digs up archives
when you living for the love, then it’s your heart’s prime
and you can endure any kinds of hard times
let my words be a beacon for the dark side
and the dark minds
and the lost minds
and to whomever else my heart finds
because even if you veer left, take a hard right
so you know no matter where you end up, you’ll be alright
WayOfLife
to know what you are
you must see something alike
to know who you are
you must see something alike,
that acts unalike
and so I told my celly
I know I’m a person
because there are many others characterized the same as I
people
making me a part of a species
I know what I like
by experiencing the things I do not like
to know who you are
you must experience who you are not
something and someone in opposition
to your convention or position
therefore, how I know I’m going out of my way
is because you never go out of yours
and normally I wouldn’t allow
who someone is,
to dictate who I am
but when I am being who I am-
trying to become,
you make me feel like
you think that it may be something
which it is not
and you seem too used to this thing
you may think that it is
therefore, to stop any further confusion
ima be who I need to be
in relation to you and me
no longer shall I go out of my way
in my way, Way must stay
from here on
therefore at times one must be
whom one is not
to protect that which one truly is
and so this is the battle
to end the impending uncivil war of
wars, worlds, and words
because this is a nature
I’m all too familiar with
as you are also
though it illustrates the first word
of my last name
‘oh word?’
yea, word
but it’s all one
now that we made a sentence