here we go again
anger and fear
the most potent concoction here
it’s too common here
too often peace gets commandeered
hostility volunteers
unity seldom accomplished here
it’s too toxic here
unsure, uncertain, I’m too cautious here
arrested development without cops in here
breathing isn’t free, it gets caught in here
misery is the domineer
and right now, it’s that time of year
Inside
When I Couldn’t See, Myself
to every teacher
you reached me
and I ask your forgiveness
I didn’t know how to live
so I was just living
ignorant to the wisdom of moderation
feeling imprisoned by limits
foolish to the divine feminine
thinking they were ‘just’ women
see?
it just took me a minute to get it
my learning process caused tension
each layer reached, I rebelled and was trippin’
believing more to this life, felt like a fiction
but as physical things diminished
I was left with the crickets
aha! I said it took a minute to finally get it
so I’d be remiss if I failed to mention
my friendships and support system,
who revealed that which was hidden
though you all could’ve cut all transmission
your communication and consistence
was a godsend to my senses
because it’s hard living in the trenches
while not coming off, or out, offensive
Trapped
think they understand you
not realizing your actions
results from how they demand you
stereotypes feel like mating parents
they planned you
what control did you ever have
yet still bear the responsibility
what choice did you ever have
yet still carry the consequence
those who arrive to help
do the most judging
those who prefer you where you are
deny being judgemental
what room did you ever have
when every step is ridiculed
what thoughts are truly yours
when their system thinks for you
how is change possible
if those who speak loudest
lack the ability to change their methods
or themselves…
I hear hollow voices
repeating insanity
I see empty bodies
but filled beds
I know guilty minds
think self-righteously
I touch solid walls
and can’t escape
Thing Chasing
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
If I Must be Black, Let Me be Black in Peace
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?
Theory of New Growth
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