in the midst of social distancing where you can’t get as close as a hand shook
now witness the colors of justice
just imagine…
how would taking the stand look-
like
if you were ambushed
and ran shook-
fright
from a father and son driving a truck towards a man on foot-
trying
to get away from what seemed to be a planned good-
night
where they would attack a black man jogging in broad day
light
and treat him like a crook
I
heard so many people say racism ain’t real and history is just something stuck in a book
right
cuz nobody lives and thinks that way about black people, besides who cares what you look
like
but again those same stigmas uncovered themselves and took
life
during this time where a pandemic had us all one, and coming together, dying regardless of what we look
like
but time and time again it seems justice had already pre-took
sides
Ahmaud Arbery
Ahmaud Arbery
AHMAUD ARBERY fought for his life!
a position he shouldn’t have been put in in the first place
and his family didn’t even get close to justice being exercised til almost three months later arraigned the day of his birthday
exercise
he was just out for an exercise
who would think jogging down a street would get your life jeopardized
with false claims of a series of break-ins just to OK two men being weaponized
harassing him just to fall back on stand your ground laws
where the shadows of two trucks was creeping on him like a groundhog
we politicize everything but Americas dirty truth is seldom confronted at town halls
while many racial epithets prejudices and systemic injustices sound off
in places like Georgia,
one of four states that dont legislate hate-
crimes
where you couldn’t get any closer to the true face of injustice even if you face-
timed
race is still a factor vaguely being heard thru the grape-
vine
where slurs work nerves to coerce concerns, but what you learn, is for a oppressed voice to be heard, it takes-
times
because everybody says its better than what it once was
but where’s the love for the families that lost loves
for the same motivations of what it once was
and it takes these acts to go viral before the rights and dignity of these colored victims to come up
my cultures post african history can be summed up
in a moment of silence, a moment of protest, then a moment of violence
because there’s been too many moments where tears corroded our eyelids
and if kids are promoted as priceless
then why does it feel like if the color dips, those colored kids are demoted and denoted as primates
we’re stuck in impoverished communities as a result of gentrification and live like crabs in a bucket
so it makes it easier for you to see and say how we kill ourselves so your attitudes towards us is summed up like, ‘eh, fuck it’
how can we ever calm down
if we can’t put our arms down
while another color raises their arms up
and with the pull, there’s a sound, and we fall gunned down
please somebody tell me what is the color of justice
because my rights feel handicapped bandaged and on crutches
‘cuz we’ve suffered, but the suffering continues, so change that suffix to ‘ing’
because we’re still suffering
with vague coverage
of our depleted numbers
it makes you wonder
what is the true color of justice
because Ahmaud Arbery is just another odd number
caught in a Glynn County suburb
that represents the temperature of our country when it comes to the death of coloreds
we just get more number with mourned numbers
just imagine
this IS justice imagined
Mercy
Harmony
Harmony
harmony
it’s hard to be
it’s hard to breathe
life hardens me
internal arson is harming me
ardently, disarming me
I have no more arm to reach-
for harmony
please harmony
be my armory
garner ardor in my arteries
my heart seeks harmony
my heart speaks harmony
my heart beats harmony-artfully
august breeze
august breeze
all these trees
fall til spring
what does all this mean?
who am I between
these two extremes
the cost of loss and harmony
well I’m extreme
because I feel more lost without harmony
Our Nature
I cared for the ground she walked on
I cared for the water he drank from
I cared for the trees the little ones climbed
and I cared for the air that we all breathe
it’s all connected
we’re all connected
though fear may keep us separated
our nature,
our true nature
is within nature
not without
and love,
keeps us all connected as one
because there can’t be one,
without the other
to destroy nature
is to destroy our own nature
therefore destroying ourselves
“when life imprisons you… feel free”
I can never be a kid again
if you keep being so serious-
and we can never kid again
I can never be grown enough
if you keep telling me-
I’m just not old enough
You know the feeling when you’re kinda driving around and don’t know exactly where you’re going, like you have an idea and maybe even some directions but for what’s in front of you none of it makes sense, and you’re so tense- frustrated and anxious, but then a new calm comes cascading over you like shade from ocean, like clouds on the move, and you start to feel good, rested and peaceful from the extra time in the car, lost in your own way, enjoying the space and scenery, almost defiant to the demands of time and the constraints of endless ‘must do’s’ all around you.
And then even that brief respite in reflective paradise ends, and it’s back to life where all these directions just don’t apply to your journey, yet still you make sense of them if only to fit in and at least know there’s something you’re doing right.
But what of a kid, a kid being constantly stuffed by the baggage missteps and pains of the adults around him. Teaching him to repress repress repress, conform, don’t, not, no, stop
anything but feel, seek, and discover, finding yourself without fear of punishment inflicted upon him because their fears and haunted memories of not getting it right and feeling empty, weighing so heavy on him that he soon grows with the weight of both adulthood demands and childhood curiosities conflicting without enough understanding love and ability to navigate even just one of them all on its own.
So he grows in that car, following directions he can’t read, concocting peace down certain avenues that may only serve to hurt him more down the road giving him lessons of punishment- replacing time and love, which hardens his heart to love, straining his capacity to take in any semblance of peace, all the while still cruising on without knowing his own identity, because he has been every bit of denial and force imposed upon him, that he has yet to learn how to live and not fear mistakes, so he overcompensates at the wheel, tense in his direction, veering into crash after crash, all avoidable but now he believes that this is the experience of life, crash til u make it, and maybe after enough accidents you’ll finally find your way.
I titled this “when life imprisons you…feel free” because ultimately we start life without any control. We’re simply a learning robot, absorbing all things around us, being prodded by every kind of authority figure, never able to leave that robotic identity, instead of growing a conscience for ourselves, we grow up and learn to navigate life as robots, living without free thought, without self autonomy.
But the ‘feel free’ part speaks to the decision to feel something else but trapped and imprisoned, to tell your mind to experience something different than what you’ve told it time and time again, daring to feel emboldened to become more than assigned or expected. It’s up to us to decide how we feel, that’s something that can’t be controlled. We can decide, regardless if we want to do something or not, if it feels good, experience it.
Feeling is searching for freedom, it’s becoming intimate with your experience, it provides purpose to emotions.
Feeling is the freedom we have constantly in endless supply once we become properly aware of it, so many of other peoples feelings get enforced upon us that we can’t even recognize our own from the many, so we digress and stuff our true nature deep down and never bother to uncover it again because digging deep takes more work than stuffing, stuffing is now second nature to most of us.
But when the levy breaks, what’s deep down which has been laden and bottled up, will want to get out. So how do you give it proper air to breath before it comes out in a burst uncensored and uncontrolled, distorted from what it once was after being compromised by repression for the sake of others?
So often, we apologize for who we are, for who we’re trying to become, and for who we’re still trying to discover within ourselves because shouldering someone else’s weight is more easier than our own, we find comfort in our discomfort by making others more comfortable. We haven’t been brought up to love and explore ourselves freely, fiercely and fearlessly, and use that love found of self to love others, and not at the cost of our selves.
Because we know not all directions are created equal. Each of us has their own path specific to them, and we do more for humanity by allowing everyone to find it their own way rather than coercing their journey.
Simply put, feeling free happens in stages or cycles like all things, and it starts at allowing our kids to feel themselves and encourage them along their paths and embolden them with every turn, not jump in taking control, taking them our own route.
A child has to learn how to be an adult, and an adult shouldn’t have forgotten how it was to be a kid, with those lessons maturing them. Because a kid is free, exploring, loving, learning, falling and rising. It’s the adults that snatch that childhood away and feed them distorted views of life and reality that only serve to imprison them. So to ‘feel free,’ we have to stop imprisoning ourselves and unlock the prisons we place upon our kids.
And just drive with the windows down. And get where you’re going when you get there. No shortcuts. Just enjoy the ride and find yourself in the journey.
Embrace the difficulties. They make the ride worthwhile. Without them, you couldn’t tell what was good if nothing was bad. The bad points you to the good, so it all works out in the end, because you can’t truly know one without the other.
So ‘feel free’ and let the kids live a little, and find then, reclaim your inner child by watching them, because when life imprisons us all, the only ones that didn’t get the message are our kids, unless we don’t allow them to do what we don’t do, which is, ‘feel free.
Out and In
If I’m looking outward than I won’t see inward
I can not look inward
the skin of a sinner
never say never, I’m more than the N word
I’m more than my torment
more than these torrential forces I forklift
I cant forfeit
I forget, my fort is, my forehead-my pride and feeling important
those feelings imported
are filled with assorted
concealments I’m on the floor with
praying, do u hear me calling?
outward I’m too tough, I fall on my gender
internally at war and I’m injured
my core is dismembered
I cant silence that inner-
me!
boxed in, I enter Pandora-
weak!
I endure this binge and bender
of mixtures
and vendors
of liquor
that enter
my memor-
ry
til I hemhor-rage,
I’m a cinder
brick,
at the bottom of river!
goodbye afflictions- au revoir!
I have no reserve in this reservoir
I do not feel regular
still, pain doesn’t register
and there’s not enough change in the register
so my change doesn’t register
I’m vane but a heckler
my shame is the messenger
my name is a question mark
my aim is left in the dark
I stray, I’m afraid of loss
everyday, comes with a cost
I walk the thin line of praying to the cross
and praying that I’m not crossed
I’m numb, help me feel!
I’ve always felt less safe, and less sacred
and more hatred and more hated
now I reside where they hate us
and cut off relations
because of our mistakes
but we’ve all been mis-taken
even temptation has stipulations
Lord!
I’m drowning give me breath
my talent gives me many, but the talons of true freedom sinks down within me
flesh!
I cant change how they see me, am I not more than my surface
or do I not want more than the service of that surface
time is circular, what’s goes around-I deserve this
but I still got reserve, I’ve preserved it
..reaped fruits-
spreading my fingers
contracting my knuckles
preparing to crawl
digging thru the dirt
earth stuck in my nails
perspiring
I’ma mess
but I pulled thru!
but this life is hard and at times I still look past you
they don’t know my journey
I didn’t need a gurney
every step I earned it
pro se in my struggles, I didn’t have attorneys
kept faith in the lowest moments, I didn’t have a clergy
at times I felt more blessed than being allergic
I stayed thirsty
separated myself from being in the herd and in a hurry
even while in this fight everyday waking up, looking unphased and still struggling to feel worthy!
because of your glory
I beat the statistics and became every month outside of February-I made it to 30
I couldn’t see past myself in the mirror, but now I recognize you
so when I look out, I’m no longer afraid to look within and see with your eyes too
I’m no longer the type that would hide my truth
I didn’t believe the hype of living right but the scriptures they recite has more wisdom in each bite then inside my tooth
Corinthians said I can’t be disguised by youth
because I just became a man, and if they ask how… I’ll just point to the sky as my truth
Flight
To fall
is to fly
to fly
is to fall
for without one
oneness is lost
therefore,
this in between
that we navigate
is the fog
yet now,
in my heightened perspective
I contemplate perception
with only my minds eye
able to see the flight,
by embracing the fall.
the next stand I take-
I take with wings
vast enough to wipe away this fog
soaring free of all prisons