Lions, Tigers, Bears and I
they say don’t stare right into it
its essence may damage your senses
disorient and possibly blind you.
That intense hot burning
beautiful bright yellow orangish fluorescent
bear mace! F#@%!
I guess pepper spray wasn’t colorful enough
prison, colors rule
colors hurt
colors kill
Trauma
The thing about a Flower
The thing about a flower..is beauty til death
It lives with grace, as it dies in that vase
You may only wear your beauty because of pressure
Make-up veils the truth
but I see your eyes, as if life is dying inside of you
Stunning the way you hide it
You are deeper than any well
Enthralled with such elegance
Like a bug, I feel fatally lured into your luminescence
But up close, I peer into your petals of agony
Others too often hover the surface, your look induces the chase
Externally masked, ironically you put off what you hate
Composed well since you first blossomed
So no one see’s your depth
You die slow yearning for trust and true love..
But you don’t love yourself
You feel like an object, a prized possession, a visual gift
Lauded after because of your appearance
Shallowly preserved, slowly wilting away within time
Dying slowly as you stand brilliantly flushed
The thing about a flower
Secrets
No that’s not true
your father didn’t die before your birth in service;
he was killed by your mother
that moment, froze and tainted my purpose;
I was only what 15 or 16
no not only, but I question “better late than never”;
the pain in secrets..
If kept too long, some should last forever;
2015 when I finally heard the full truth
now closer with my mother;
but it will forever be a one sided confession
despite the abuse, because you know, the unobvious missing other;
his family knows nothing of me
well, probably for the better;
he has kids and a son with my name, but like I said
some secrets should last forever;
Hope is Real
Hope is real
It’s tangible, metaphysically speaking
but its also a tool
Just as faith has been used
It’s designed to maintain order, control
to keep people compliant subservient docile
without hope
what would the slaves without hope of freedom?
Prisoners and felons without hope of a chance?
The oppressed and poor without hope of a break?
The silenced and scorned women without hope of being heard?
The neglected, touched and abused children without hope of help and vindication?
without hope
There is anarchy, calamity, rage, war
and chaos-which is a lack of order
The only one that doesn’t exist today
The absence of order, order will be kept
Hope is real…
Dear Mr. Correctional Officer
Dear Mr. Correctional Officer
Please come correct with the office you-hold
Please come correct with your officers, please come correct and get off of ya-
pedestal, I am not a pet on-a-stool
or a character spoof, that drools eating at your spoon!
I am not a fool! I am not your tool!
I am not slave to your preferences, I am only victim to your jaded perceptions
Un-phased by your subliminal messages!
You perceive me as a mammal but more of an animal
Your desired domain over my terrain, acts as if you are lion and I am antelope
As if I am virus and you are anecdote
As if I am nothing without nothing and you are my ante up
As if I am akin to Annie the orphan inside the attic of Amityville writhing with anxiety under the weight of your preferred society
To you, I am already cut out of that picture
But I am cut from a different cloth, less than 700 thread count-me-out in hand-me-downs
with Ramen and chicken noodle soup as broth
To heal the hoarse as I speak from ill-tongue between clenched jaws, at all cost!
With scars and far more flaws than a loss, though you can’t fathom what I’ve lost!
You can’t imagine my withdrawals and why I withdraw!
I am not your easy suburban picture, I am an urban jigsaw!
Dear Mr Correc-tion-al Off-i-cer!
I do not feel you are correct
I feel shunned and null
and you get off from me calling you sir!
You use, you abuse, and you usurp!
You overdo, the same way you use syrup!
As if this is your ranch, I am your beaten cow in a herd that you stir up
in your boots, spurs and stir-ups
Color me numb, I am not blind, deaf and dumb
I am likened to Hellen Keller, disabled, yet I displayed a way that I am more than able
I am more truth in this life than the way you use fables
Babied? Spoiled? I knew not of a cradle!
I seen more with less cable
I derived from the ghetto, from a people whom are this country’s true staple
free labor..
You have more, yet people like me need more, we buy less and have lesser…therefore you are fortunate!
Fortunate to be ignorant of this side of life…of my life Mr. Correctional Officer
to you, I am salary, I am hourly plus overtime and unfixable to you
My possible lack of recidivism is fictional to you
I am jurisdictional to you
The jurors were crude and prudent in their jaded delusions or jurisprudence, so therefore I am nothing more than a number, nothing more than a criminal to you!
I am a group, a stain, less of an individual to you
keeping me away from your society is critical to you
I am pitiful to you, this is the pit to which I fell and now my plummet is the favorite visual to you
Your opinions shoot like guns and I am bullet-riddled and ridiculed by you
I am not your personal axe to grind! I am not your payback from your own life
ghetto doesn’t mean stupid, black doesn’t mean ignorant!
Felon doesn’t mean crippled, lost, unredeemable, evil, sour good, hopeless, hell-bound, #78756 forever, No!
Prison is my body cast, I’ve been casted out but don’t count me out
I am apart your daily count but I am not counterfeit
If your job is to keep me safe and propel my change
before I go back to the community stuck in criminal ways…
Than you are more felon than I!
You help perpetuate a cycle, to where I am a necessary sacrifice
So you can goad and entice, me to get back in here for the rest of my life
in front of your eyes!…so you can keep tabs on me
despite your effort, I am the tab on your keyboard, and I’m on to the next
Correctional officer!
God… I know we don’t talk a lot
God…I know we don’t talk a lot
but I’m trying not to cave to the caverns of society
my distance and difference gives me negative notoriety
hide me hide me hide me!
Anxiety, driving me, violently
sirens inciting me, I need silence inside of me, privacy!
Please!…please
quiet the noises, I struggle with voices
second guessing my choices, paranoia
I struggle to escape these life draining…expectations
judgement is only skin deep, exempt of excavations
exclamation, exclamation, exclamation
how do you explain patience? Amidst internet and instant gratification?
When need is saturated and driving us more, when need is driving me on
my knees collide with the floor, daydream a lot because I’m torn-
away from reality, rain on my window pane, my reality drips..
Awake is no vacation, but I need reality trips
life is torture, fighting metaphysical forces
belief, thoughts and emotions, belief, thoughts and emotions, belief, thoughts and …fortress!
Overwhelming, old wounds now new, gauzed yet bleed and seep open
grief, lost in commotion
me, lost in the ocean
sink, hard to keep floating
I tread the weight of misery, not water
and misery loves company, but company gets martyred
marginalized, I’m trying not to cave-in
to the pressures surrounding me, thought I’m already caged-in
see God, this life was prison before prison, but thanks for listening…Amen