how i am failing at life:
1.
i still think of you
2.
daily
3.
i am trying hard to forget you, but
4.
you are all i seem to remember
5.
if i ever feel the need to feel you close to me
6.
i know exactly where to find your scent.
aisle 3. row 9.
7.
i assume you are not who you were anymore.
8.
i hold on to who you used to be, and
9.
what we meant to each other, and
10.
what we created.
what we brought to this space.
what you gave me.
what i cannot take back.
what i desperately want to.
what you cannot forgive me for.
what you can move on from.
what you have with her.
what i apparently could never give you.
what you two share.
what you two have.
what i am currently searching for for myself.
what i want for me.
what you no longer have.
what she will never give you.
what he one day will.
what you don't realize you're missing
but one day will.
what he will love about me.
Aug 17, 2014
Aug 17, 2014 at 4:04 AM UTC
"if i had a son, he'd look like trayvon." barack hussein obama
there will never be justice on stolen land.
be concerned of the people,
and the system,
and the philosophy.
nights like these i fear:
having a son
having a black son
being black
being American
being a woman
being...
i fear raising a murderer or the murdered, of spending the rest of my life scared of a shadow, or becoming one.
victimized.
they only regard our kind when we shake the grounds in anger, when our voices boom off the walls and translate into violence. we are marching Martins.
i fear my son carrying his struggles on his shoulders, doning a black cloak like his black hood.
i can't watch him die again.
no black boy should feel like dirt when their pigment is golden.
Jul 19, 2013
Jul 19, 2013 at 12:12 PM UTC
my younger sister
never allowed fun
to limit her imagination.
at a mere five years old,
she decided she wanted to become an ice cream truck driver
at six,
she wanted to save the world.
seven,
she wanted world peace.
eight,
world peace.
nine,
world peace.
ten,
love.
eleven,
a boyfriend.
twelve years,
nine months and three days,
lighter skin.
i remember her
questioning days in pre-school
what color am i? she’d ask.
and her inquisitiveness
never allowed black to be accepted
as a proper answer.
Ruthie, we share the same color
but not the same complexion.
too much melanin, not enough skin.
the people in your pigment are waiting for a prayer
to be prayed back to the hands that once found
power in praying.
let not the lashes of historical context blind judgment.
they oppressed our kind.
feared the golden in your flesh
so they bore a color wheel of acceptable shades
and suggested brown be bad.
she laughs at black jokes, but don't be one.
and somewhere between spanish sailboats
and slave ships
you lost the strength in stride.
you let them white-wash your worries
and bury your woes in waste.
they beat her blue until she bled acceptability,
not blackness.
But
pale isn’t perfect
and black isn’t bad.
embrace the dirt in your darkness
for what could explain the foundation
that fertilized your fancy
better than you?
your people stomped on grounds
they called home
and sprouted seeds of
brown
black
beautiful
babies,
you.
she questioned God’s existence today.
she questioned why her skin tone was
the color of disease,
but she knows not the shade of ailment.
our culture brought freedom
to a situation where we could only see *******
I want to tell her to not hate God,
not even close,
not even a little bit,
not even at all.
that our black is not rooted in shame.
that she should not feel ashamed,
or silenced,
or transparent.
I want to tell her to
enjoy the diaspora in her Africa.
she's thirteen today.
Nourish your plateau sister.
Find the strength in your coffee,
and never ever let the brown in your *** stop dancing.
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 5:32 PM UTC
what i said: it's over.
what i should have said: i love you.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 10:24 PM UTC