My childhood was hard
It was never easy
As an adolescent
I was needy
Rightfully uneven
I was often in my feelings
A center child is often left out
In response
I was emotional
So in turn I acted out
Back then I didn't care you had three other kids to think about
Looking back I was hard to put up with
I don't blame you for putting me out

Born to a single mother
Four sons, three different men
One of those cowards beat her senseless
And at eight years old
I had the misfortune of having witnessed it

I was hardheaded
I didn't listen
I know now
Not having a dad in my life
Was a key aspect of my life that was missing

I raised my hand to hit my mother
With reciprocity in my mind
Like she did many times
To me
There was a desire in my heart to repeat what I see

Growing up I doubted my mothers love for me
she took care of us physically
But never once told me she loved me

Glass of wine
A word that bonds our lives to His own
Peaceful and quiet nights
Granted liberty by His grace and His might
No distractions allowed since I surrendered my life
Just a newness and peace
Wrapped completely in comfort
Now I lay me down to sleep

Impatient,
                 *annoyed,
                                 void of anything alive
Innocence enticed
Shrouded by decadence
Indifferent to different types of experiences
I've seen it with my own eyes
I’ve witnessed it
A new way of perceiving
As a child I was used to people leaving
So much when a person told me they cared
I cared less
Because inside I thought they were leaving me
Love is foreign to me
To be honest right now I don't see how
I can bring myself to orbit around someone else's adornment of me
Not until I gain control of myself and form my own identity
And get a grip on my demons and my million and one insecurities

Consciousness rising
The world on fire
War and revolt
Religion v idealism  
The mind can't sleep
REM is neither dream or reality
We exist in pretense and superficiality
Inhibition tradition is on the flipside of society
The itch for morality exacerbates desperation
Capitulation settles in the air
Living in todays era there's no such thing as fair

The media portrays prejudiced inhabitants actions as misguided predicaments
Politicians turn these incidents into opportunities to mislead and manipulate constituents
Mantras like "Black lives matter" is a tool
Rhetoric used to manipulate a mass of fools
Smoke screens to distract you
To attract you to a vote for an agenda that will never benefit you

Hatred and self-inflictions extinguishes
Possibility of potential and opportunity
Strategies to sabotage ones own future lays waste to spiritual awakening

From the foods we eat
Beverages we drink
Down to the very air we breathe
Genetic modification breeds anomaly
Leading us slowly on a pathway to cancer and disease

Not everything is going to go right
But not everything is going to be wrong either
Why trudge through life by just going along
Wallowing in what you don’t have or what doesn’t exist
Existence is selfish
It’s full of valleys and embellishments meant to keep you high as kite or down in the basement
What’s interesting is
If you take an interest in investing in self
You’d know it only takes a few breaths to dream
In the gestation of what apathetic people call a weird thing
There’s growth and maturation
The process of success is failure via division and multiplication
Survival teaches that enabling someone only handicaps a person’s ability to go out
To take a walk about and make it on their own
Whether you’re born with a silver spoon
Or birthed into a family destined for doom
Sooner or later we all find out the same truth
That without passion and determination or a goal to place our motivation
We become like hamsters chasing projected images
Filling our medullas with hubris ideas of being moguls and tech savvy engineers
The sweet melody that plays in my ear says
Being fearless is kind of like being insane
Being vain ensures your forefathers don't die in it
The moment you realize how good you really are
no one on this Earth will be able to rival it

Do you know it
Have you seen it
Can you touch it
What does it feel like
Is it black?
Is it white?
Does it know what we all look like
Since none of us are perfect
What makes you think you're always right

Creating, distancing myself from my own mind
Climbing stairs with no care of time
Completely submerged in the sublime
Flying above the veracity of war noire
No agenda
No ceiling or floor
Stop us not from exceeding expectations
Set by my own creation
No concept of death
I feel alive
Except when my hands tied
And not allowed to create

© Antywnn L. Jones 2016

Father forgive me
I have not followed in your ways
I’m steeped in unrighteousness
Now I plead for your loving kindness

Onward and Upward
Trending on mind-bending signals that send you on a trip to perfect love making
For the sake of awakening the inner child making a bad girl go wild
Letting her inner child out on her worst behavior
Save the Christian values for later
For now live in the moment of every lover’s dreams
Let your inhibitions roam free
Lets heat things up with rose pedals raining from the ceiling
On this cold crisp evening go see
What cupid has left you under the tree
Wrapped up in a bow
It’s time to let go and release the thing you’ve always been afraid of but wanted to be
Exalt intimate thoughts to heights beneath where the Holiest of Holies and great *** meet
Close your eyes
Follow each of my fingers on a ride
Each pushing electrical impulses pulsating until your body convulses and goes into a frenzy
Each one
Precludes the width and the tip of my tongue
And turnpikes all the way down until it touches the inner sides of your thighs then slides…
In and out
In and out of the walls of your gateway
Just point me in the direction of the pathway
The cove the place where I lay my suitcase and we make our case to fill the atmosphere
With rotating, rewinding, refilling
Our empty glasses with wine and no fear
A cycle of love making on relentless rotation being made...right here

I want to touch, be touched by your skin
I want to feel what I feel when I'm surrounded by your skin
I want to feel what that feeling feels like when I've won your skin
Rubbed by your skin
Engulfed by your skin
I want to watch your hair strands stand up when I blow by your skin
I want to be on your skin
My lips on your skin
I want to warm, wrap you up around my skin
I'm so comfortable, so fortunate inside your skin

I try not to get swallowed up by pity
But sometimes I do
And I stew in it
Everything about pity makes energy unsettling
Yet I continue to sit in it
I let it surround me until my anger gets lit
And frustration boils over until I’m so angry I’m ready to hit
Something or someone or anything in closest proximity to my fist

It’s not that I want to break things philosophically
But right now something’s wrong with me psychologically sooo
If I were you I'd put some distance between us
Because the way I’m feeling  
I welcome being hallow and sorrowful and ******* about everything

I try not to get swallowed up by the pity
But right now I feel ******
And right now I feel the best way forward
Is for you to just leave me the hell alone

I know now not to cry
Angel with broken wings
Without a voice I can still sing
Praise and worship to the King
Footprints in the sand
And on concrete
I find rest in your presence Lord
In your arms I find peace
What a time we had
What a time we all did
Even now in the end
I still call you my friend
Special can't even compare
To the message I can't express
As you journey in Him just rest my Frain (Friend)
As you journey just rest

I want my poetry to provide insight into a world that's inherent to a mind state that mandates an introspective view of itself that uses that insight to make better choices, open minds to diversified voices that changes lives
The cross my poetry bears is made up of one thing
Facing fear, happiness, death, love, war, peace
The past, the future, the who, the what, the when, the where, the how
The what's going on right now
What can never be
The universe
Who are we spiritually?
The cross my poetry bears is Transparency
And every comma, period, semicolon, flow, rhyme, and stanza stands affirmed to catapult readers minds into orbit so every word might be seen as a glimpse of life in the affirmative
You see I don't just write poetry to write rhymes
I my poetry so I can bathe people's minds

We work so hard for their acceptance
We work so hard to let them go
Learning to love yourself,
Is understanding that to be happy
Sometimes yes means you have to say no.

Seeds of doubt purposed
Planted in the mind of your seed
Born or unborn escapes cease
Poison seeps in their veins
An heir should reside in blessing
Deprecation forces second guessing
Inwardly seethes, breaks open, and bleeds
From the inside negativity breeds
Negating, damaging, sabotaging
Robbing themselves of things that could bring them wealth
Living water for their well being
But blinded they can't see watering they keep
Believing in, continuing to grow
That tiny seed of doubt they were introduced too so long ago

Yesterday's gone
Today is a new
Tomorrow's a mystery
The past is history

I keep you as a friend yet we’ve broken up
I get all choked up with every new post of
You and your fiancé in my news feed
My feelings are chicken feed and it’s all my fault
I know I have to stop
But I can’t bring myself to let go of this insatiable need to still need you
I feel if I let go I'll lose you
And all the memories of me and you
Despite how we ended
When I think about us I’m a lush
Because what we had was special
But...
While I sit reminiscing on what used to be
You’re busy moving forward with your life
Focusing on your new wife and being happy

Humility is a thorned crown.
It breaks you down.
It confounds arrogance
And runs it into the ground.

Humility is a perspective changer.
It changes you through and through.
Whether you like it or not, when it hits you
Humility brings about a new you.

Humility keeps you
From being so flippant with your judgments and false security.
Humility assures you, there are no sureties.

Humility is the opposite of invincibility.
It's subtle in its tranquility.
It teaches you when to fight a battle
Where to put your energy.

Innocence replaced with a conceitful attitude
A mission fueled
By deep seated anger to show your mom she can’t tell you what to do
To prove you’re a child no more
If you took a second or little more you’d realize that at 29 no man should see himself as a child proving himself a man
At this stage you should be I am
But you stand in defense of you
Believing your family wants the worst for you
I’ve realized there is nothing further to reach for and admit too than the truth
And the truth is little brother you make poor decisions
Based on the immature childlike lifestyle you’re living
If someone comes along with a difference of opinion you demonize them
In your mind they’re bailing on their responsibility to support your foolishness
When it comes to you everyone is a hater
But could it be you who's full of hate?
Could it be your constant contrarianism which brings you in contention with everyone you come in contact with that keeps you in a state of constant void and anger?
I think you like residing on the outskirts of rationalism
A place where making concessions in the name of courtesy is as profane as cursing
A land of misery where those hurting go to feel sane
As long as you live in denial of your need to deal with your issues little brother
The abused asylum is where you’ll remain

We pray, we march yet nothing occurs
The line between love and hate remains a blurred
Line...
I...
Want to love them but their hate for me doesnt make the pain hurt less
When they put their bullets in my back, their knees in my back
Dead blacks in the street makes me want to attack
In defense of self
My pride for self
My love for self
Relishes not in useless killing or demeaning
I find myself grieving for every mother and father putting their child in a grave
In a day and age when social media shows the outrage live
The outcry just seems to embolden police officers lies
The 24 hour news, reminds us what we mean to Lady Liberty
And as her children sing the blues
Historical levels of un-education continue
Existential unemployment
Prison rates that makes for better business
The world witnesses police brutality and black fatalities in real time and does nothing about it
If you never walked a mile in my shoes then you know nothing about it
If you lived a day in my life you would never feel blessed
You would feel less vested in teaching your children that in the U.S. all men are created equal

Thoughts
Mindless texts
Posts ending with emojis and hashtags
Billions of words randomly tweeted out
Ideas and conceptions
Time and space attaching themselves to certain perceptions
Relevancy belongs to truth being spoken through reality and fantasy

Today all the eligible promotees find out if they get promoted
I've been working for this company for over 17 years and YES I feel like I'm owed
Those that got promoted got to hear from the CEO while the rest of us got a canned speech from the CEO's flunky:

He said: I’m sorry you didn’t make it...you’ll get’em next year”
I thought: "Whatever it's the same old routine year after year"
He said: "You’re all great workers, but for now we need you right here"

To this company I've given so much back
This time every year I can't sleep
I get anxiety attacks thinking about being left back...again
And it hurts
I sacrifice everything for my work
When I look back I think its been a nice run
But after all these years of not reaching the next rung
I’m beginning to think that perhaps my time in this job is done

My goal is to be the best version of myself that I can be
By exposing myself to people from varied walks of life
I'm provided with a greater vantage point to see
It’s humbling when I look in the mirror because I have to admit I’m not where I want to be
But if I recognize my own faults exposing the lie
I can challenge my own paradigm and make alive
Possibility
I thank God for giving me a greater sense of personal accountability
And the desire to no matter what
Always take care of my responsibilities

A moratorium should be placed on the atypical consortium who are able to profit due to the likes of those who hold no punches, take other peoples lunches, all to destroy anyone who stands in their way, leaving bodies in the wake of their so called determination, slavers who vote no reparation leaving everyone else on life support with no respiration

Time to unwind
The pain of this aching mind
Our time is taken up by constantly changing rules
Fueled by a constantly changing society
All of this time should be spent not saved
Gazing by the night fire diving in the ocean waves

I sit here a dying flame
Bored out of my mind
Wondering how I a guy who just won employee of the year
Is sitting here with a title but no real role
Just 2 months ago I was on fire
But ever since I moved to this sink hole
I just sit my cubicle with nowhere to go

We were on the verge
Of going our separate ways
Then God sent us an Angel
And gave us a reason to stay

An array of jumpers and head fakes
Lay ups underhand and overhand
PRIDE in both offense and defense
Competition against the very best
No rest up early in the morning
Knowing there’s someone somewhere getting better trying to be the best
Practice and more practice until the maniacal prep in blood and sweat
Turns into magical steps toward rare air
Attention to detail I won’t fail
The standard for myself is measured by hard work and winning
My dedication to this thing?
I'd play for no money no fame
This is my passion and for it I give everything
To be a champion I'm willing to sacrifice
That's how much I love this game

Animals caged behind bars remain optimistic
Until the laws of realism and physics tell them they won't escape
The law judges you based on one real fact
And 'for that' there exists a gaping societal impasse
As it stands no witness nor clue can prove your innocence
Hovering over every black man, woman, and child is this impending life sentence, with no chance of parole
Being black...
A hard road lay before you
A choice made for you
That you will exist as a member of a dominated sect
Wrought in self-loathing depression and disrespect from the self-religious who live privileged high in their nests
The weight of the world placed around your neck  
Light on wisdom, heavy on ignorance
Placed on you like low expectations
With little to no consideration placed on the future of black children not swaddled in rhythmic sorts
Running, hurdling, or participating in some form of sport
Intellectualism dies in a vacuum when it’s assumed it doesn’t exist or when it’s assumed which path to choose
Conjecture is given too much weight when you’ve never walked in someone else’s shoes
Perspective is often reserved for someone with a similar background as you
But without the full story and individual testimony how can you bring yourself to decide who's who

Rude and sarcastic
Egotistical and bombastic
Pretentious ******* thinking they know everything
When they're just full of ****