Surprise
There's no such thing as a free ride
Network Marketing is a desperate attempt to convince you that rolling the dice is the best direction for you and your family
They offer you debt disguised as shiny toys and prosperity
When really they're selling you wolf tickets and crooked investments so they can rob you legally
They'll rob you blind and have you ready to blow your brains out from the depth of disparity
Their only interest is taking your money by any means necessary
They're master manipulaters
Hoping to take everything you own
Everything they say is a loada' of crap
Give no time listening to their speeches
They're just well dressed bums begging for change
They'll tell you
The only way to get ahead of the game is to reach in your pockets and pay for knowledge only they know about
Look at my whip they say, look at what I'm dressed in, look at me
You too can be a millionaire for free
Free as in...if you want the new car and clothes
Its going to cost you a small fee

I’m standing
Waiting for my big break
Faithfully
Waiting for fate
To meet me
At this crossroads of clarity
Waiting while I bear my cross barely
Giving all that I’ve got
My soul's ready to give in
Closed door after closed door
Rejection from there to here
Down my cheek
Streams the first of many tears
I wonder if fate even knows I'm here

Comfort exists within these walls of isolation
Safety and insulation from outside infiltration makes for quiet and peace
Providing silence to the noise distracting us from being who we really are
Perceptions and other peoples expectations for how we ought to be
How we ought to act
How we ought to believe
It all does nothing but weigh us down
Nice guys become ******* when they're tired of being pushed around

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

All my life I've dreamed of meeting a love designed with no lies
No deceptions
A love made alive
Made just for me
Once I found this charity I'd cherish for all of eternity
But life didn't seem to dream the same manner as me
Then just as I gave up looking for love
A greater love found me
Caught off guard it touched my heart
It softened something that once was hardened
My eyes became blurry
My arms wouldn't move
I couldn't fathom the words that came from my lips
It felt as though an angel came from heaven and gave my soul a kiss

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

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

We're connected
Infected
Like the walking dead
Helplessly drawn by each other’s scent
Memories unlike of what life was like before the time we spent
Close yet so far apart
Its evident cupid ****** us
The moment he hit us with that poisonous dart

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

Sometimes you can get so high on possibility
That reality becomes imaginary
Plans predicated on what could be
Are as superficial as dreams when we sleep
You’ve heard the saying
Don’t count your eggs before they've grown
If you don't then you'll watch as the repo man arrives
And detaches all your belongings from your home

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

There’s an inclination to hold my tongue
But something inside of me says
Tell her what she wants to hear so she doesn’t run
That kind of thing
That kind of thinking that has me undone
Is the very thing that has me doing things with you
That with no other woman I’ve ever done
I you shouldn't tip your hand before the cards have been laid
But the more I contemplate
The louder the voice in my heart states

In what I feel
Despite how it looks
Be still
It says if you have the will to risk the ending
So I can have it in the beginning
Truth will reveal

You and I are one even
Just as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
Lay your head on my chest
And you’ll hear not only mine
But you’ll hear the Heart of God beating

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

Following false shepherds like sheep
Wandering half asleep in my mind state
Depressed sinking to the depths of the sunken place
Blind confessions not knowing the next step
Soaking in the tears I wept
Feelings of shame and vulnerability
Sign of the stars falling I'm ******* me
With no shelter to cover me
Shutter shivering between the freezing anxiety and navigating this journey with a shattered compass

Lovely…lovely…lady
You are the answer to my lonely
Heart--Come fill this hole in my soul
I long only for your sweet company                                        
Turn down the volume on your parade
Follow me along this serenade to soothe the aches of life’s humdrum
Come to the edge of the shore and swim with me to a place where the pain is no more
In this world of Euphoria
We'll drift into each other eyes
And dance to sounds of NO work and ALL play
The days will be filled with nothing but beautiful backdrops of white clouds and blues skies
And I'll stand and watch the sun reflect off the cornea of your beautiful brown eyes

The Rembrandt of my dreams come to life
It should feel wrong that this moment feels so right
....But I could stay awake...in this sweet surrender (in my best Steven Tyler voice)

Whether in mind or reality  
Wherever I can have you
I’d rather for better than for worse
But if by worse means is the only way I can have you
Then my direction is resolute
My course separate from you constitutes being back at one
Lonely, yearning for my lovely
Imagine a heart without blood
Air without lungs
Me without you
That’s life without love
And who wants to live in a world like that
Unattached from behind a wall
Life without love isn’t life
It’s a non existence without consequence
No, that’s not life at all

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

If I could sing u a song
I would sing you my soul
Of all the women
In all the houses
There is no doubt that this is my home
This is where I want to be
And this is where I belong
She can spend all day
And offer all she likes
But if she aint you
Then she aint my type
You see
I like strong women like
Phenomenal women like
Black women like you
While there exists this cynicism among sistas
That all the good black men are taken
It’s just untrue
Because I’m standing right here
And I’ve been waiting on you
You don’t know it yet but you've been waiting on me
That thing that you wrote in your diary God let me see
So while I may seem unfamiliar when you look at me
The only thing I see when I look at you is destiny

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

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

What more is there left to say
For a while it's been this way
The love and happiness we had is gon'
We can no longer this house a home

I've seen beauty before
But yours has a distinction
Like different hues
Of the same color blue
In you
I see the fashion of God's artistry
Beneath the contour lines
Beautiful brown eyes
Lies this unique balance
Its like I'm looking at the quintessence of beauty
Where confidence and intelligence inhabits
It's obvious your outer thing
But it's your conversation I find interesting
The breath of fresh air you bring
I find irresistibly refreshing
Experience tells me
Attraction ain't supposed to happen this quick
Because there’s always this sense of complexity in the mix
When dealing with male female relationships
But the feeling of transparency I get
When we spend time
Is on par with the newness I feel
When I look into my daughter's eyes
So indeed
If we decide to cross the line
That which lies between time
And this finite rhyme
I believe would tell of a not too distant future
Existing between you and I
With the sky as our outline
And in between an endless bounty
I'm convinced there is nobody
More perfect for me than you
And if you give me the chance too
I will prove the same to be true
There is no man on this Earth
More perfect than me for you

I know my heart has lied before
But now it speaks truth
Ways of life brought forth by changes made to heal the places I’ve been hurt the most
In essence my very being was being tested
By the sweetest effervescent
Intertwining my soul with a spirit not of my own
Feelings of pleasure my heart has never known
Endless emotions with my minds thoughts driven like waves in the ocean
But I ignored them

If you listen closely
You can read my mind
All it takes is effort
All it takes is time

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

Crooked streams trail off as she fell beneath the waterfall
What seemed like hours were only seconds
Howls drowned out by hollow winds in a deep silence
Distorted voices speak loudly to her subconscious

I thought daddy’s loved their little girls
Well not mine
My dad hates me so much
He won’t even make time
I sit alone sometimes
I close my eyes
And ask God why me
I hate the song "Dance with my Father"
Because it reminds me
That my father doesn’t want to dance with me
I suppose I’m not good enough
Not skinny
Maybe if I was pretty
Maybe if I were smarter he’d accept me
I wonder what it would be like
To have my father protecting me
Maybe someday
But right now
I don't think I'll ever understand
What it truly feels like to be loved by a man

Eerily present her presence existed in the absence of her physical appearance
remnants of her energy had the ability and spirituality of loss and chaos
fear and anger reigned
brokenness rained
the atmosphere weathered with spirits old
so tangible you could hear them screaming screeching reaching out for the next victim
hate hidden in the cracks of old feelings and misguided memories demons dead wanting others to die to accompany them in deathly prison desiring the maxim for others to feel the pain to stain their  axiom
existing only for the mass disintegration generalization and death of tomorrow's hope and the future of the next generation

While the vultures pile in hostels and political houses
Dictators take hostages
Killing innocent people for millions of dollars and unlimited power

Commissioned was a system centered on putting young black men in the grave or the penal system
For a black mother what other decision has the impact
Of saving a young life on whom the odds are already stacked
In order to keep him or her off the wrong and on the right track

(Selah)

Either leave me and watch me die as the streets eat me alive
or the world splits me in half
The other option is to take hold of me, yell at me, and if you have too whoop my ***

A rose blooms with no provocation
The morning rises not out of obligation
And like the rose and the morning with no hesitation
I want to express my appreciation, for you being in my life

Im over it
Stop trying to cover it
Just admit
You're a no good
Lying
*******

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

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

After a hard day's work proving my worth to the world
I find escape in the night knowing when I get off everything's going to be alright
When I'm with you I'm not burdened by the unrealistic expectations and impracticality
I can breathe easy because when I turn that key and open that door I'm home
Vulnerable to the world I'm naked
But when I'm with you I'm covered and clothed
I'm whole
I couldn't ask for a more perfect mate to connect my soul (slight pause) too
The weight of the world is a cross worth bearing
Only because I'm coming home to you

Despite yesterday's view
In retrospect my perspective was skewed
Imbued by necessity the obligatory nature of my being let me know by the time we got married what I felt for you wasn't love
In my head and in my heart I was in love with someone else
What I felt for you was something else
Worried about what people would think if I backed out and how I would be perceived if I Iet all the people we invited to wedding down
I feel you suspected my feelings of wanting out
So as the paint cracked
And the lies of the facade seeped out Doubt crept in
AND so begins a twisted malodorous case study
Where the relationship that once existed
The thing that brought life in this world
all remnants remembrances and everything that went along with it withered
All that remains is a child who's person and emotions are full of tread marks and darks stains
Along with a relationship with her father that's depriving
By a mother
Constantly striving to lessen the idea of what it means to have a  father
Sedating relational ambitions
Withholding notes and teachings
Exhibiting passive aggression so aggressively
that at 14
my daughter's subconscious tendencies of moments of directed  anger toward me
What I get see is a child with idea of what a Fathers means all I do
I recognize the end game for you was a subterfuge
After all these years in your fight against me
You used our daughter as a guillotine  
Over something that for a long time has been over
You win
It's obvious to me that the power she you over my daughter means I  won't have a true relationship with my babygirl until shes much, much older

Concepts explained
Simplicity attained
Wayside out of mind
Insight
One psychology
Emphatic satisfaction

Self infliction locked behind the doors of self-oppression
We trick ourselves into believing we cant leave our upbringings
We dream but we're too afraid to chase

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 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

How do you deal with the after effects
After tragedy lights a match
And blows your entire life into pieces
The anger and sadness you feel
As you hurt and yearn for the thing you loved so dear
Embracing pain is a deep revelation
A manifestation of meeting emotions
Tugging at your heart strings
Hollowed screams
Whispering
Offering stillness
To quiet your broken lamenting heart

No longer a need to understand why
Failing continuously but continuing to try
Dreams change as the world revolves
Age shows you who you really are

In Him
I'm closer to grace than I've ever been
I'm grateful sin doesn't control my life like it did back when
Before I found joy, found peace
Glory to the most high God who supplies my every need
From the pain I carried around my neck like a leash
To the pile of pride I was buried beneath
I questioned myself if I would ever be free
In him I know I’m no longer condemned
There is nothing to gain by being away from him
My life is empty being away from him
If you ask me who do I love most my answer is always Him

They hate me
Without cause
All for their own
Righteous applause

Split open my flesh
widen the space so you can speak  directly to my spirit
Let nothing stand between me and  your revelation
Awaken a newness let nothing come between us
There's a way in
whether through the front way or the back way
I desire to enter in and begin again

Old lovers I'd like to see again
Different me(s) I'd like to be again
Since the beginning will never be again
I'm giving newness a chance to begin again