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

True love lies somewhere between rage and serenity
The antithesis of anonymity
Exists on the paved roads of pain filled memories
Lodged amid warm thoughts
Childlike fantasies
For women it’s a strong masculinity
For men it’s an infinite dependability
On a woman who is both a nurturer and a lover
A best friend when there is no other
A confidant
Someone who’s shares
And keeps the insecurities of your thinking buried deep where no one can find it
This person carries a light so high that no one can outshine it
In a life where we are born with no favors
No waivers
That lessen the life lessons of the environments we live in
Like God forgave yours
Give your heart a break
Let love make amends for the sin of the world
And those that hurt you
Those that hit you
Those that abused you
While wrong
I pray you let me sing you a song that heals you
And fills you with a joy that you cannot explain
A love that confounds every theory and excuse you have not to love again
No matter how you found it
Or whether you deserve it
What matters now is that you are worth it
Love rests in the pain we live through
And the connections we seek
Tales of unrealistic expectations are lies we place on ourselves to be strong
But really make us weak

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

Innocence
Trapped in the night
In the wilderness searching
For the meaning of life

Like a house is not a home
This world is but a room
This body a tomb                 
Until words give it life
I will not wake ‘til you tell me you love me
Not until you rest me in your curves
A real woman knows that God didn’t just give her power between her legs
But he gave her power in her words
By its very definition and meaning
The nature of a woman’s totality
Completely warps a man’s mentality
The effects of fear that extends from society stay
Only becomes reinforced when women begin to stray
And say things that tear us down to our very core
Like a sickness or malignant sore
Your words have the ability to makes us soar
Or  to bring us to ours knees
These words are simply a metaphor in order to get you to see
That we need you
To see past the foolishness the world puts us through
And we’ll continue to endure so long as we can put you on that pedestal where you and our children can make it through
And so I say to you:
Without so much as a tear
I will lie here
Content to die here
Until I hear
I cannot live without you
I will never doubt you
I trust you
Our children
They need you
I could never replace you

Fighting against the current of my escape
Something grabs me and drags me
To a paralytic mind state
So heavy a weight
It feels like death's foot on my face
With all I can muster to get away
Gasping I suffocate
Apnea
Drowning me in rapid descent
Someone please wake me
I feel my spirit's ascent

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

Tell me every one of your issues
Lay them next to mine
I'll be your warmth for this cold world
I've got the medicine for your mind
All you have to do is yield your guard for a moment
and give in to the climb
Pressed up against you I'm getting hard
I
Can hear your heart beating see the sweat beading
Your tender knees trembling
In consent  I slip
My hands down your pants
Your head
leans back with your slightly opened eyes appearing closed almost
Your soft moaning only turns me onward commencing
Touching and teasing
Muscles clinching
Firm gripping I'm
Massaging and rubbing your ****
Circularly succulently ******* the taste of your juices off everyone of my fingertips
This is what's typically done
After a mental ****** and the ****** attraction of foreplay
It. Makes. You. ***.

... Selah ...

Sipping sweet melanin
Dripping off the lips of your *****
Bursting with ignition
The taste of your black...berry
Licking the overflow off your body
******* 'til spirits nod
'NAO' emanating from the iPod
Augmenting
Bending syncing your body with a mind despondent of time
No restrictions don't constrict
Just grab my **** and maneuver it like a guided ship
With the lights off find the throbbing swollen slit and put the head in
And dip the tip of my **** inside your ***** far afield
Only yield after you've had enough
But not until I'm deep enough...To Fill You Up

A long tear streamed down the face of the once proud arrogant prince
He who had all the answers in his youth has since aged and the stage he finds himself at is
Packed with riddles that leave his thoughts crippled by simple questions like
When was the last time you were happy
Sounds kind of sappy but the gravity of the question
Created a sort of hesitation in his thought process
That left him confounded, dumbfounded
Drowning in the recess of his own ****** analytic mess

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

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

Liberator, liberate us from this unjust justice system
built on incarceration and cynics
mental prisms built like prisons
in the mind of so many of mankind
that thrives on the pain of the deprived and socially unequivocal
political nonsense
common sense is irrational
it's fashionable to agree with initiatives like H8
But hesitate when the circulation of hate toward blacks is tangible and so great
people see injustice and just turn away
yet they'll rally and support a LGBT mandate
now this is not to degrade or throw shade
but if I have to invade the space of the comfortable
and ruffle things up a bit
maybe I have a chance at confronting you cowards and hypocrites
who politicize equal rights but care nothing about it
you
who only want equal rights for a few
for you and people who look like you
but not for me and millions of black Americans
whose ancestry built this country
surviving while black in a country where every man is supposed to be free in an equal and cherished society

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

The great need for forgiveness is an order of life
An adage of reciprocity
That lies and thrives on our own cynical  behavior
The finiteness of our lives tells us that perfection escapes us
Emotionally as humans we're complex
Flaw-full creatures of an imperfect nature
Finding every reason
To mount our opinions and judgments on others so we can escape our own dread
By calling someone else's life
The night of the living dead
We see ourselves as clean instead of the filthy people we are
Because it allows us to see everyone else's trouble more easily
But are we not all troubled
Have we not all in our own ways
In our own minds
Each of us at different times
Needed God to rewind
Or fast forward past time
So we can get past that thing or two
We don't want anybody else to see
Or is it just me
Am I the only one
Who's book of life is chapter after chapter full of God's grace
Am I the only one
Who's hand God gave when I was **** near in my grave
You look down on others
But when it was us that were scathed
Did he not show compassion
And grace
And mercy
And love
And peace
Salvation
And kindness
Forgiving someone isn't all of a sudden suffering from a case of blindness
No, it's a change of the heart
Spiritual mindedness
Where the focus is about putting anger and bitterness aside
Forgiveness is not having to hide
Many people feel they’ve been so wronged
Angry for so long
They hate the world
And don’t know why

In the recesses of my intellect
I possess all the changing seasons
The fallen leaves
Yesterdays memories
The gold mine of ignorance and naivety
The idea that out there in the expanse exists a far off potential
A potential I could grasp
A potential that was attainable despite the perils of my upbringing  
The fragility of those days gone by
Have become myths and stories in my own mind
Held together with the weary tape of an abused mentality
Due to the inertia and desire to remember how life was...

I'm mesmerized by what happened to the potentiality of our lives
And how it became comprised by complacency
Lazily dreamers egos age like worn clothes
Enclosed with institutionalized ethos where growth begins and ends with the inerrancy and arrogance of the ghetto

How did you sleep last night?
Was it pleasant?
Where do you go when you sleep?
Is it heaven?
If history says the perfect number is 7
Then so too
God’s perfect letter
Must be...
U

The reflection you see in the mirror
Is the real you
If you can't stand to look at
Whats staring back at you
Then you know you got some work to do

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 ***

We've been together a long time
A long wind
Down the slippery, trippy side of life
Time took long enough
For us
To touch and touch again
Sleeping in 'till the sun passes the torch to the moon
As soon as you're ready to touch again
I'm prepped for the race
With a yurning to taste
The trickle of rain dripping slowly between your waist

when a mistake was made that wasn't meant,
When intentions were met with dogma and close mindedness,
The mindset of strength you need to have when someone doubts you and your capabilities,
When you doubt yourself,
When the overwhelming emotion of doubt and pity, negative energy that usually brings you down surrounds your spirit and mind
Knowing perfection is unattainable and the world doesn't end because you forgot a thing or two,
Truth helps you begin anew
Truth says no matter what someone else speaks, you reap the everlasting grace of The Most High
And despite how hard life gets
learning to shrug things off is wise
Learning from errors, admitting wrong
Humbling yourself without losing love of self

Theoretical problems
Social validations that never pass
Quantifiable shapes over gaps that never fit
Thoughts on any and everything
Self-created problems that never exist

I can write anywhere my heart and mind combine to find inspiration to write words that create manifestations that measure the pain and pleasure that inhabits the universe
Sometimes thoughts come one at a time
other times at the same time for instance instantaneously I find myself drifting through thoughts and ideas in and outside of my mind
Sometimes the verses take time
Thoughtful lines that describe hurt souls that cry out
My job as a poet is to find out how to embrace and circulate my compass
as God as my witness and his spirit as my guide
the morality by which my life is defined the centrality of my truth is biased on societal and psychological constructs but isn't governed by society's will to place on my shoulders a slave mentality I walk in hand with those who like me rely on knowledge and experience as a whole a stepping stone
Realizing that being grown isn't a description of the physiological it's handling your business as a leader a husband a father and son

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

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 thought about you so much today
I truly missed you all day today
I love you more each day I’m away
Before I sleep for you I pray
I wish you more reachable peace today
I wish you unspeakable joy today
I wish I could be with you to say
I’m sorry for what I did yesterday

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

Sometimes in my consciousness
I feel very little confidence
Feelings of low self-esteem
I continually have to fight against

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

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

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

Wakanda4Ever
For being a realization of a place, we’ve only ever seen in our dreams
For depicting the diaspora
Pan-Africa, futurism for the first time on the big screen
Wakanda4Ever
For ameliorating images of the continent revealing its beauty without reservation, or subjugation
For pulling from African nations imbuing African culture without ominous purpose or evasion
Wakanda4Ever
For providing representation that politics and cinema often lack
Revealing that in 2018, a man can be king, world leader, and protector
At the same time 100% black
Wakanda4Ever

With a degree comes prestige
Pride in being accomplished
Enlisted in honors
Anointed by something not inherently gifted
A letter of distinction
Between the educated and uninitiated
A separation from mediocrity and something more
I don't have the mind of a socrates
But I refuse to be a reflection of the same old me
That's insane to me

FB doesn't have a grave or a headstone
But its a blessing to have a place to go
And read a heartfelt post
Written like a decorated bouquet
And a well placed rose

How we treat ourselves
Is the tenor upon which we represent ourselves
The hell that raised us
Doesn't have to be the hell that sustains us
We are blessed to have our own minds
To choose the course we want for our own lives
Our course was meant to be a horizontal one
And it can only be undone by the One who called us to be his daughters and sons
We are not judges
We weren't put here to condemn
I believe it behooves all of us to leave that for Him
And while we may disagree whole heartedly by someone else's choices
What right do the rest of us have to be disrespectful and poisonous
We may have taken the traditional route and even made our lives better
But to make light of someone else's LIFE
Does little to make any of us better
It makes us lesser
Because in the end we are all the same
And we are all just one bad decision
From sharing the same blame

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

The longer you see your way past those not-so-easy seasons
You and her will begin to form a language only the two you
can speak in
Verbal and non-verbal speech
Built on years of witnessing nuanced mannerisms
Optimistic and pessimistic rhythms
Built in the still conversations, volcanic eruptions, and joyful make-ups
The stuff lending itself to growth and never-ending levels of trust
Reveals a renewed commitment to the union
A vision that informs the reason you both got married in the first place
Sets the stage for the spirit of God to cover you and make its way near
With the ease of a mellow wind
Whispers in your ear
Where your heart lies there your treasure remains
Also. called. reciprocity
And its commands you to love one another for the rest of your days

The truth behind white lies is a disguise to breed pretense
Facts dismissed withered by slick tongues and slithering souls akin to black crows journeying far to cover the coming of winter

She no longer has to fight
The long days and nights
Fighting pain that crippled and rippled through her
Life's riddles no longer confuse her
Transformation into knowledge everlasting a star ascending to glory
Existing in spirit watching down on the loved ones she left behind
Each one looking to the sky
Looking for guidance, calm, warmth
Some still acting like fools
Some using their God-given tools
All evolving as successes and failures in their own right
Heirs to nothing in the physical
Yet heirs to a birthright
Not a finite currency but a legacy
Eternally sprinkled about the brush
The love grandma gave us is on us to carry up
The climb is steep and the journey is long
But as our dearly departed sleeps
We have her spirit, memories, and teachings to keep us strong

"Dedicated to my grandma"

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

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

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