I am intelligent and linguistic.
I wonder about space.
I hear clear silence.
I see shapes in clouds.
I want to write stories.

I am intelligent and linguistic.
I pretend to be happy to clean things.
I feel as if I could fly.
I touch the sky.
I worry for the world.
I cry for people dying for no reason.

I am intelligent and linguistic.
I understand that no one is perfect.
I say everything is equal.
I dream of a better world.
I try to be better.
I hope for the future.

I am intelligent and linguistic.

I am a student,
Born and raised in public education.
I am smart,
In my own right and my own way.
And I am capable,
If only I had the means and opportunity.

So how dare you tell me with ADHD
That I should “keep my body still” and “use my inside voice.”
I am trying to listen, I am trying to learn, but you aren’t trying to hear me!
Why can’t you see that my body just needs to be free?

How dare you tell me that I can read
When I can’t tell the difference between b, d, q, and p.
If you could see the world like me, it would be pictures, not symbols
Dancing across the page, why can’t they all just stop?

How dare you tell me that it’s my mother’s fault
When I fail the test or don’t do my homework.
She’s working three jobs to put food on the table,
I see how hard she works, don’t you?

How dare you tell me that we’re all the same
When the sounds you make aren’t the sounds of my father,
And I can’t hear when my sounds aren’t yours,
Can’t you see that I’m working twice as hard?

How dare you tell me that I “just need to try harder,”
When I can’t remember why is nine plus zero is nine, and nine plus one is ten,
But nine times one is nine, and nine times zero is nothing.
Are you living in a different world than me? Does two plus two ever equal three?

How dare you tell me that I just “need to focus.”
How can I analyze Shakespeare, when all I think is “hungry?”
How can I “solve for x”, when I’m adding up the money for my brother’s next meal?
Can’t you hear my stomach grumbling?

How dare you tell me that I can’t succeed
You can’t see my future. All you see are
The holes in my shoes and the stain on my shirt,
Why does money define me? Can’t you see the forest through all the trees?

How dare you tell me that I won’t make it.
Where I sleep may change like the wind but poverty is not a sin
And the love in my family is my home,
Why do you assume that we can’t win?

How dare you tell me that I need to calm down.
My rage is a tool of survival, I’ve waged more wars
Than you can count, dealing with this life is a battle.
Can you see an end in sight, aren’t you be the one supposed to save me?

I am a student,
Put on a path in public education.
And I am smart,
Regardless of what people say about me.
And I am capable,
I find my means and opportunity.

And I dare you to ever think any differently.

Here's to the boy who never had friends
I am sorry
but the world will never understand you
not the way that I do
Here's to the sad girl who stands at the back of every crowd
I am sorry
the world will never see your talents
but I do, I always do
Here's to the artistic man who has the world as his canvas
I am sorry
the world is blind to your colors
But I am not, I see it clearly
Here's to the quiet woman who hurts just to live
I am sorry
but the world is a judgmental place
and I am not
Here's to the oddities out there
I apologize
for the world sees you as different and wrong
but you belong
to your own hearts
you've already found where you belong
long before others even found themselves

It's strange how creative
We become when our hearts
Have been broken;
Splintered and smashed open,
Blood spilling and slowly
Becoming ink.
Spreading across the page
And telling it's story.

You told me you loved my hair
And you would twirl it
Between your fingers
While you sat and stared at me
With that smirk I knew so well
You hated when I talked of
Cutting it off
So I kept it long and always clean
So you would have something
Beautiful to look at
Whenever you looked at me
My hair is still long
But you can no longer see it
Because you are gone
And I've thought of chopping it
All off
So I couldn't remember the feel
Of your hands running through it
But I know I would still feel you
On my scalp,
No matter how short I cut it

I find love to be a painful concept. Each time i love, i risk opening a wound dug out by the animal in me. And in love's sick game i've grown tired of the fight, tired of the constant tug of war between the past, the present and the ****** heartache. After awhile, it all just seems easier to give up on, then to move forward. And i guess this is the feeling of losing yourself.

Love is a bleeding mess, red paint splattered on a ****** canvas. My heart decays like petals off a rose, wanting to be whole again. To be enslaved, I seek an act of closure because it's an ongoing issue. I get emotionally attached to someone then begin to push them away for unexplainable reasons.

The calender reads 2016
But its feels more like 1984
Have you heard the crying
The American dream
Lying dying in the streets
While big brother
Is strapping blinders
On our heads
And shackles to
Our hands and feet
Were being lined up
By the rows
Willing prisoners
Of the slave power
Empire of minimum wage
Shuttling our children
Off to the animal farm
Market of big business
And big lies
***** water mixed
In with the rotting
Apples of the
New American pie
The sugar isn't sweet
To the starving
In the street
While trash cans
Over flow in the back lots
Of the super market
Super chains
Of the slave power
Empire of criminal rage
And its the cold dark waters
Of nuclear waste
Soaking the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
In these days that feel like
1984
No kindness or compassion
For hands shaking tin cups
Needing just a little change
Just a little shelter
From their sad weather lifes
Living on the cold ground
Below our overpass ways
No shelter and no change
No compassion and no kindness
In the fist and pockets
Of the slave power
Empire of ignorant ways
Bullets, bombs and hate
Harvesting fresh blood
For the ink
To print the pages of the calender
That reads
2016
As politicians write us back
Into the pages of the days of
1984