The Skin Color

Fact!
Zebras can’t sleep alone.
In a way I know how they feel. Every New Years Eve’s night, the hood turns into the Serengeti
and I’m the zebra waiting for my zebra friend named silence so i can feel secure enough to go to sleep.
Cause when the glock strikes 12, the ferocious bullets escape their caves, pouncing through the air, hunting for prey so they can send them to the destination where prayers lay. This is a daily fear living where i live
but on December 31st its the only time where its a promised flat line when the countdown meets its deadline, so that's why I wait it out, don’t sleep alone until i’m accompanied by the zebra of silence.
When she came into my life, she made me feel whole.
So whole that our love created a zebra of its own that guarded us through the night. Our love was so strong we slept through the annual running of predators that i usually wait for silence for until i can relax.
When she left she took the sound of silence that existed before her. Now every night I'm accompanied by the sounds of the memories we shared. Even though those sounds aren’t as vicious as a bullet’s roar in the middle of the night,
it is just as crippling to this wounded zebra heart of mine that stripes are black and blue now instead of black and white.
The sounds that used to scare me are the ones i take comfort in cause it beats the sounds of her voice occasionally creeping into my conscious. With the sound of predators roaming at night it reminds me of a time that i was alone and had no problem keeping that way.
A time where depression never knew me on a first name basis.
A time where I'm just a zebra waiting for another zebra to go to sleep.

Traumedy,
The Black man's new mode of coping.
It sounds like stand up but it looks like gasping, clawing, or fighting.
I have friend whose fighting handicapped just to be understood, his opponent is a fusion of normality and vulnerability they are just heads on the monster of toxic masculinity.
My friend reaches for help but vulnerable responds that's a hand shake.
My friend makes jokes about death but normal said morbid humor is  the new black.
My friend cries for help but traumedy translated that as a knock knock joke and what he gets in return is LMAOs.
When my friend steps outside he gives life to the world while on the inside he's increasingly contemplating about giving his life back to the world.
He thinks his life is nothing but a punchline waiting for a flatline.
He's in pain but he never directly says it.
What he say is: what do you call a hilarious pun about suicide? A real wrist splitter
What he say is: what do this party and my brother have in common? they're both dead
I want to go and hug him and tell him it's ok grieve, I want to tell him that I hear him.
It's normal not to be ok but sometimes toxic masculinity is so strong that it strings my mouth closed, rendering me useless, like a voodoo doll.
But here's an open letter to the traumedian in him,
dear tramua it doesn't take search light to find the star he's bound to be, his personality stands out like a figure in the spotlight no matter how much darkness he's surrounded by like country skies.
I can clearly see the stars in him like a country sky.
He can be the next Robin Williams when he was the genie guy.
But Every time he stands up and do a stand up his traumedy constantly foreshadow his curtain call before he can get his big break.
To my friend who See's life only as a light polluted sky at night,
your life has more to offer than a end of a joke or a flatline.

Labelist theory states:
If a person is labeled something they are not and they don't agree with, one day they will stop defending themselves and be exactly what they are accused of being.

I'm being called an arsonist by a jury of my peers. By a jury of people who hang with me but now listening to someone who solely wants to see me dangling. I find myself constantly trying to protect my image like copyrights. But no matter the protection plan I enstate, I always find my name somewhere being defaced. I guess respect, loyalty and friendship wasn't enough to protect something like that. If it is then why am I catching charges. Why am I catching OJ treatment when yall say I will be missed like Ladanian on the chargers. Why is action only taken when the news say to take someone out like Michael Vick and not when a player asks you to look at the real problem like Colin Kaepernick. Maybe I'm not the one on trial, maybe this trial was a trial and error to see if this jury was a jury of my peers in the first place. And if this is the case then this a mistrial because I won't allow people who say they will miss me like Ladanian to the chargers be the same ones to take everything I worked with to another area code and call it by the same name. You can foot me the Bills because this is a OJ glove that I see fit. I am arsonist to the ties we had because that same rope won't be my nuse. I set fire to all your expectations of me because I won't watch my name get defaced like your personal property anymore. I accept your label for me with open arms because there is some borderline truth behind every sterotype, rumor, or lie because I have found mine.