I've been down for so long being up feels foreign.  I've been down so long I made my way to my ancestors and acquainted with them. I've been down so long I think I need a decompression chamber because my lungs are not used to breathing freely, so used to breathing synthetically. breathe the breathes permitted at the permitted times, but now breathe freely. breathe like my ancestors wanted me too. breathe because i want to. i want to breathe. and now i can.

I miss, your sweet summer kiss, its so delicious makes me melt in a Alaskan blizzard. I miss, your luscious hair, it can grow to certain lengths that even Rapunzel would stare. I miss, your perfect eyes, yes your chamber doors to your soul, I'm truly the only one to see them unfold, tame lion in disguise. At the same time you peaked into mine, even though I tried to hide. That's another thing I miss, your detectiveness. I can go on and on about your perfect qualities at the end I'm trying to say I miss you. What is Kent Clark without his Louise Lane, what is Peter Parker without Mary Jane, what is the moon without the sun, really what is me without you? I can miss a lot in this life, I'll even lose my sight, if only it meant talking to you all night. So if you were to ask me one thing in this life I would miss the most, I'll say the answer is You.

I can't comprehend death. I couldn't comprehend death even when death date questions had a answer. I couldn't comprehend death even when the signs are flashing like the last numbers on a shot clock expiring. I couldn't comprehend death even when it was in my mailbox. Like I had the option to accept it. Like I had the option to return it. I wish death was like a letter that I could tell the mailman wrong city, wrong address, wrong recipient. Just wrong. I wish death didn't have a spam folder. Collecting names of people I didn't know until it's gets a name marked as important in my email of life. Death feels like a penaltys not called, like how dare you resume life without everyone in the room, how dare you eat food without saying grace. Death feels like a slap from a friend. Never expected, unguarded, not protected, and reality never the same. I wish death died. I wish death was like a Timmy Turner episode, like at the end if the episode everything will go back to normal. Instead death likes to play deception. Likes to replace the old with the new and tell you nothing has changed. Like my McDonald's down the street always had a kiosk. Like gas prices has always been 3 dollars. Like aunt vib was always light skin. I wish i never have to wait for the next backstabber, the next email, the next letter. I wish death was dead.

Love is a person of its own. It lives and dies just like us. My love for my last had a full life, and when that love departed for my life I thought I  was done lovin. I thought for the life that love had I finally won. It was the first love whose life didn't feel taken like a kidnapping, the first love that didn't die premeditatedly, the first love that didn't feel like self destruction or suicide. I thought I was done with lovin when that love died but then I met you. When I met you i felt a feeling of deja vu. When I met you i had feeling of both preparedness yet excitement like riding the same roller coaster a 2nd time.  When I met you i felt like it was a 2nd chance I didn't know I wanted until got to know you. When I met you i asked myself are you ready? Are you ready to raise another love life. Are you ready to go through the teenage love again? Are you ready to be reassurance when her love insurance not giving you full coverage? Are you ready to throw logic and reason away again only trust in Love? Are you ready for the days that all is right but love can change that in conversation? Are you ready for when all is wrong and love is the last thing you have to save the day? Are you ready? After the smiles, sweat, regret, ups, and downs I still answer Yes.

The Skin Color

Saints and sinners step up to me. Saint or dinner which one you'll be. Make your plea to get through the gates if you're a sinner your ride comes at 8.

You probably already know my name so I'll it short. To be honest father I feel I'm hell bound, I haven't went to church since a week after buying a suit for it. My bible is a ****** because I never opened it like it's a limited edition print. But I do know three verses. One to keep away the people ringing my doorbell at 10 am in the morning while I'm snoring. One to keep away my family when they start coming at my neck like mosquitoes when trying to talk about the blood shed on the cross. The last is for my sanity to clarify to my body that I'm not the black devil you see. I'm not the black devil society says I am. I'm not a devil or a demon. I'm lost. Father I died a lost boy. I found myself between in the crossroads of good and evil but chose option c. Father this isn't a excuse for failing the conquest of salvation but just a background on my starting point. Father what is the key to heaven. Is through the message or the messenger. Father did I fail you, father is this my first save point. Father will take me as I am. Will you reset me. Or will you erase me.

I present to you the undefeated, reining, defending competitors hailing from anywhere human life resides. These competitors have no specific expected gender just courage, heart, and art. It takes a lot courage to do what they do day in and day out, weekly or monthly then go back to being the everyday people. The everyday people that walks with us and around us. We know these people very well. Hell we are those people.
The people that put their life, love, hate, business, and memories on the stage. what ever can be done to human being more than likely has been talked about on this stage.
That's what makes them, them, that's what makes us, us, and that's what makes anyone who has graced a stage or a microphone a spoken word artist.
We as spoken word artists put our lives, our history, our passionate interest to words and later to ears of our friends, associates or complete strangers and sometimes allow those same ones to give our narratives, our practices, our life choices scores.
Some people will argue that soldiers have a harder job than us but soldiers takes the orders and choose weather or not to follow them, while we the spoken word artist make the orders, coordinate the orders, execute them and protect ourselves when the time is up.
That's why we say "don't be nice poet". Because we speak the truth, we speak our truth. And the truth hurts, yeah the truth sets you free, free of a job, a connection, a life but we still "go in poet" anyway.
No matter how defeated we feel after every line we write we're undefeated, as long as respect is shown to this stage, we're defending, and every day we survive our trauma to tell we're reining champions. This is what makes me, you, us the reining, undefeated and defending Spoken Word Artist.

I have a little brother, a lot of people tell me he act just like me, everything I do he wants to do it too.
Every girlfriend I had, was his girlfriend too.
Every word I say he'll say it too.
Even the titles I give to people he'll give them it too, even his father. I love that he wants to be me so badly, more than badly than me.
I don't want him to inherit the pains of having short legs but big sports aspirations.
I don't want him have short temper in his bloodline.
I want him to inherit my vocabulary but not my definitions in words like father.
I don't want him to inherit the taste of regret when saying words like father. This is a poem letting them know why I never called him dad.

1. You're not my dad.
2. You were my step dad.
3. You were fitting everyone's definition of father too well.
4. I'm not going to call you father either
4. You didn't buy me the nice shoes that he did for school.
5. But you drove to school though.
5. You came to my basketball games though
5. You came to my football games.
6. I wanted the best of both worlds. Yeah my dad was the Hannah Montana star on the weekends he was staged for but all of age 6 you were there for. Age 6 you was the Miley Cyrus amongst us that I saw everyday.
7. I stopped calling you step dad when I realized step dad was dad's in second place.
8. You told me you loved me before he did.
8. Was the age, I realized your name meant more than a title father held.
9. I can't call you dad because I associated father for monster under the bed. Not man fighting my monsters.
10. You're not my dad, you're you and I appreciate that.

I am team pencil, because just like in life I make mistakes. Being human is alot of qualities and characteristics but to me it can be easily decoded as trial and error. For some people that trial and error can be as small as "I got to choose what to eat for breakfast but the error was not having anything to drink". Being a leader is being human but your level of impact on your decisions are much more costly. Sometimes costly in the literal since or sometimes costly as you did not mean for that to happen. Being a leader is automatically writing in pen which I hate, but knowing that someone out there will see exactly what I wrote and how I wrote it is what makes me both proud and anxious. Anxious that someone will make my same mistakes. Proud someone will learn from my mistakes. Anxious that my every move is being watched and proud that I know that I'm going to be a inspiration to someone, Thus is why I chose to be a leader, this is why I sometimes write in pen.