I stand in battle at the forefront of our time.
My mind is sought into pages.
“Unarmed” I’d say with a rage and guilt cut into my throat.
My face bled all the way home, while my parents stared at me in shame.
I looked forward to the day in the darkness.
The past doesn’t erase the present.
How many memories I shared and the men that looked in my eyes.
Told me that they’ll erase me with ease on an easel.
I looked back at those same men as they walked in grunts and smiles.

I ain’t never smiled the same, as a black man.
Of my kind I sat on the side of the couch.
Aching in pain and waited until the damage was done.
I woke up in glee once and painted the picture on my face.
The men painted their faces in black representing me.
I am scared of all kinds of men.
They let me get away with flowers for once.
Flowers for my wife and children.
I won’t **** till I make it out alive.
I won’t die for those who see me as someone dead.
In the grave I go and they won’t see me again.

I pray to God in mercy to forbid the unforbidden.
The gifted and the talented.
I raised myself in harm while a prayer I wrote in letters.
Came back to me in silver linings I once ignored.
The gifted and talented..
the tainted in the washed up sand.
I am no longer a void or a black soul.
I am no longer a person either.
A victim they placed on trial for racism.
Told me, “You are acting black inside.”
I am afraid of the letters I didn’t write.
Soldiers kept me lost and away from my family.
Not the family that looked at me up and down stared with their grins aside.
I am lost in these evil guests and eyes.

You only live once in life.
No lives have been earned the grain of salt.
Critiques from unfamiliar people and sources that drain the sink of my decay.
The soul that lives in fear of criticisms and judgement.
It’s a scary world out there, I fear that adults tell you the wrong information.
Frame it on the hierarchy of your bed and call it a day’s worth a done deal.
That’s my case that I live with eternity and eternally.
Certain adults in my life look at the child, not the one looking behind the frame for its child.

A missing mother and a few other things have touched my heart.
A few other things haven’t touched my soul, take that in.
I get this sudden urge of perception that people throw their hurt onto other people.
One person was afraid of me talking to people like that, but I fear they don’t know me.
I fear that their perspective inside of their minds is only growing in the short runs.
Long runs I stay gone entirely, basked in its all glory and beauty.
I take it this world thinks silence = nothing, or alone = lonely.
I take it from not a lot of people that people are angry at me.
People hold their torches to the side and they are angry at me.

Not gently or kindly they are angry at me.
Not sorrowful or understanding they are angry at me.
I fear that they are angry at me.
They almost spill a million words onto their plates, expecting to catch each one of them.
This is a child’s perspective.
This is that perspective.
A perspective that is often ignored or suppressed in this day of the world.
That oftentimes decades in its own way of history I lived past.
I got this perception in my pocket that people yell at me.
They yell at me and tell me things I already know.
It’s scary to me.
A child’s perspective.
A child’s perspective.

It is all well and done.
They laugh and threaten themselves.
They change themselves because of their mother or father.
I fear that they lack self-reflection.
I fear that I am not one of many alone in this conversation.
A child’s perspective.
I fear I lack all of those support systems that went down the drain.
Now it’s scary, I have one or two I hold onto.
A child’s perspective.

The way I look at your tender eyes, following each movement of my curves.
I wish I’d curled up sooner or later when my friend walked away.
Save the door for last or not a minute afterwards when the moment arises.
The same man that looked up at me with those dark brown eyes, was the same man who put his hands on me.
He told me something’s and yet I blame myself partially for the mistake I chose in choosing him.
I wasn’t a woman for sakes of my own story to live and to be treated as if I was different from the rest.
As if the herd I followed in breakfast line wasn’t the same afterwards.

Same goes to my sister, my niece, my old aunty and mother.
All women too I’m afraid of the power he holds over me.
He pulls me down on the floor and stumbles upon me every other sentence.
He looks at me with his dark eyes, as if I already figured that he had no love in his eyes.
The glory of wars we fought together, objects being thrown around and the arguments.
I only landed as an object in his eyes and day by day I filter myself to be seen as black and white.
To not stand up and be guided by example, I look like I am terrified of the life I live in grace.

I move through the gardens one day and the next day.
He grabs my hair wanting me to look at him from day one when I laid eyes upon him.
Some women look at men as if they’re inexperience or harmful graved with pain.
Hearts covered in violence and blood, wife’s bleeding on the ground helpless.
Called 911 and they didn’t help me instead the officer came and went.
Believed my story one time and switched perspectives, believed the husband of mine.

I look at women today with sorrow eyes, as if they stopped guiding me.
Instead they stopped talking to me, told I was weak.
Shut the clothes line down for me only to be seen as a fraud.
A liar and a truth-teller all at the same time.
One man in one’s life..
You let that define your whole experience with men.
I don’t blame you, but there’s more to men than just one human.
I believe in you and your story will hold truth to my heart.

You mind if I vent to you about how I feel?
How I’ve been doing this whole time?
I can’t explain how sad I feel, like I’m crying my eyes out.
Questioning my own existence and it feels like I shouldn’t tell you.
It feels like I shouldn’t put my heart out there, unawaited and uninvited.
I’m tired of living this life, I’m tired of it all.
I am tired, I’m done of being tired.
The only thing I can do is vent to you or to the internet about me.

It was time. Tv went out, and in the process of my mom googling it, it turned into something else.
I wasn’t meant to go to her for help, it looks like I was meant to figure it out myself.
Give up the chains to my heart and figure it out all by myself.
I want to figure it out all by myself, but sometimes it feels like I need a helping hand.
As if I learned help was bad, tells me one thing..
Tells me I’m “stupid”, I don’t know what to say to that.
When it hurts me everytime, everytime I do something and I feel useless.

I didn’t ever let it get to my head, but I don’t feel like I am useless.
I know I’m not, but the world is dulling right now.
It’s not the tv that got me in my feels, it’s the way she talked to me.
The way she existed, it feels like she wasn’t meant to exist in my life.
Wasn’t meant to be in it, and I’ll be happy once her time is up.

I’ll be free I think and I’ll find my freedom.
Although who knows the chains are always glued to my feet, covered in glue.
Covered in words that mean nothing to me almost.
I can tell myself I feel useless, but I don’t feel it anymore.

I barely look at this as another truth comes out.
The teller hands you the book and it’s got AI written all over it.
Yeah I said it, meant it while it lasted.
Downfall held up high beyond the heads that look near the cage they sank.
They saw a case of my downfall, I don’t use my heart to write.
Out things I didn’t hear from to edit or change my words.

I wanted to be better, but they’d drown me like a caged animal.
Saw the papers on the desk covered with dark highlights.
I knew I was lying to myself, but I don’t use AI to write AI to be AI.
That sounded mad as I barely commit myself to a better life.
A hook on the shelf wasn’t the same mind that borrowed the pen under pressure.

In school they tell you to not use AI.
They barely say it with a coldness under their breath.
The pans awakened and now I’m the one watching the news.
Now I’m the teaching behind the teacher.
Beyond the pilot or judge that defended their lives for years.
They say it, they end up using it to.

Metal plates behind their back.
Chair detector, a desk infront of a desk.
No place to cheat, but I don’t use it for poems.
I don’t use it for a place in my mind.
Sometimes one can’t even admit their stuck.
I admit they don’t admit mines.
They call a teller and they tell the truth instantly.

Why watch politics when I could watch the world go ahead..
Stand by the wall and the police look at you as if you are them.
Call your name down one by one, they called for AI.
Don’t tell them why.

Caught the lack of thinking or engagement.
No understanding, just bitterness written from the plate.
I laugh in silence as I play along with her words tricking her like I understand her.
I pull the rug from your feet and now you call this generation “weak”
Your opinions have no value to me, as I think this generation is uncovering what other generations haven’t.
It doesn’t disguise me for my lack of language making it all about you.
Is that so telling?

Why so act so stupid?
When you thought you gathered up wisdom that turned into advice I wouldn’t consider.
“I’m so worried about your attitude”
Never considered a day in my life how I act towards other people at school.
Projecting your own fears and expectations, like beams you can’t control.
Some parents can barely get down into the depth when they bare punching the surface level.

I’m not impressed or surprised.
You just confirmed my thoughts about you.
You need to check yourself, instead of acting so self-aware if you can’t see a bald eagle soaring..
If my eyes awake, I don’t see a thing, but so bridgeless humans that don’t see below.
Called me “too emotional over the little things” go back and you tell me “I’m not calling you weak over crying.”
I’m sorry, but not sorry you **** at your parenting job.
Almost the idea of rotten with you is disgusting, how you think me and you are the same person.

Watch me write a poem every phrase you say.
Oh yeah you think I’m angry or crying at this, but you never ask.
Just assume I’m being dramatic, which is it you don’t call it how it is.
Why you lying to yourself?
Is this why people push themselves to the creator, artists, director, writer, author, or other roles?
To be seen, to tell their story, to be heard by those that took them for granted.

I don’t know, but I realized some people in this generation definitely have some type of something.
Something like emotional awareness and high self-awareness sometimes high empathy.
Where is that at huh?
You don’t see it then you’re blind.
If you can’t name it, then get your eyes checked.

Can ye heard me?
The profound words aren’t profound anymore.
Take the word, ‘writing’ for granted..
I was writing to be free from survival..
To face what I didn’t face in real time.
To give opinions on things that didn’t matter much.
It didn’t even happen.. I didn’t bear the weight as the usual people do.

Sometimes I walk down the road and the light in the morning shine while the cold didn’t.
It left the darkness from the house to the world, the front exterior tied to a mask.
I like wearing a mask to hide one’s identity.
Rather just pretend I don’t see under the surface, like I don’t catch a thing underneath..
I don’t live to write what I have to say.. I don’t write, like the bones and skulls aligned with the personality..
I don’t write like anything or anybody as much as the soul crawls to the next individual in front..
I don’t exist to write for joy.. for happiness.. that is existential, but it’s mere existence is gone..
It’s lost and forgotten under the glass windows it hid under.

I don’t show up for happiness..
To be happy with the way I write..
To be productive..
To be foreshadowed by one’s expectations and assumptions.
I consumed those words, but they did nothing to me..
I have joy, but joy is empty to me.
To have joy is to not exist.
To celebrate is to turn down opportunities in their own ways.
I am empty for the epidemic of survival.. I am not to overcome..

I like being in boxes that don’t fit me.
The type of boxes that weaken under pressure.
The type of boxes that become something else..
I have nothing to say, nothing to show you..
Nothing to become, if one has to hide themselves.. it’s easier said than done isn’t it?
No need to answer the question it will follow through in the end..