I hate those mornings
when all I have
for breakfast
                            is a
Marlboro.

For the first time,
after the last time,
one feels
independent
and sure.

But this could quickly become a last time
too.

My Marlboro is moving
back against itself,
and as it burns
the smoke it dangles
like a wet string
becomes
a second hand,
and I think that we are constantly ticking
down
until the first is last,
and innocence
is just a matter of time.

When you put your lips
on mine,
I just love the sound they make;
a quiet fleshy sound,
the temperament of flesh
is softer
than the temperament
of even the soberest buddhist,
especially yours.

I just want to pray at your lips,
just want to fear the enlightenment
that your tongue
unfurls.

Your lips could be the second coming.

This is poison,
"Statistics show
that one out of every
three black men
will spend time in prison
in his lifetime."

This is the remedy,
"I sit alone in my room drinking."

I feel like
society has tried to castrate black men,
because our *****
are so harmful,
especially to white women.

We break them,
make them unfit for society
right?

Statistics make us inhuman.

My skin color
has to be more than a distinction,

**** this *******,
Imma move to Alaska
and forget the girls I loved
and the ones that loved me
even though it was detrimental to them.

**** cops
and everything they don't do.

**** cops
who don't talk to peopl
like they are people,
who talk to them like witnesses
or victims.

**** cops
who put their badges down at night
and listen to their friends tell black jokes
and don't say a word.
(This goes for white and black cops.)

**** cops,
I've got nothing more to say,
all they've done is taken
when i've been around;
ransacked my room
and talked to me
like I'm an idiot,
*******.

Cops don't keep ******* safe,
don't want to
and never wanted to.

The police
watch the *******;
put bass in their voice
when they talk to me
"Hey buddy,
you know your tail-lights were out?"
All that bass.

Cops always call me buddy
and I just want to flick my switch
and cut a *******,
but I don't
I gotta stay steady.

*******,
I'm just trying to get to work
on time
and you might get me fired,
but that don't matter,
you want to keep me in my place;
make sure to rest your hand
on your holster
as you're leaning into my driver's side window.

I'm just trying to pay my bills
aren't you?

Some dudes are down to fight
but they don't.

But what's crazy
is that *******
won't fight around white people
they're trying to impress.

They don't want to be a ****,
even though
they don't know that we're all *****
in some way.

So when I slug you,
I'm not slugging you,
and when you slug me;
you're not slugging me;
we're just trying
to break free.

I miss the days of black pride,
black panthers
and black determinism,
when we weren't killing each other
and we weren't killing them
we were killing
what needed to be killed;
a mindset.

Without Marcus,
Malcolm,
Tupac,
Martin,
and Carlos
we are lost and we fight,
because all the black flowers that used to bloom
no longer bloom,
and the hope the resided in the birth of a screaming child
no longer resides.