You told me you
              Couldn't find your way
                                     In your darkest nights
So I left you a star
               A star in every poem
                               To find your way home

maybe it's the weather
maybe it's because i'm turning a year older
but whatever it is, there is something
that gobbles me up from inside
and my bones get weaker and
my chest feels heavy and
i want to die

sunday to sunday i crawl to cling on to life
and i scrape my knees on the sidewalk
i think of tiny things that could possibly
change my tainted view of living,
i think about you.

I dreamed up a world
Where reality had tilted
And the sky traded places
With the sea
We walked on streets
Of fluffy clouds
Caught stars in fishing nets
While gazing up at celestial waters
Making wishes on flying whales

To talk about race.
It ain't my place
to talk about murdering innocent people.
It ain't my place
to talk about chaos.
It ain't my place
to act in anger; it ain't my place.

It ain't my pace,
to heave headfirst into battle with a burst of hatred.
It's dated. Antiquated. Don't devastate the devastated.
It seems senseless to fight this menace
that is our own. That we have grown
using ignorance.

It ain't my place
to presume to know what anyone is going through.
So to you and you and you,
I'll take a step back before I raise and fire
the crack of a whip
that is born from hatred.
I refuse to take the bait
of the crimson painted faces
whose hopes are killed at the hands
of their brothers. I refuse
to fire back, bullets crack
at the community
filled with emotional action.
It's wasteful, and frankly faithful people
look to each other. So look.

times like these
i find myself short of words
to express how i feel for the wonder that you are
there's nothing else to say, but in the simplest of terms:

i miss you

sit down and listen to the sounds of the world.

the gun shots and explosions echo through continents
and you hear the pleas of the hurt and murdered.
the night's music fades to white noise and screams in the ears of men who loved men,
the black woman is trapped in the passenger seat after watching her black lover get shot by a cop for a headlight,
a thousand muslims are hurt and killed in the midst of a holy celebration,
young boys and girls no longer laugh but cry in desperation.

people are killing in the name of faith, and color, and love they deem wrong,
the body count gets higher and higher
as the tears cried and the blood shed
form a well the world is drowning in.

the sweet smell of life turns to death and grieving,
and in times like these, we stand for the threatened, we heal the hurt and broken.

with your voice, tell stories of the murdered and their kind that show they're human too.
with your arms, fight for rights and understanding the oppressed deserve.
with your hands, help and guide the ones who are now afraid.
and with your heart, love radically
until love is enough to put the pieces of this world back together.

let me paint you a picture
in shades of black and white
in shades of those who ****
and those who fight
this is what racism looks like
black men with paper hearts
armed with cardboard swords
white men dipped in ivory steel
white men born armed with skin
it's a black man with hands
raised to the heavens
and seeing hell as his last sight
this is what racism feels like
it's your black breath
being ****** out of your lungs
by white hands of white men
dressed in blue gilded in gold
this is what racism sounds like
it's an 18-year old's last words
it's a mother's cry at a police station
it's a bullet racing through the air
this is what racism is
it is not poetry
it's a black man wearing a red shirt
and getting shot six times
this is no crusade
there is no holy purpose
this is the star-spangled truth
a flag drenched in black blood
this is the truth bared in ink
and no poetry can save it

i always hear your whispers,
they are snakes that slither from my ears
and they travel down the same way
your breath would on my neck.

i remember looking out the window
and i could feel your gaze in the shivers down my spine
and i'd tell the stars about my desires,
i'd tell them about you.

he's got slits for eyes,
they wander about, in search for something
to satiate his bustling curiosity.

he's got a thirst for life,
he is attracted to painted alleyways,
he listens keenly to anyone who speaks in the hopes of gathering a story to tell.

he's constantly moving around, speaking in tongues,
his breath smells like summer, his eyelids are heavy ,
his hands are ink stained and he is desperate to create.

and i'm not one to draw or paint; but to me,
there is artistry in the swing of his hands,
there is poetry in his stride, his kindness, in his mousy speech,
there is a story in his sunlit bedroom, his drafts and scribbles,
the type of spectacle worth capturing in a photograph.

his art is merely a reflection
of the beauty contained in his being.