My name is Elizabeth,
and you think you know me.
You've seen me every day,
since the year I turned three.

I am quiet, and reserved,
and smarter than most,
but my quiet demeanor,
turns me into a ghost.

I'm easily forgotten,
with all the ruckus and noise.
The laughing and shouting,
from the other girls and boys.

If I could speak up,
I'd tell you the truth.
I'd tell you he's lying,
about how I got this bruise.

If I wasn't so afraid,
to tell you my side,
then maybe you'd help me,
if you knew that he lied.

He says it's my fault,
that he has to teach me like this,
but I know better now,
that you don't teach with fists.

He teaches mommy too,
and she's afraid just like me,
but she still hides the marks,
so that no one will see.

I would love to make friends,
to run, laugh, and play.
But all the kids tease me,
for acting this way.

Maybe if you taught words,
like neglect, and abuse.
Then I'd know it was wrong,
and wouldn't be so confused.

But today I'll stay quiet,
just like mommy said.
Even though she was crying,
and her eyes were all red.

Daddy tells us he loves us,
that we're his princess, and queen.
But the brown bottle stuff,
makes him angry and mean.

Maybe if I took the brown bottle,
and poured it down the sink.
Then daddy would be happy,
and be able to think.

It won't hurt to try,
I'll do it after school.
Then maybe daddy can love us,
without being so cruel.

My name is Elizabeth,
and I stay out of sight.
I'm too scared to tell you,
but if you asked me, I might.

Today Grandma sinks in the seat, and smiles

at the fake trees, while the black
and brown crosses that hang over
her  shoulders as cancer calls her name underneath.

Holding the heartbeat monitor with her eyes,
the priest says "she's been cleansed, she's been cleansed,
it'll be alright, it'll be alright,

She's God's favorite."

Today in the mirror,
her
reflection removed from
her
beauty she once written with
her
lipstick, yes,

beside her
coffin, I mean bed.

the doctors notes declare
her
hope as thin as a paper cut,
the smell of fake smiles and dreamy prayers
stain the white walls, but with the families
tears run like razor-blades against the
skin, this may get better,

She still sits serenaded by silence,
baptized into a cloud of gloom.

Today it feels like a black Christmas, but with
a green moon, and red stars, and weak blue angels,

Gee, thanks, oh young Mary, for all of today.

They used to ****** people that look like I do
They do ****** people that look like I do
They've taken away my freedom and put my mind in a cage
No use to fight the bloodshot eyes
Stained from the tears I cry
Our cries for justice and equality they are trying to hide behind bars
because they know that nobody dares to read between the lines of white lies
They are trying to silence us
Keeping an entire race from the ability to arise

When blackbirds die, why can't we ever hear their screams?
Maybe that's why they never hear our screams,
For black lives to actually matter

Injustice has grabbed us by the hand with a grip that we can barely withstand
We cannot break free from what our skin defines us as
They say be afraid,
I'm just another face in the crowd of a picture of silenced serenity
Because dark skin is really just a picture of crowded statistics and percentages
We stay in the shade because that's the only place we seem to fit in
Maybe that's why we seem to be walking in the dark like zombies
Killed by the sweetness of black suicide , genocide
I'm tired of trying to put my sorrows aside

Our children love to play in the rain
Dark hearts
Dark souls
Dark minds
Seem to come along with having dark skin
The rain finally gives it a companion
Our little boys can finally find a release
Cry the tears they always held back
Because they were taught that real men don’t cry
But the rain
Protects him from criticism
He asks
“If I cry alone,
Will heaven still accept me?”

Let us pray
‘Our father who hide in shadows
Humble be thy name
Thy love will never come
Thy affection is solely done

The Last Kiss

Since Nan died the black dog circles, the scent of grief in its nostrils, waiting, sensing my vulnerability.

Regret sits heavily on my shoulders, for words said and not said, for journeys not taken, for wasted opportunities, for unsaid goodbyes.

Denial prods me unexpectedly, the reality hard to accept, where is she?

Self pity nags at me, an indulgence not to be tolerated, but it creeps in.

Remorse visits me; could I have done more to ease her mental pain?

Loneliness engulfs me in the quiet times, the darker hours; activity and light loosen its hold.

Anger irks me; it arrives sporadically without real reason.

These emotions, relentless, unyielding, almost my constant companions, take turns to envelop me in a dark mantle called grief, which must be worn, sometimes pushed aside, but never removed, a reminder of the debt which is owed, and paid out of love, with copious tears, but hard to bear.

Life is not the same since Nan died, but she is embedded in my mind, where I go she goes, etched deeply is the memory of our last kiss as she lay still and cold.

and i am sorry, oh
god i am so sorry that
i cannot apologize for the
things that have made my love
hard. i cannot take blame for
the way other fingertips have burned
my skin, i cannot atone for the bite-marks
on my wrists, or the start and
finish lines, the races that have been run
down my thighs and to my ankles.
i cannot pardon the graveyard of past
love that vandalizes my body like an oil portrait,
i have always looked like a museum exhibit
for the art of leaving. i am carved out by
the stained glass of all of my goodbyes
and it has taken my love by the throat,
it has rubbed my mouth raw, it has made
gasps of air between the breaks of kisses
hurt my teeth. i am sorry that i cannot
excuse the people that have
made me flinch, made me distrust, made me
carry myself gentler when it rains. all i can do is
give you a paintbrush and tell you that
i will still be art when you are finished with me.