I look back at all I have written, all I have seen.
I think it was a good life, I think it has been well spent.
Kindness and joy, mixed and intermingled with sorrow and regret.
I like to think that I have seen both sides of the spectrum, if not to the extremes,
men burned and broken, for listening to their dreams. I have seen joy and heard laughter,
witnessed the happy innocence of a child with both joy and sadness, for the knowing that it will be taken from them. Ah, for life is a cruel experience, and though joy is in it, and laughter, and peace, and innocence too for a while, for a year, for a day, this all is mingled and mixed, interwoven seamlessly with sadness, regret. With the melancholy of a still winters morning, on a cold winters day. For one cannot be without the other. Or how else could life be? Could the joy of a raindrop falling from a grey and cloudy sky to splash against ones face be truly appreciated, if one had not first to experience the long, hard years of bitter drought, and the women's wailing cries in time of famine? Or could the joy of innocence, total and pure, be recognized for what it was, if one had never lost it? This is the balance of life, yin and yang, universal and eternal, for if it was not, how could we exist at all?

she's like the first day of spring after the coldest winter.
like finally taking in air after counting the seconds of how long you can stay underwater.
she's the girl who everyone whispers about, but the girl you'll never hear about.
she's the girl who sits alone,
though is never lonely.
the girl who's as open as the books she reads, yet still, i can't figure out.

you ask me what it's like to be black
and i'll tell you it's a warm soulful fulfilling feeling
like a pair of new Chucks on the hot pavement jumping scotch on a busy summer day
eating cool iced pops and not ever being afraid
and smelling the warm carmel cake cooling on the stove
and the togetherness on a Sunday evening in grandmama's home

but you ask me what it's like to be black
in america
and i'll fall silent of conversation
because as you see history repeats itself
i don't understand why there is still need for explanation
in deep adversaries and hateful unappreciation
here we stand to be questioned by an authoritative negation

and ignorant folk,
why do you ask me such things?
why are you people mad?
why is it about race?

and i'll ask you, why does the caged bird sing?
is he not entitled to his song or his wings?

as green as the earth and as blue as the sky
i will only explain to an ear willing to listen
to a being with a sound heart and a firm mind
because as God as my witness we were created as equal

and for that given right we must die?

i will sit back and in turn ask you why;
i bet you couldn't say
and maybe we will all learn the answer some day
so join me in prayer will you?
join me as i pray:

to the children of Chicago
who can't go out to play
to the sons and fathers of
Missouri and Florida and New York
who will never again see the light of day
to the mother's pain that may fade
but won't ever go away
to the hateful people and their hateful words and their hateful ways
God won't You heal their pain?

they're so ******* us, Lord
now we're ******* ourselves
and on our knees we have fallen
needing guidance and help
because it isn't about being privilged
or living for the light we're consumed in

being black in america is no longer about being accepted as black

it's about being accepted as human.

I am not indecisive,
I am cautious.
I am not anti- social,
I am selective.
I am not rude,
I am blunt.
I am not a *****,
I am healing.

When I was born we stock together flock of a feather a Grandpa said,
Love was true we pulled through, houses grew, families grew, peace was "koo", but soon who knew; drugs came through, your dads generation grew, an there came a few  who's minds where stew in a sense; starting trouble killing each-other. Single mothers came more common. Prison's grew an the rich of course, who started this course for the generations to come. Now your here where RnB, hiphop, & rap pump through your blood, confused on when to love, an why to hate. Unconsciously not knowing you grew with rage on shoulder, in your ear, in your rear, while you run a race in life, mostly of waiting to truly live, not wanting to love because of fear, fear which only brings trouble. Pushing the right people away, wanting the the wrong to stay. Commonly no one adds war which if it wasn't country to country, it was state to state, city to city, block to block, house to house, Dad's to son an mothers, an you can't forget ****. Peace was never truly pushed imagine it starting from 1 house hold, love an peace growing an flowing, that kid became a teacher who taught true love an not to hate. How an why each race should date, and that maybe we need to be listening to our hearts an ours souls instead of or minds an our flesh less an less caring for one another!

You cannot expect something new to grow
If you nurture what is old.

The old and new cannot flourish together
And will both fade away.

Then you will have lost both.