I wear the letters NYU sprawled across my chest as my individuality is asphyxiated.
Lungs choke under the weight of the added pressure. 

The thought of college plus my complexion,
Equals complexed looks that ponder my intellectually-heightened direction. 



Will you think a little bit more of me, with my conformity?



Attempts to better myself meet enough ignorance to even cloud the vision of God.
Segregation and alienation cause mental spasms the strength of lightening rods. 




I guess you're just a product of the environment to which you were exposed. 


But I'm always trying to fight the stereotype that black people are ultimately foes.



I am the ant and the kids of rich parents are magnifying glasses. 

Cremating me with the solar power of son's who were taught that their existence was worth more than mine. 



I lay motionless, in bottomless quick sand pits, itching to alleviate my stomach stitch, engulfed by set standards that could not be met. 


I am tired of trying to be what you'd like to see.
Astute, respectable, young black man-just so you can approve of me and hopefully think that we are not all "up to no good."



Say it loud,
I'm black 

And I'm,
Not going to lie,
The proud part is kinda hard to say. 


Because I walk down the street and see my face in the homeless everyday. 


I fill the prisons and I'm famous when the news reports crime. 

And when I show up early to interviews,
they look confused to see that I,
Don’t run on Colored People's Time.



I don't hate black but I hate the fact that black means that sometimes I have to find alternate routes to success. 



While other people's roads are already paved, I suffer from all the stress. 



I try my best but I'm always categorized as less, then a man. 


And I'm trying to change perceptions but I still feel like a visitor on American land




And the poor are physically trapped so I relate mentally.

We both suffer from the oppression and accept the hatred like it was meant to be.




Society has led you to believe that blacks are not worthy of equality



But take a long, hard look into my eyes and tell me that you don’t see my humanity.

I’m the type to holster mental index cards of things to say on a first date
But no matter how much I study, my words never withstand the test of time.
Eventually, sweet nothings cause ear canal cavities from sultry words too often indulged.

Love made me want to rip my pulsing heart out of my chest and place him on a table just for interrogation.
I would ask, why he would trust so easy when he should know better than anyone that no love, melody, or beat goes on forever.

But what an exceptional construction worker you’ve become.  
Demolishing hearts as if the blueprint to my soul has become obsolete.
Words spewed from your mouth with the power of a wrecking ball that collided with my 5’7 frame.
So unpredictable that I doubled over from the pain.
I crumbled as if I was an ancient building way pass my prime.
And I’m still searching through the rubble to find any salvageable pieces.
Maybe I can recover a missing part of my smile and plaster it back into place, though it will never fit quite the same.
You ****** slowly on my bone marrow and your lack of concern made me insane.

Before I slept, I sprinkled immaculate images of you on my eyelids as if I was the Sandman.
Thoughts of you embraced my dreams, and it was the only way I could find serenity in my slumber.

I will never again activate the synapses in my brain that saw you as a god that descended to earth.
You ripped my psyche to shreds like a cannibalistic cupid who lost sight of the agenda.
To create love, not to pierce it with vindictive arrows.  

Now all you are to me is this poem.
A poem.
Letters, words, and stanzas.
You don’t even deserve the time it took me to write this.
You do not deserve the effort of my joints smacking the keys when I find the next thought of how you hurt me.

Like sacred paintings in newly discovered caves, I tattooed the inner walls of my cerebral cortex with memories of you.
It would be there forever. Waiting to be discovered by the next person that walks into my life with a torch filled with hope.
Illuminating my dark, damp and lonely cave.

When the next woman crosses my path and wonders why I get a verbal tic from the word love, I will unlock those same chambers of my mind and show her the walls that you’ve left your worthless signature on.

I hope she will be able to understand that I can let her onto the front porch, but it will be some time before she gets to see my home.
Because, it’s really messy in there.
***** dishes in the sink, books thrown on the ground, an unkempt bed, and my confidence and self-worth hung up to dry on the clothesline.

You cannot just rent a space in someone’s home and then leave without a month’s notice.

You were my addiction,
I injected your ******* essence and I was high on life when you were near.
So close that you coursed through my veins and made me feel alive.
Every now and again I get that familiar itching of an addict.
I am itching, just to text you.
Just a simple hello.
I get urges to find you.
To cop another one of your addictive glances straight into my two liquid pools of inexperience.
I never thought addictions were this hard to kick.

I look for redeeming qualities
Until you wanna be, 
involved with me. 



Then my mind, drunk with power

Turns your image sour.

And I can't remember why you seemed like a tower,
And that makes me a coward. 





I have to make you unattractive to rationalize, 

Because to surmise,
Being wanted is such a surprise. 





But really, I'm afraid I'll like you too much and use you as a crutch.

You might be caught up in the lust I'll end caught up in the trust. 





Daydreaming that you'll never leave and we'll be that,
Sappy type of happy couple that can sit around and snuggle. 

Emotions like football stars after the play,
Because they start to huddle. 



Creating this large mass of affection that I wish didn't have to form.

Resurrection of old feelings of love makes me realize you can leave me torn. 




If you ever had to leave just tell me reasons straight, no chaser.
Because my last love didn’t so I was unaware that it would be pointless to chase her.

I want to meet you.
On a cold, rainy afternoon.
When the dew caresses our world with wet, unsolicited kisses.
One of those days where nothing seems copacetic.
Your eyes, like pools of liquid sunshine.
Saving me from the turmoil.
What a beauteous star you are.
It’s unsettling,
Not knowing when and where we will meet.
Maybe I will bump you as I rush onto the train,
Just barely avoiding the pincer-like doors
As they snap close with a vice grip.
Or maybe our eyes will lock from across a crowded lecture hall,
With pupils that tell the sincerity of our smiles.
Who knows where it will be.
But when the time comes,
I hope to have the courage to utter the words
Beautiful enough to have you shed protective layers
That will allow me to bask in the ambiance of your benevolence.

Too many Black bodies,
Know the unwelcoming
Pavement as their home.
I can smell the sadness
That seeps through their pores.


Sorrow that furiously
Enters my nostrils
Like tornados yielding eviction notices. 



Pupils that beg
For eye contact.

They are empty change cups
That fill to the brim
Through the locking of retinas. 


Begging,
More for the reminder
That they too are human,
Than for the change
That will provide little of what it boasts.

Open caskets
With the bodies of suicidal souls.
Lifeless faces rearranged
To show a glimpse of joy.


The scene is rich with irony.
These dead are smiling.
While the barely living
Don't have the same luxury of tranquility. 


Words claw their way outside of mouths,
Fighting
To reach a listening ear.
Suffering
Such alienation,
From being unaware
Of their origin or direction.
When the body and mind lose
Their living accommodations,
Words still yearn
For a home.

Black bodies litter the streets.
And sanitation crews wonder
Whether to place the lifeless bodies
Into the truck’s trunk,
An open casket.

I wonder,
When was the last time
One of their names was
Spoken into existence?

How difficult is it,
To forget who you are?

Haven't you heard it's not polite to stare?
Your piercing eyes puncture my skin and make me bleed my emotions.
And yet, I still don't know what
You see when my habitual glare meets yours,
But I know I cause convulsions.
Convulsions that run up and down your spine.
Because you have yet to realize until now
That you were bleeding the same dark red
Liquid from the **** that I caused.
Nevertheless, we still both convince ourselves of being unaware
To what this lingering, locking of our retinas symbolizes.
Is it love?
Is it lust?
Or is it neither?
We contemplate this question and wait patiently.
Hoping that our dauntless, hazel orbs, urge us on
Once more, to peer into their mirror images across the way.
So that they can utter the words that our tongues cannot form.
There is no longer a use for pointless chatter,
When our stare says it all.

Like a pumpkin on Halloween, carve me open.

You will fear the hollowness of my insides.

Previous trick-or-treaters, in their too high of spirits, have long ago scooped out what made me tick.

My pulse used to pound louder than a heart knocking on the door of another’s soul,

Hoping that someone welcoming waited on the other side.

Begging for entry.

As they dressed in their costumes, hiding their true identity,

They stumbled upon my motionless being.    

They mistook me for the large, misshapen fruit and I did not make it a hard feat.

With my constant state of lifelessness and lack of expression, I am a lyric with no beat.

Lost amongst the stars, wandering far.

Hiding next to sons that always knew how to shine brighter than I did.

Camouflaged, so that you would not notice that I too could light up the sky.

Too often,

I would rather be overlooked,

Than to have my illumination come with an expiration date.

Too often.

I do not like relationships
That come with expiration dates.
You stamp it on your forehead
As if you were a carton of milk.
I prefer to observe its slow curdling
While grimacing at it's deathly odor.
That way,
I can pinpoint
The very first moment it went sour.

There is no need
For unmet expectations
Or reminders
Of an impending doom.

Oh what’s that officer,
Did you say I fit the description?
Well don’t bother using handcuffs,
Because from since birth I’ve felt the constriction.
I kept my words and anger at a minimum
Because I live the life of a Christian.
Plus, cops hide behind their guns
And I saw his trigger-finger itching.
Submission of my wrists,
As a matter of fact my whole body, mind, and soul.
And you would think it hard to believe
That the youth could wield
The wisdom of the old.
Societies in which blacks tinker on the very edge,
Almost no existence
So I make new paths,
Trudging through the mass,
To overcome my birthed restrictions.

These days,
I don't even have the inspiration to write.
I used to be a snake.
As i comfortably shed my emotions
And salvaged the remains.
Smashing them with a pestle and mortar
And blowing them in the wind.
Hoping that they would reach someone
In a comforting breeze to dry their painful tears.
Just to let them know
That they are not the only ones in pain.
Something they might take comfort in.

Far from comfortable in my own skin,
Itching to peel back layers like an onion,
Hoping there's a new me underneath.

All that you were, was not all you could’ve been


Broken memory that will not mend,


The scene is now over and on the stage it's dim,


In a box, for you, my heart I'll send.





Think not of what can't be redone.


The sun sets and rises periodically.


But your heart I still wish I had won.


The past points and laughs as I frown idiotically.





The sun continues to shine and do its duty


Shine along too with same intentions in mind,


No distractions by the thought of your beauty,


Reality just doesn't allow anytime.





And reality is mistaken with unbelievable dreams,


And the clouds they sleep on thy head


And there is nothing to create that needed seam,


By the words that haven't been said.