500 years of conquest
500 years of oppression
500 years of struggle
500 years of resistance

500 years of globalization
500 years of plundering
500 years of capitalism

I am a child, of the children, of the masses
Rising from Latin America
Of the and in alliance with...the oppressed of the world
White brothers and sisters haven't you seen your chains, too?
Because us colored children have long forgotten ours

But I'm tired of the chains...searching...where's my liberation gone?


Afro-Caribbean
Afro-Latino
African American
African
Indigenous
Asian
Middle Eastern
My people of color
Why can't we come together

Because we continue to be lied to
We continue to be denied
We continue to be subjugated
To the fact that we are subordinate
To something that is not us

That we are devoid
That we are empty
That we are workers and masters
With no mind or soul

We are the people without license
No legitimate place, in the periphery
Outside the margins
A threat to the safety of societies

Always the other, never part of we within discourses

We are the black slaves
In your blood and heritage Caribbean children
Your negation of us has been your ploy to secure your servitude to white supremacy in exchange for your economic stability.

We are the indigenous
That harvested and nurtured these beautiful Americas
Pests of conquest, you exploited our black brethren because we were not suitable for your exploitation. Instead you massacred us. Ever since confusing us with your mestizaje fodder.

We are the peasants, the servants, the broken families, the broken communities, the displaced peoples, we are the casualties, we are the unmitigated collateral damage:
Of revolutions, of wars, of conquests, of western civilization, of capitalism, of profit, of misanthropy

We are Trayvon  Martin, we are the 25 million families affected by Texas decision on abortion, we are the masses being left out by the recent reversal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we are the LGBT binational couples fighting for our rights, we are the undocumented community in solidarity asking TO BRING THEM HOME, we are the Brazilians demanding to be heard over the government's preoccupation with the preparations for the world cup, we are the everyday poor and homeless

From our peripheral places we are the ones that resist because otherwise we will die.

We are the ones that cannot afford to oppress anyone, because we are the most oppressed
Living in a system that pushes even those who are the most oppressed to mimic the system's usage of oppression
When there's no one else to oppress, still being aware of ourselves, we try

My Latin American brethren don't tell me that Haiti's silenced past does not pertain to you
They fought for the universal rights of everyone, doesn't that include you?
And because of that its revolutionary past has been dismantled within history discourses
So that other colored children of the world like you would not dream to resist their own oppression

My Latin American and Caribbean brethren stop negating your blood, culture, history...Don't you see it has been deliberately silenced so that you cannot understand yourself? Because to understand yourself, is to love yourself, is to realize the potential of you, is to resist anything that doesn't allow you to be you

African, and indigenous historical actors laid down their lives so that you could exist
The puddle that formed out of the rivers of indigenous and black blood is all red. Isn't that enough for you to understand that our oppression is tied, that we must defend each other.

Our tool against oppression is not money or guns.
The greatest fortress of the oppressed is our mind.
History is our weapon.

Our histories are powerful
Granting us consciousness
Giving us bravery
Dispelling lies and shattering the silencing of our power.

Let us nurture our colored children to love their histories
That they may understand the common experience of oppression of the masses the world over
That they will be ready and able and accountable
To the continued act of resistance of the oppression of any human being.

We are the ones that cannot afford to rely on ourselves, we are the vulnerable ones, we are the ones with targets on our backs, we are the ones in constant threat, we are the beautiful middle eastern peoples being targeted as terrorists and extremists, we are the poor with undiagnosed PTSD, we are the undocumented parents and adults with lost dreams, we are the inner city kids who have been lost to drugs, crime, and STDS, we are the ones that let others decide our rights

We are ones that must form alliances with each other, we are the ones that find strength in numbers, we are the ones that need allies in positions of privilege, we are the ones that must create the revolution through the power of our minds, not the wars, tool of the oppressors.

We are the hopes and the dreams that have faded from our parents, and grandparents, we are the revolutions that never came for the slaves, the servants, and the peasants of our heritage

We are the most dangerous obstacle to oppression.
Dormant in us is the promise of the liberation I've lost.

If (WO)men are the ones that suffer an exacerbated amount
Of the violence, the ****, the abuse, and everything that comes
with and from struggle and alienation;
it is because of their femininity that men at times
have come to believe that their contributions soften institutions.
That at times throughout history neither capitalism, neoliberalism nor revolutionary experiments like that of Cuba have placed femininity as compatible
with progress or resolution.
In which case femininity must be hidden, silenced, or displaced with no purpose or place to belong.

Thus everyone closely associated with this femininity such as homosexuals, transgendered (WO)men, and "effeminate" males, (ignoring, subverting and negating the lesbian identity because of their gender) have come to be marginalized by a structural system of exclusion.

(WO)men carrying the highest burden for originating the associative distinction

Homosexuals battling to find love by constantly having to assert their masculinity

Transgendered (Wo)men afraid of expressing their through identity.

Lesbians fighting to legitimize their own identity separate from the directives ascribed onto them by virtue of being born women.

Males who are labeled effeminate because of their sympathy toward those who struggle and are alienated.

And every other individual who refuses to deliver to give a marker to their identity and a degree to their femininity.

Hold fast in your femininity and embrace the rancor that society grants you
As a homosexual I speak with you brother and sister, not for you

Realize that our self-ascribed degrees of femininity and identity are as revolutionary and transformative, and thus necessary, as those of Che Guevara, Mohammed Ali, Harriet Tubman, or the Dali Lama.

That because we have decided to embrace our degrees of femininity, problematic to any movement, at one point or another, we have inadvertently decided to align our selves with those who are alienated the most by the systems in which they live.

So that in this way we must make our struggles deliberate and political. Let our degrees of femininity become legitimizing banners of solidarity for anyone who suffers in any corner of the world.

Young people can you feel the suffering?

roca wear, gucci, apple, facebook, mcdonalds, apple bee's,
honda, lamborghini, harvard, Community College
american express, pnc bank, walmart

Wage Slaves, ceos, owners, lenders, renters, indebtedness
Structural dehumanization, systematic mechanization
Exploited labor feeding blood to your hungering consumerism

Young people you are embracing MISANTHROPY!

Embracing the hate of your own humanity! Why the hypocrisy?
Wealthy children, poor children
Trying for enlightenment through education

Parents garnering wealth through the oppression of their victims
Parents garnering debt through the oppression from economic inequality
Still you invest and promote the only legitimization of your being: CAPITALIST UTILITY

Capitalism engineering unrelenting misanthropy
Vicious economic system discarding humanity
Perfecting the concentration and accumulation of wealth
With the expansion of human alienation and murderous competition

Prostituting your body to labor exploitation and consumerism
Where does your wealth end up?
multinational companies? financial corporations? military arms contractors?
Loyalty lies in their pockets, backstabbing everyday tactics
Killing you through the exploitation of your body
Because they know the birth of another proletariat or bourgeoisie can replace you  

Entities, not human, how much have they bought you for so that you cannot see!!!
Beware of these misanthropic missionaries granting your body power and agency
When your body can no longer be plundered for profit you will taste tears and blood

Young people will you deliver your forefathers and fathers
From worshiping capitalist misanthropy?

What are we scared of?

Fending off hoards of oppressed human beings
Of acquisition, of possession, of autonomy, of legitimacy
Never been anyone; why empower them now

Legitimized crucification
No exoneration for grave transgression
Morality of mankind stabbed, under siege, defiled
Integrity constantly bloodily ***** like the virtue of women during war
Transgression, nonetheless, legitimized not by the law of a god or science
But that of a righteous m/an

Bodies without agency traversing into illegitimacy
Becoming illegal human beings
Transgression thrusting them into humiliation
Derailed, deprived, dehumanized
Earning rights to hunger, sickness, homelessness in the eyes of civilized man

Growing global economic hubs welcoming
Illegitimate bodies with contempt, violence, violation
Don't belong, lives becoming expendable, adversary to structured society

Trafficking, dragging, trading disempowered labor across meaningless borders
Nationalists disregarding with much pride illegitimates' desires for life
Killing them after you've beaten their soul, in negligence, extracting the fruit of their labor

Xenophobia killing Japan, dying refusing to open its borders to starving workers
When will a muslim sister in headscarf travel across ALL Europe without discrimination
Be careful America, you're murdering liberty's meaningless oath to the homeless of the world
Preaching the birth of the greatest nation on earth on the backs of immigrants across time
When it refuses to cease the political firing of condemnation against displaced human beings

Greatest plunderers of this world, those who set the rules, guarding their loot
Having had displaced black, colored, and brown bodies across time
Abducting black bodies from mother Africa
Contaminating mother America's native bodies with the corruption of whiteness
Causing mother Asia to discourage its pores from allowing the mobility of bodies

Greatest plunderers of this world, those who set the rules, guarding their loot
Legitimizing their stolen appropriations for the world to see
By excluding those they extract the wealth from
Displaced bodies achieving transnational identities in pursuance of unreachable wealth
For far too long trickled out of their home nations
To build the wealths of the new homes they're delegitimized from

Every country great or small falling in line with border policies
Desperate developing countries much too worried to contain fleeting flocks
Developed and thriving nations too ready to ****** the souls of bodies without agency

World's population imploding
Countries' power structures hungering to exploit the oppressed within their borders
Majority of us peasants, poor, without agency, moving across borders
Everyone's in danger of falling in line with the masses
Or the monopolistic governments deliberately creating monstrous line divides

Graffiti, Graffiti, Graffiti
Being bled onto
The landscapes between thighs

Incarcerating women's wombs
Justifying men's genes
Foreigners appropriating
Women's and men's sexualities

Losing the power to be
When changing our roles' long overdue
Gendering our words and attitudes

Man, who taught you to be a chauvinist!
Woman, who taught you to be a *******?
Don't put your god in gendered bigotry

Do man's emotions feminize him?
When will women freely carry torches!

What gender do you assign this voice?
What gender do you assign this words?
Will the masses even understand these choices?

Don't worry, my sexuality won't infect you
Criminalizing sexuality
Placing it front and center, implying that's all I am

Graffiti, Graffiti, Graffiti
Being bled onto
The landscapes between thighs

Graffiti, defiling the masses not high classes
Because men and women of society
Full of stride, take pride, in their gendered hyde

Graffiti, defiling the masses not high classes
Ignored hoods, barrios, countrysides, ghettos, projects
Devouring women's and men's bodies

Younger and younger people falling to ***/AIDS and STDS
Vaginas receiving the violence, wombs bringing misery
LGBT youth ****** into fire
Lost males (in mental chains) ****** to assert their manhoods

Graffiti, Graffiti, Graffiti
Full of dangerous chemicals, being sprayed onto
The landscapes between thighs
Attempting to legislate our stories, without warrant

What is it about this chase that eludes me
That runs away from me
That seeks to experience and then flee me
Until I get hijacked by another
Consenting to my own free fall into ignorance and bliss

Conditioning myself to transmit
Abundance without reservation
Until shot at the knee
But dragged along for a while longer
By the chains I so genuinely let bind me

And even before the wounds have healed
I don't stop running, I won't stop running
Resolute in a chase that targets me
I do so unconditionally

But you can't hijack my senses
I am not an experience or experiment worth having
I am not a temporary treat to be improperly digested and defecated
I am not an amber that ignites upon initial contact
To then be mediated or extinguished if the temperate is not right
I am not the holy water that you colonize
And shower with to cleanse you
To then invalidate that sanctity
When it falls down the drain
I am not a barometer that reliefs the labor
Needed to challenge the aberrations
Of your colonized and colonizing tendencies

I exist
Physically insignificant
As the earth that birthed me and will bury me
But eternal in essence
I am a permanent presence
I am an unforgettable imprint
I am your equal, no less, no more

The moment that we mutually acknowledge
Each other's existence
I have bound myself to you
From that moment...loved you unconditionally and eternally
And expect no lesser commitment
From you to me, or any other person you meet

And even after the wounds have healed
I don't stop running, I won't stop running
Resolute in a chase that targets us
We must unleash our abundance unconditionally

And when we leave
We will have given
Absolutely everything
That we had to give
During that time of our existence

I am blind
And I ain't blind
To the different social classes
And their faces
I try and try to be impartial
But my fears and preconceptions
Give way to prejudice of thought

Love and unity fill my mind
Yet when its time
To effect some change
My feet quiver
And words can't formulate

I want to tell my brethren
you are special to me
and I love you just the same
As anybody else
But I'm scared of what he will respond
Will he reject me as we are not the same
Will he embrace me and bring forth a seed of change

I am blind
And I ain't blind
To the disdain classes afford one another
Man threatens to discard the fact we're all the same

So I wonder
Can we look beyond facades
Strip it all down to our core

Don't we all want to feel the same
Maybe we can toughen up and take down the ranks
That impede us from becoming one-another's friend

Wake Up Wretched World,

I assert my Indigenous heritage
I self identify
With the ancestors of my continent

Identity afraid to articulate
Culture, unknowingly belonging to me
Cycle of shame now shattered

Product of love, hatred, lust, and desire
europeans plundering my mother Latin America
In chaos and violence, my skin's pigment
Has been engineered through the mestizaje
Of my Indigenous forefathers

How could I not forget my lineage
When the historical legacy of modernization
Has been to massacre the consciousness
Of where my people really come from

Erasing indigenous pride
Making Paisano and Indio
Synonymous with poverty and alienation
Insulting the humbleness
State of hunger you've left us in

Original lineage within me disturbed
So you push me to ambiguity and embarrassment
Not white, not indigenous?

Pure indigenous brothers and sisters silenced
Not an exploitable consumerist market, not in your campaigns
Not benefactors of your philanthropic development tactics
Bodies too costly to abuse, no reason to bring them
Into the neoliberal multinational corporate circuit

Constantly driving them off productive land
Because they choose to assert their identity
Live in collective communes, not owing you nothing
Waiting for them to make barren lands productive
So you can take those lands too

Not capturing an obscure history, these are not colonial times
This is the legacy of the european presence entering mother Latin America
21st century still defiling Indigenous cultures to civilize and modernize

To have learned a lot about identity, and self-negation, and alternative identities, and what it means to be an indigene, and Afro-adjacent and the concept of eurocentrism, and ideals of appearance and how they are appropriated by deliberate power structures who seek to marginalize and condemn to maintain circles of dominance…To know that we don't live outside of those circles.

It’s understandable that you've waivered over who you thought was attractive or not...naturally you are not outside of those circles of influence...and some days they put a gloss over you and might for a while convince you that we are oscillating farther and farther from the false ideals of appearance.

They put you on a spell that tells you whose beautiful, that our brown skin is not brown gold, that our eyes are not black emeralds, that our bodies’ hair must be removed, because the only hair that should be allowed to be left on a body is blond hair, because the world has taught you to think that our hair, our black hair is an alternative, an intruder.

It is an impeding and ever-growing pain to become a conscious man…one that is learning about the injustices in which he has ignorantly been a victim of all of his life.

To have thought once that I was not attractive because I was not attractive, and that I was not sexually desirable because I was not sexually desirable…

To think that the universe had devised it to be this way as if there was no conniving vice guiding these concepts of normality and abnormality…the standards of beauty and ugliness…

To come to the painstaking realization of being robbed of the truth…of the manipulating lies and biased standards of appearance that had been constructed so far back before our birth.

To realize that we are beautiful but that this fact would be one that would be negated.

A reparation that would be contested and denied, giving over the claim to legitimacy to those who judge this trial because they too have been veiled by the lie.

Recognizing that the identity as a brown, indigene, homosexual man with brown eyes and black hair (with remnants of a French grandfather who people can refuse to believe and because of that he does not care to acknowledge that part of his heritage. Realizing that that identity is dangerous to be acknowledged as being beautiful.

…Because if those that control the power structures that dictate the normality of appearance declared that that was beautiful you and everyone else in the world would never ever doubt that attractiveness.

But again that's dangerous even revolutionary because it would supplant the beauty and more importantly the power that white people (and those that aim to oscillate closer and closer to the Eurocentric ideal) gather from maintaining that dominance.

Shouldn’t we have a right to be angry and jaded? After being burdened with the truth and consciousness...we should have a right to be. It is a burden to be conscious and we should very much want reparations...The more the injustice being construed against us becomes clearer and clearer the more we must hold contempt against euro-centrism and disarm any semblance within the pride of European descent to superiority.

It’s unnerving to realize the slight that is being used on us to beat us down. These conniving power structures have managed to get under our skin and as if through remote operation have unleashed on us...ourselves.

It’s the best weapon of destruction...of control and disillusionment. Because they don't wish to destroy us, at least not until they've extracted our worth for their gain and consumption without our interruption.

We must not be unconsciously wielding individuals who think we are ugly, and who are paralyzed by a superficial analysis of what is the optimum of appearance, which we think we are not.

Abhor the inability that has been forced onto us, to declare we are beautiful.

That the weight of the lies, the farce, the systems of marginalization as they apply to appearance carry more legitimacy and authority, than our truth...the honest truth…

It’s asphyxiating to always face confrontations and juries who will indefinitely argue for the indictment of our ugliness.

To which deep fear and disbelief will be manifest in the paralysis of eloquence and ability to articulate an opposing argument.

The saddest thing would be that they have prevailed so well and penetrated our consciousness and conceptualizations within our minds, which has made it way easier for them to force us to see ourselves the way they see us.

Pick up like a hound those nuances among those that talk, and how euro-centrism has defiled their consciousness!

Insides can't help but churn and recoil with madness and try to say no don't do that! Stop the killing of the legitimization of your and my beauty!

Don't ever be apologetic. Just know that this is something that troubles us and is complex. Concede to the fact you won't ever have to suffer the injustice that us and other brown and black people have to try to subvert and alter as part of our journey toward the empowerment of all human beings.

When we think about the choices in our lives
When we fight and we bicker and become bitter
When we think there is only power or powerlessness

If we can realize that there is power and powerlessness
Then haven't we began to acquire consciousness
In that instance haven't we began the process of choice

That there is those who have not have given birth to this consciousness
To those who have only lived powerlessness
And know nothing else
Haven't you owed them part of your consciousness
That you have ceased to be one of them
Or your mere power has denied one of them

That there is no choice for them
Because they haven't birthed that consciousness
And if you choose power they'll remain powerless
Because within you there is no loyalty, right?
It is a choice predicated by an erroneous concept of self-preservation

It is a treacherous dichotomy; doesn't make sense
This is not an indictment of your desire not to suffer
Because surely to hold power would cease your suffering
But it is this type of power that thrives on the proliferation of powerlessness
This conceptual understanding of what it means to have power
That is not what we've come learn, but readily ascribe to

That a mind and body can cultivate power
That can be harvested, shared, communal
For the sole purpose of the survival of the other, not the self

That that can survive in this world is impossible
Its antithetical to the modes of production
In which our societies operate and thrive

How can workers begin to derive power from their collective efforts
How can workers' purchasing power equal the power of the production of their labor

How can any community in any corner of the world escape
The misanthropic missions of first world free trade capitalism

When will we reclaim our escaping humanity
When will we cease to keep feeding the system with our minds, our bodies, our labor

How much longer can we become fodder, scraps, waste feeding the machine
And don't think that you are safe when you have made it
When you have entered the circle of dominance
Because it is then when you will loose your humanity or die

It is at that apex of power that your presence becomes
Just as dispensable as that of the powerless
Because to maintain that circle of dominance
Requires a total conversion to misanthropy

The rigor with which your power will be required
To keep proliferating powerlessness will give no break
And when you become useless, it will replace you

So that we must realize that the modes of production
That we allow to exploit us
In powerlessness, or the semblance of power
Can never safeguard our humanity

How much further will we allow power to be concentrated
So that soon we ourselves, or our children won't have a choice
Won't have the consciousness of power just powerlessness

Concrete full of blood
Skies, smoke-filled clouds

Poison, don't you see
INDUCING VOMITING
Of every freedom you hold

Incubators, landfills
For
Food deserts
Soul Scavengers
Bullet and knife showers
Parentless parents
Starving children
Hotbeds for addiction

Metropolises
Harvesting humans like ants
Where democracy manufactures
Oppressed consumers out of the masses
Majority starving for death

Poison, don't you see
INDUCING VOMITING
Of every freedom you hold

Those borders you revere
Hijacking your body and mind
Legislating no burning of the flag
Where they clean their blood-drenched hands on
Can you tell what side your on
When you agree, they hold a different nationality

When can there be actual solidarity?
Profets of freedom, alienating OUR power to be
When in doctrine, legislature, and policy
Hierarchizing who deserves to be free

In contempt, not compliance
In pain, not numb
Reactive, not inactive
Burning, boiling, shivering
Out of injustice

Poison, don't you see
INDUCING VOMITING
Of every freedom you hold

How can you keep suffering,
When you face the truth

There are many constraints that are beyond our control.
They often fight to define the boundaries that we are able to overcome.
However, it is our experiment with our lives to figure out how to resist.

We are not powerless even though we have no power.
We are not losing just because we are lost.
Our will to affront the usurpers of our life’s freedom is our own weapon.

We must have the conviction to overcome the norms of definition
That fight to establish who we are and where we fall within our own societies.

We must not succumb to the norms of definition
Of a Hispanic, a first generation American, an urban denizen,
A middle class or on the verge of poverty individual, a minority, or a foreigner.

We must find a way to resist even if it leads to our end.

Teasing the beast
Looking for a feast

Hounds barking at our ears
Vultures flying up ahead
Circling a bald eagle's fresh corpse

Compartmentalizing symptom after symptom
To hide the great systematic sickness
Labeling the suffering, outcome from desire

We, wholeheartedly accepting being
Appropriated, labeled, discarded
As construing our own oppression and sadness

Enduring the **** of our minds
Being castrated of our consciousness
Before we reap the products
Of its bold liberation and grandness

Its the belly of the beast
And its hungry
Insatiable, amoral entrails
Hoping to salvage a feast
From the casualties of d(e)moc(ratic) wars

Hoping we feed our monstrous fear
Thirsting for the greed
Dripping off of accumulating wealths
Impatiently waiting, we keep parceling out grudges

Disfiguring our minds, our souls, and our bodies
Its misanthropic nature lashes out without conscience
Knowing we'll never realize we are masses

Disappearing the individuals who realize their suffering
Ensuring there's no collective opposition or action
Trying to reassure we are weak

Knowing at some point or another
We all act mute, deaf, and blind when anyone experiences:
Oppression
Pain
Silencing
****
Hunger
Fear
Violence
­Repression
Retaliation
Discrimination
Torture
Negation
Alienation­
All forms of mental, psychological, physical, and spiritual mutilation
Fearing death more than fighting for necessary abolishment
Preferring to live out our veiled miseries
Endorsing their continuance
Instead of risking our lives for everyone's liberation
Always ensuring the feast of the beast

By its very efforts trying to decree our very human nature
Ingraining greed, fear, animosity, and weakness as if inherent of us
All parts of its most damaging weapon:  the seed of discord
Its implantation, a socialized deep desire for self-preservation

Sheep bleating painfully toward our ears
Vultures flying up ahead
Circling a bald eagle's fresh corpse
Signifying the impending recapturing
Of our true transformative desires

Matters of love, you’ve reaped into me
Dynamics of knowledge, richness and profoundness
Bringing age to my heart

Knowing love and knowing brutal pain
More real, more powerful, more beautiful
Gifted consciousness filling missing part of potential
Crumbling down our incompleteness

Loving you more than consciousness of my thoughts will allow
More than the passion of my intensity
To be a model of human brilliance
Manifests within the existence of my being

I am a furnace
You are the only flame
Sparking this wild fire

I am a candle, inanimate,
You are the flicker that gives it life, light, soul

I'm am intrinsic potential waiting to be actualized
You are the catalyst of life breathing momentum into me
Through your existence

A flower, a beacon, weapon to my oppression and pain
Appropriation of your love, impossibility in my life

Immaculate potion to my sorrow
Like a wild flower
Withstanding thunder, hurricanes, and rain

An atom from another dimension
Your pulse travels through my heart and my soul

As dangerous as ore
You are the purest form
Deep underneath farther than I can explore
You are the most beautiful creation

You are the end to my means
Unconceivable new reality to my rebellion

The revolution I await
In the deepest part of my existence
Knowing it might never be

Key to my chains
Chant to my muted voice

You are the embodiment and the soul of my freedom
Always escaping from me

Once I lost you
Once I tossed you
You never said a word
I never could have heard

Miracle you bore
A refugee in the wreckage
Sharpening your wings
Withstanding dangerous oppression

Young being, incomplete being
Trying not to succumb
To your own capitalist appropriation
Eminent commodification
Implicating your body and mind

Who remained unscathed?
Who wreaked the havoc?
Just...so many wings could gain wind
In this cage, lacking space

System simply cannot withstand
Cost of everyone's liberation
Convenient systematic predilection
Where some are never meant to fly

Miracle you bore
A refugee in the wreckage
Sharpening your wings
Withstanding dangerous oppression

How can any wings soar
When the trail of their shadows
Hide systematic traps for our failure
To ensure only a few course the skies

Liberation is not meant to be
Just yours or mine
No commodity for private consumption

Its usage, embrace, and appropriation
Has universal implications
A radical transformation that seeks to complete a human being
Emblematic of an ideological reconceptualization
A revolutionary new understanding of being human

A re-authentication of our own liberation
Purely predicated on that of others

Thunder birds
Feathers made of light
No crashing in the night

Heedless heals shatter the ground
Muskets silencing every warning

Thunder birds
Voices carry out songs
No silence in the oblivion

Hollowed breathing gasping oxygen
Bullets' sonic reverberations
Overpowering every whimpering

Thunder Birds
Witnessing every crime
No veils cloud the terror

Burning images through tears
Weapons of desolation spark
Smoke and fire to blind just eyes

With every burning desire
We were meant to love
But instead fell low

Construing our delirium
As if by predestined design
Without faulting the system
Facilitating issuance of our sickness

Restless voices trivialized
To demobilize their power
Appropriating oppression as ours

By the time we die
You're gonna be tired,  asleep, and satisfied
My love will have made you sick
Because it was too intense

No stratosphere will keep us safe
I will become insane
As my feelings spiral out of control

You will have no option my dear
But to maintain an everlasting fever
Because my love,
Will warm you like the hottest arab sun

And every mistake I've scarred your heart with
My eternal dedication will erase
Every day of my life as I pronounce your perfection
This perception  will never change

Like a controversial revolutionary anthem,
The beat of my heart will pledge allegiance to you

And you'll have no where to escape
As the loud boom of my love drowns out our past
You will have no choice but to die with this love

You're gonna be tired,  asleep, and satisfied
Because my love will have made you sick
As it becomes volatile and intense

I sit in the future
Looking back at the past
Reminiscing about what is now
Tomorrow will be no longer

I'm nostalgic about
What has not yet ended
Because who knows
How good tomorrow will be

I try to rejoice in the moment
But I can't help realize
Time is flying by fast

I want to forever live
In this joy and this laughter
But what will happen tomorrow
When it all changes

I sit in the future
Looking back at the past
Reminiscing about what is now
Tomorrow will be no longer

I'm nostalgic about
The friendships and loves that I had
Because who knows
Where tomorrow they'll be

I try to rejoice in their presence
But I can't help realize
That soon we'll all be going separate ways

Now, I sit in the present
Frustrated about a future
A future which I don't know
Where it will lead

Corridors, Corridors, Corridors
Turning corners, fortified walls

Falling dust settling on grime
Windows shattering from flying hail

Pain itemized for personal use
The heart is bleeding
From its place in the innermost cabinet

The storm is not passing
The ghostly folly is penetrating
Weakening beams through their creaking

Aimless sounds of abandon and disrepair
Are whistling silently through
The light of the sun and blanket of the moon
That seep in through the holes of the sealing

The elements of the world are caving in
As I walk through the corridors
Searching for a way out

Lilies and wine.
You're drunk with love.
And night's all shine.

So you starve and you crave.
Just a little bit more of Cupid's touch.
Puffed smoke hearts surrounding the time.
Present once more the universe sparks in your soul.
Lousy noises melting into harmonies so fine.

Lilies and wine.
You're drunk with love.
And night's all shine.

Your heart's secreting the serum of life.
Love is filling the hourglass of your time.
Now the pearl has found its light.
No pressure but weightlessness abounds.

Lilies and wine.
You're drunk with love.
And night's all shine.

Hold on firecely, lose yourself in beautiful time.
Tears of love and joy heal your wounds.
Flowers all fine, one you are, floating on air.
Swept out of reason, but your heart is too fine.

Lilies and wine.
You're drunk with love.
And night's all shine.

Capture the flower in your arms.
And drink the serum like wine.
Love is uplifting, and bare, taking you swiftly.

I’ve reflected a lot about desperation.
We as undocumented students
who have such high expectations of ourselves have this desperate
desire that quite frankly strips our ambitions of malice and of hidden
agendas.
We will be lucky if we are able to take the next step in our
precarious/ uncertain paths.

Therefore, our intentions have to remain
as genuine (and thus more pure; more powerful) since we are at the
mercy of those who help us continue to crawl along to our dreams.

That
hunger, that desperation, that desire and how it has pushed us, has
propelled us to the point where we have shed tears, and perhaps blood;
and as a result we have showcased a sincere and humble brilliance and
authority in our ability to thrive and succeed where it is virtually
impossible.

Don't criticize, don't criticize that man
For enjoying something you deem a waste of time

Let him have something for himself

In our petty little lives
There is nothing keeping us going

Taking care of a wife and children
That is the only duty he is obliged to

Mother and wife must give up her life
Once that child is born
There is no greater purpose than for her to see that child through

The only thing giving them hope
Is the love hanging by a thread
And when there is no faith hope tends to snap

Don't criticize, don't criticize them
For seeming different than you

Let them have something for themselves
If it means keeping them alive

Working double shifts,
Overworked and underpaid
Her hands are always in pain

And you dare snare at her
Because she doesn't dress as well as you

Never home and undernourished
He is only trying to provide for his home
By being at work day and night
Feeding himself is only secondary to the hunger of his child

Don't criticize, don't criticize me
For being wrong, I will fall down to my knees

Let me have something for myself
If it means keeping me alive

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

Wondering while we walk
Trembling trying to talk
Mankind mostly marred momentum

Humanity how humiliating, hiding
Forefathers frowning, from our fabricated forget
Refusing redemption, requiring rancor and retribution  

Always armed, allured, awaiting angry accusations
Derailed doves, these daggers drag down
Losing level landings, lacerating learning's lifting

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

I implore indignation, it's incarceration of our intrinsic immensity
At the core of our conception, captivating creation captured
Anyone, everyone, afraid of the amazement accrued under our armor
Profoundness, endless as the universe, favoring our existence

Just a little, just a small, just a bit
Exuding burst of energy
Embodiment of brilliance
Manifested in human flesh

Prayer is said to be powerful.
Well this soul begs the Grandest Force in this universe
to place love in this being's life.

A flower of one's own that radiates with one's soul
and reciprocates the actions
to nurture it beyond disbelief.

This spirit is not sully
wondering into such ways is only dangerous.

If this heart has already been dismantled
by the only flower who received the transfusion of one's love
the being cannot take that back.

Reconciliation regarding the breathtaking
and impossible cannot be taken back.
Chunk after chunk...that part of the mechanism is falling to disrepair.

My sky's only bright when you shine
Your smile is my vitamin
When you're happy, I'm fine

Today, thought about you again
Spent whole day alone
You were all I could ascertain

Die before causing you pain
My life depends on you
Your peace of mind, I wanna gain

Ain't no trophy, career, or transformation
If it doesn't involve you by my side
Ain't no way else, only you're my revolution

I've got our contract on my heart
Promising you forever and ever
Waiting for you to own this work of art

Let it fill you up, every part
From your head to your toes
Pumping from your heart
Through to the tiniest flows

Breathe in, close your eyes
Hush don't say a word
Feel my love give you butterflies

There is someone who I love
Someone who hurt this Christmas
And there are many others out there
Who are bereft of the brightest warmest sentiments the heart can experience

While the rest of us are ignorant of these happenings
All wrapped up in presents and drinking cheers
We fall short of being grateful for having somewhere to belong

For some the winter in their hearts is not nearly over when the holiday season is over
They are hurt from within and have yet to find somewhere to belong

It is sadness which confines me
The thought that my loved one goes sick
From within every Christmas

To think the winters in my love's soul
Are but shared by so many around the world
Yet the rest of us are careless, selfish and blinded by our needs

How many Christmases and winters would I spend in hurt and suffering
Just so that the one I love felt right at home for one Christmas night

How forgetful are we that a warm room and a petty meal
Might be a human necessity to subsist through the winter
But love and a sense of belonging is all that keeps us alive

We can not afford to not touch lives
And share our love and kindness with everyone

My loved one, if you ever fear you're alone
Don't worry God knows where you belong
If anything in my heart there is a place for you

If you feel alone you can belong with me
Strangers and enemies if you feel alone you can belong with me

Let us all be fearless in our efforts to share our blessings
We can not afford to not let others know they belong with us

It is a vicarious pain which I have come to assimilate as my own
The hurt which the one I love feels at times
And which many others feel all the same

The world is full of another type of hunger and yearning
Thus we shall not weaver in a journey
To help others find meaningfulness in their lives
And help them feel like they belong

If I could only accomplish to make the one I love feel a sense of belonging...

And if you feel like you can't make another feel like they belong
Because you yourself feel alone in this world
Please never give up the fight

Look within your self and know
There is someone out there like me
Yearning and waiting to let you know
Here...you are loved
Here...you are meaningful
Here...you belong

Look at a stranger's eyes and smile
Look within in their soul and find solace in their existence

There are more than six billion souls out there
And although on the outside we seem different
In the end we are all connected and we belong

Violence in our hearts
Ignorant vice of our plans

Praising
What we read
What we see
What we hear

Acquiring knowledge we seek
Enriching others' minds
You can't always enlist

Minds are being allocated
Oppressive struggle nurtures servitude

What is your brain being allocated for?
What kind of freedom are you looking for?

Can't be one of us
If you're another capitalist appropriation
Poster child, a temporary venture

Falling in line to become another
Worker or bourgeois hypocrite slave
Isn't that why you study for?
What kind of life are you looking for?

There's no saving your soul
When your freedom depends
On chains of other men's hopes

Fighting to keep yourself, your family
Future generations being born out of you
Out of the venom of oppression and pain

Living life without concern or consciousness
Just the same as living in a prison cell
America, how many inmates do you host?

Security, don't you want a guarantee?
Your family may now have peace
But when you're no longer here, there's no guarantee

Can't be one of us
If you don't join in the struggles of our brethren
Because our security is not guaranteed until they're all free

Trouble through calmness
Fancy of simplicity
Smiling through sadness

Just a little antithetical
Mere dislocation and unison
Sewing our lives apart

Burning because we are in love
Thirsting for no more feeling
We're disgusted at being so fed up

Prying from the freedom
Running and crying from trying and safety
We're alone while we're together

Noise against the silence
Kisses and shots from a gun
the time is going on pause

Just a little antithetical
Mere dislocation and unison
Sewing our lives apart

Morning sunset
It's the beginning of life
But the end is dawning

Quickness not too far behind
The end makes us scramble
For some semblance of stability

Looking for what is not lost
We await for the night's sunrise

Does it sting you if I tell you, you're a ******, a thief, and a liar by association?
Sure you've been convicted and you wear your prison tags with pride
This is not a tale, this is not for your entertainment, I'm talking about you!

Wearing your abercrombie and fitch, am I interrupting the call on your iphone!
Sure what you buy has been cleansed to hide the stench of blood and sweat
Do you know where it's made? Do you care about those who made it?

Think you got it bad? Wait until you see factory workers cry!
They can't because their tears dehydrate their malnourished bodies
Your thinking its alright to be at ease, better think twice

Panic, your self-preservation is not safe, your body's agency will soon give way
Living in ghettos, urban centers, metropolises, seeking comfort among congestion
Depositories for the excesses of humanity, fresh produce scarce, drugs plenty
Commercial, social, fashion districts hiding alley ways and misery

One midnight up
The man to be, the troubled boy
woke up feeling sully, undignified

Vexed by an unwavering
Storm in his mind,
Torn, tired and tearful at last
About the facade he portrays

Good actions, he wants shown
But are being overtaken, over-showed
By chagrin from wanton tendencies

Hope he is not giving up
Maybe he'll let go of it all
Take over his life and forget it all
Become an honest man and move on

The troubled boy wants help
Distraught of mind, peace has dwindled from within him

Pulsating reminders of who he wants to be
Try to revert the lost boy back to the right path

But a transition is taking root
Forcing a recognition of accepting to
Live a life only one way, disclosed

Must facades come tumbling down
And hiding faces shown light
Or
Must hiding faces be buried up
And facades become true sights

The troubled boy will decide

Towers, flowers, showers.
Make me, take me, create me.
Don't drop me, crop me, don't stop me.
Sense me, chase me, trace me.
With your eyes, hold me, never let me go.

Towers, flowers, showers.
Sure you, lure me, cure me.
Grip me, don't trip me, drip in me.
The fragrance of dew crawling up the walls.

Towers, flowers, showers.
Fill me, will me, don't shrill me.
To view the beauty of the world.

Every time you tie me down
Every time you hold me up
Every time you breathe warmth down my spine
Every time you sound so kind

Not a single time
You hold back
All the bravery in your heart
You pour over mine

Once you rise
Once you wake
Once you've let your thoughts fly
Once your heart's filled

Not a single time
You quiet down
All the words in your heart
With them, you inspire me

When you dream at night
When you daydream in the afternoon
When you ponder about life
When you inhale, exhale, breathe

Not a single time
You get sad
All the happiness in your heart
You transfer in smiles and laughter to me

All you have may be nothing
All the world can go crazy
All we can hold on to, may be we
All we can do, is be free

But never will you be afraid
To give me
All the love in your heart
Knowing you belong to me

It's the story of us
Shooting stars
Coming in and out

We fight, we yell
We laugh, we tell
Each other, our wonders or miseries

Standing still, time to ****
Deal with what we will
The pain and love that's very real

Time pushing us over the hill
Tik tik tik tok running out
There's no medication, no pill

Better get ready to feel
In harmony or war
Our hearts need a meal

We fight, we yell
We laugh, we tell
Each other, our wonders or miseries

There's a void for the intellectual when poor
Awareness only makes it worse

Knowing the socio-political mechanism
Controlling us and keeping our physical bodies bound
Only begs our mind to give up its emancipationist stronghold

The Spirit is only torn between
A socio-politically created reality
And the dis-associated self-edification of blind opportunity and hope

Becoming politically and sociologically aware
Of our "selves" within the context
Of our society is dangerous
Crippling, knowing the power behind the scenes

Submission corners an individual into indoctrination
Amorality seems to be the make-up of the seemingly strong
When every fiber of morality is subtly stolen
To assimilate into or right the wrong
Of the ******* up socio-political mechanism of our world
Either way, there's no way out
You're always tainted with the plague of amorality

The spirit is bought and sold
For the commercialization of it is dehumanizing to all

Any which way it can be analyzed
The rationality of the mind
Is dismantled piece by piece
Until it is absent from coherent thought

Knowledge is a weapon dangerous to the enemy
As well as the self
For truth is a burden deadly to the bound
By Disenfranchisement