There is a whirlpool where my heart should be.

It swallows the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand, all the beauty in the ways you love me, without apology.

In the darkness, if your body was lying still next to my own, I would turn you into a sunset, finger paint the shallow hues of blue, the nostalgic purples and pinks all swirled together against the grain of your skin.
I would show you all the ways your love turns the melanin of my skin into shades of red, like I am a rose in the garden of everything you love, everything that loves you.

And I will untie the knots of your soul like they are shoe laces:
Pulling
And pulling
And pulling at the strings of everything you are until you've unraveled, all your broken pieces blended with my broken pieces, we could create a mosasic, we could be a work of art.
And isn't that ironic, how things that are so broken, can be so beautiful?

There is a whirlpool where my heart should be, it swallows all your love for me, and all its beauty, without apology.

Power to women
Power to black women
Power to queer women
Power to the oppressed
Power to the women
Who fight
And fight
And fight
Power to the women
Who are loud
And angry
Power to the women
Who scream for freedom
Power to the women
Who wave their *******
In the face of the oppressors
Power to women

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that if the phrase “adding insult to injury” had a feeling,
that would be it.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it sounds like “hands up, don’t shoot,” like “i can’t breathe,”
like blood hitting a pavement that seems as though it was built
to catch those droplets.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it tastes like skittles and arizona tea,
four years old but still carrying the fresh sting of a wound just opened.
i imagine that it tastes 
like history repeating itself,
like seeing your son or daughter recycled each week
on every news report, on every tv station.
each time it is a different body, 
but it is always the same hand pulling the trigger,
the same black blood being spilled,
the same cries left unheard;
we shout “black lives matter”
and yet, still,
they cut them too short.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but i imagine that it looks like a web of lies too thick to cut through — 
every strand another weapon that he did or did not have,
another order that he did or did not follow,
another sin that he did or did not commit;
the only black they care about
is the color of the ink they use
to draw your angel-headed boy
a set of horns.
i imagine that it looks like evidence hidden,
like sparknotes-type skim-throughs labeled “thorough investigations,”
like another unindicted officer walking freely atop the cries of those 
who charged into a battle they knew they would, but hoped they would not, lose.
a battle they have fought too many times before.
i imagine that it looks
like an empty chair at the dinner table,
like cold-blooded ****** disguised as justice
with the help of a blue hat and a badge.

i will never know the black mother’s ache,
but if you listen closely enough,
you can hear it
in every cautious goodbye she says to her children whenever they leave the house,
or in the silence that those goodbyes used to fill.

can you hear it?
you will have to push past the shouts
of the big bold letters that they want you to believe.

somewhere,
somewhere in there,
a black mother’s heart is crying.
it is a gentle, hushed cry 
that the world does not want to hear.

but the tears are still just as wet.

(a.m.)

Hands raised or placed in pockets
Is the black skin or the media chagrin
That makes a black men thugs and threatens societal authoritiarians

Thoughts provoke verbal aesthetics to self-proclaimed victims of the poetic
Taking meaning out of past moments
Learning from circumstances past the point in which they last occurred
Just because I write the words doesn't mean I live everything I scribe on the page
I have the gift to 'feel' so everything I write is the extent of my artistic range
I consider myself a painter for today's age
An oracle of sorts, a seer, a sage
I birth pictures that encompass everything you can think of from romance to pain
One glimpse into the expanse of my mind
Is like seeing the world from the sky
I'm a thinker
And as a believer
I write these scripts to help me see through God's eyes

Liberator, liberate us from this unjust justice system
built on incarceration and cynics
mental prisms built like prisons
in the mind of so many of mankind
that thrives on the pain of the deprived and socially unequivocal
political nonsense
common sense is irrational
it's fashionable to agree with initiatives like H8
But hesitate when the circulation of hate toward blacks is tangible and so great
people see injustice and just turn away
yet they'll rally and support a LGBT mandate
now this is not to degrade or throw shade
but if I have to invade the space of the comfortable
and ruffle things up a bit
maybe I have a chance at confronting you cowards and hypocrites
who politicize equal rights but care nothing about it
you
who only want equal rights for a few
for you and people who look like you
but not for me and millions of black Americans
whose ancestry built this country
surviving while black in a country where every man is supposed to be free in an equal and cherished society

How black is too black?
Should I tan
To make up for the pigment I lack?

How white is too white?
Should I flatten my curls,
Then will I be alright?

Why must I cope with this balancing act?
Careful, not too many big words
Tip the stereotypical scale back to black.

Not enough for some, too much for others
Whose side do I choose this time,
The father or mother's?

It matters too much which race people see
Why can't I just be black or white enough
To make myself me?