Between day and night, choose fight or flight, hide out of sight, shield from the light.

Cocooned in our beds, words trapped in our heads, a poets mind is forming, ideas begin their swarming.

Not conforming
              Lines deforming
                        Minds contorting
                                       Rhymes consorting.

Color is light. Color is grace. Color is a garden.  

Since when was white not a color.

Since when was white the other.

Since when was white not your brother.

You are no better than us. We are no better than you. You are a color like us. We are a color like you.

Color is a gift. Color is magic. Color is our skin.

Color is divine. Color is no mistake.  

Color is just a color.

Color is a window.

Color is bliss.  

Color is the Lord’s stage.

Color is alive. Color is eternity.

Color is noteworthy.

Color is original. Color is a story.

Color is extending.

Color is our breath.

Color is sunshine. Color is our life line.

Color is captivating.  

Color is our wings.

Color is love.

Color is beautiful.

Color is you. Color is I. Color is he. Color is she. Color is us.

by: Najwa Kareem

February 2017

It's closing in
once again
water falls
leaves descend.

Night becomes darker
light deprived of its ember
fumbling around, on knees
struggles getting harder.

You can not be a window
sealed,
Eden dreamt Bara bara
eleven years of December

Spirit wedded bliss
soul promised
pushing
a name
love light divine
non-negotiable,
the elephants never cry

(not like they used to)

not into king sized kisses
not into water buildings
and I am past
my grid

show her the pain
of a dead whistle

pure veined pride

Where does your soul
go when you are sleeping
why be afraid to
close your eyes?

I wanted to be your hero
raised arms outstretched
dashing across fields of daisies

I wanted you to bed
the person I imagined
you to be,
a heartsease river
of soliloquy.

Here fair livery of word's content
escapes this ever mindful heart
which frets upon a laden lament
of sorrow's wheel pull obedient cart

As year hard-by this gated plot
seems to forget what time has not
and grasses grow soft brown and green
above hard ground and fading dreams

In Tundral rest flows glacial loss
in Northern light yields up to moss
and weeping tree eye epiphytes
that cling to life in spite this plight

- cec

listening to Ne-yo
"what am I gonna do with forever now?"
how
will I breathe?    

every breath that I take
with every move I make
it's feeling more and more like I'm making the same mistakes.

because I breathe in
and I think of- of him
again

the memories
they get the best of me
**** me slowly
painfully
I ask again:
how will I breathe?

we've already established well enough that I can't see
maybe love can blind you
pain does the same but it also has more damage to do

pain targets my memories
the ones that get the best of me
tear apart the rest of me
force me to hold on and cry
lest I
forget
the good times
each and every morning's sunrise
every time I opened my eyes

to see the guy I thought
was the one for me

he and I are one
and the same

though he took all of my pain
away
every
single
day.

but every sweet and romantic kiss, every soothing touch...
it was a lie.

now all I can do is try
not to cry
I
sit and sigh
stare at the sky
wondering a simple thing
yet it is so complex indeed:

why did he come into my life and hurt me?
why didn't he just stay the hell away, and let me be?
why did I choose to let him in?
now I'm stuck with torment I can't describe-
would you like me to begin?

I mean, I
can try...

it's like having your heart ripped open then
sewing it shut
yet you still can't stop the fact that you care-
is this too much?

I mean, to care
though he is elsewhere.
yet... not so far away
because it would take me less than a day
to reach him
if I wanted to
it is something I could do.

this pain
is worse than I thought it would be
never before had I let someone this
close to me...
forever I'll be
wondering why...

There's always a reason to believe

love is underlying.

Believe that when someone is too close,

it's love.

Blind fools will argue that she or he is not the one.

Yet he or she is a prospect.

A figure in which you find

peace

in silence.