My heart is constricted
By an emptiness
I can't shake.

What should I do?

What should I...

What should...

What?

We get told that Slavery was a lie
I’m crying on the inside
Because on the outside all you see is my complexion
But as Kendrick Lamar says, “Complexion don’t mean a thing.”
Learn from this
I’m not one to miss
There are so many like me
That get lost in the abyss
Of hatred
Of Racism
Of ignorance-of pride
I’m done getting tossed to the side
My feelings are relevant
They’re not fantasy
I just don’t understand why you can’t see-
Scratch that I do
Y’all don’t want to admit
That I’ve caught up to you
I know I’m the ****
You don’t want to hear the fact that you’re wrong
Ignoring a person’s struggles is making the white man strong
He wants this! He wants my pain
He feeds off my struggle, my cries for help are in vain
I try to ask for but get pushed aside
For the next black person to stand in line
Our feelings are legitimate
They’re like a covenant
Between what I want and what is now
Now we have black boys and girls slaughtered like cows
We don’t matter to this country
Our lives are dark matter
That’s why we chant “Black Lives Matter!”
Please just listen
I don’t know how much more I can take
I need someone to understand
That blacks are a dying race
Our culture’s being taken, assimilated
While millions of us are incarcerated-
Please listen!
I don’t know how much more I can take.

Tired of feeling broken
Tired of feeling helpless
Tired of looking at myself
And feeling stupid
Tired of feeling abandoned
Tired of feeling like a waste of space.
Just need to breathe
Focus on the positives
And keep going.

You are amazing.
You are more than the pain
More than the loneliness
More than the desperation.
You are more than their looks
More than their stares
More than Autism, Mitochondria Disease,
More than the seizures.
You are you
Which is enough.

Pap...
My limbs are lead
My mind is fogged
And the only light within
Is one thought:
"Keep going."
I rise higher and higher
The air becomes thinner
My ambitions become clearer
"Make it to the top."
The others will meet me up there
Except everything is quiet
My breathing is the only echo
Within the surrounding expanse of darkness
My numb fingers creep unto a ledge
I hold my hand out waiting
For help
No one is there
I push myself on top
Look around and see no one
The view is lonely without people
The sun's rays cascade over me
Their warmth feels colder alone
Success does not fill me
Loneliness does, though.
It **hurts

He looks out
Looks outside of himself
Looks out at the mirage
A world in which he is stuck
Within the confinements of himself
There are words he wants to say
But are trapped between his cage of a mouth
Words must be filtered and scattered and discarded
Through his mind
Like product in a factory
In the end, all that comes out is a
Frustrated cry, a swing of his arm and the confusion and a guilt-ridden apology afterward.
But he sees the outside in a different light
He sees it as a world outside of his own
It's a planet that must be travelled to by space ship
Luckily,
He is an astronaut
And he has people who believe in his rocket's take off.