Dear Black Girl

I am Sorry

That from girlhood you are not
taught to see

The Beauty in Ebony

Or to realize that the stars are
only seen

With the inkiest skies

And by Year One

You are tucked into a Guerilla
Warfare.

How to avoid jests
From the best of fair critics

Calling the bluff at your skin tone.

How your Lips are some what large
And how your career is in shaking your *** on TV 5 years to come.

How you have to be compared with the lighter skinned girls

Or how you stared many times at the bleaching cream

BUT "YOU ARE PRETTY FOR A BLACK GIRL"

Don't let them define you by the melanin
The one in your Skin

Cos you don't have to be a ******

To make Heaven.
So by your teenage years

You feel you are the PLAN B

of the Black Kings

They only plan to *** you

And leave you
YOU ARE BLACK

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL

So smile

Hold your head up high

Like they say

Black Don't Crack.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I riseup from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise

My Low Heart is Encrypted in Gold

Your Love is my Pen

I take your speech and write it Bold

You lay over there trying to Learn

Why I feel so glad that I am Sad

Speechless

Like red flags in your Cold War

But I am locked in a War Room

I am still down here Dreaming

My mirror talks back to me Am I Dreaming?

I lay awake all night

Sad as rain in Summer

staring at the light

trying to find your gate

I find you staring profusely

dreaming in breathing out

you have pushed me to the wall

Oops they say I am psychic

but all I have within me is fantastic

but my tears fill up your room

God help me get this through

the sound from the 00s in my mind

the dream I had when I left my past behind

and used my hands to write those lines

you see the frown on my face wrinkle to great rhymes

kinda what dr dre did on the chronic

i did mine in these days you see i am iconic

I WORKED PUT IN MY SOUL TO THIS NONE OF YOU SAW ME

COMING

ALL YOU SAW WAS ME CUMING

AND NOW YOU TRYIN NA DIS?

Now I am only making the highlights

shining with the stars ULTRALIGHT

I am in the sun watch out for my BEAM

ONCE I WAS 17 years Old

But Now I am in the Limelight cos I rhyme Tight.

The Day I find you is peace

My heart will circulate with Joy

So much for sorrow and Chalice

That keeps me from being played like a Toy

I feel childish whenever you stare at me

your tall frame compliments mine as we both smile

I feel a sense of pride, your aura is a family

to the secret lily your rose made from a mile.

The ribs God broke out of me fits in you so well

and your hands never tire of letting me hold them .

In their blind bid
To become westernized,
They lost touch with reality
Created shadows of themselves
Despised their own intrinsic values
Embraced a twisted dress sense
Of fallen pants and revealed underpants
Idolized everything they're not
The good, the bad, the ugly
They birthed dual personalities
Picked up foreign accents
On ****** home-based passports
The American Dream, they call it,
As they wear winter jackets
In scorching African sun
All in the name of fashion
Trading our simple hues
For complex shades unknown
Bleaching skin and hair
Trading natural black for artificial white
Unaware the very gods they adore
Are tanning theirs to look darker
Insecurity drives them mad
Inferiority complex overtakes them
As they ban mother tongues in offsprings
Placing exotic tongues on pedestals
At the expense of our cultural future.

This is not an attempt at poetry
This is wake up call to Africa
Be bold, be proud, be black!
You are BEAUTIFUL!!
You are AFRICAN!!!*


© Raphael Uzor

I am tired, really tired...
I am tired of my talents not being recognized
I am tired of constantly proving myself
I am tired of being disabled

I am so tired...
Tired of not belonging
Tired of being invisible
Tired of being worthless

I am very, very tired...
I am tired of exchanging fake smiles
I am tired of meaningless conversations
I am tired of appearing dumb so as to get help

I am just tired...
Tired of being useless
Tired of failing
Tired of not dreaming

I am extremely tired...
I am tired of being apologetic
I am tired of being left out
I am tired of being ugly

What I am I saying?
What am I really tired of?
Why am I tired?

I am tired...
Tired of being speechless
Tired of being powerless
Tired of being afraid

In fact, I am broken down...
Broken down by being black
Broken down by being African
Broken down by being primitive