Us poets
Aren't we all the same?

We all write about
Love, lust, heartbreak, hatred.
Depression, self-harm, recovery, relapses.
The sun and the rain, the breeze, the moon and stars.
Remembering, forgetting, past mistakes.

Do we not centre around these topics?

It's all just a matter of
Twisting, manipulating
Phrases used one too many times.
Adding a touch of yourself here,
Another hint there.

To conjure something
We call
Original.

A poet is the cracked spine of your favorite novel. As you begin to peer inside, words fly out from every direction. Sentences you can't make out and phrases you can't even begin to recognize. His mind is a dusty dictionary of all sorts.

A poet resembles the tide that rises and falls just as your heartbeat does with every syllable he breathes out. Corals scrape your legs and fish nip at your feet yet you linger in the water.

A poet is a pastel picture frame. Amazing how 4 corners can freeze the sparkles in your eyes and the grin on your lips. Feelings do not last forever so we tend to keep anger, sadness, joy & love sealed in glass, sitting on our night stand.

His mind is a factory.
Gears & wheels working late night shifts, making sure all periods and commas are in place.

You see
Poets are
Tear jerkers
Risk takers
Shape shifters
and
Heart breakers

We are the forgotten ones
The ones who can articulate
beyond the guns and knifes.
We don't need a beat
Our word flow through emotionally.
We are here to capture and decipher minds
Teach them all those things school has left behind
How history is only written by the victor
How there's more to blacks than Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr's his..tory.
Let's not leave out the truth.
Poets stand up, fight for the youth.
We share our truth about love
Let's share the truth about knowledge
Forget the cliches of if life gives you lemons make lemonade.
We freed ourselves from the British.
Then enslaved Africa and made them forget who they were.
Only of Britain would had thought of that first.
Let's not sugar coat the past
Let's control the present and the future.
Poets stand up
We are the symphonies of hip hop, rap and r&b;
We are the class.
We are the Billy Holliday and Marvin Gay of this new era.
Like the fitted cap we fit snugg.
Poets stand up.
**** speaking on unicorns and rainbows
The sunny side of the chi.
Just last night my Lil man's got shot by the cops.
I use to say he was my son
Now I plan his funeral with his mom.
Poets stand up
Bloods, crips, gangsters, thugs re unite as the black panthers.
Poets stand up!
Poets stand up!
As they say ok ok your 15 seconds of fame Is up. No more from you today Mr. Ananymous.

One year,
     nine months,
          nine days.

You walked into my life
and turned it on its head.
You taught me what love was
and what love wasn't.
You showed me
how to save myself from
the darkness in my mind.
And in return, I gave you
a piece of my heart.

You gave me a forever in 648 days.

But ultimately,
you showed me that
everyone leaves eventually.

And as hard as it is to believe,
goodbyes(or lack there of) are a forever too.