Us black folk love to tell others to stay up.
Yet we can’t stay up ourselves.
Always laying on the ground getting stepped on.
They ask us to put our hands up
But how much higher can our hands really get?
We’re reaching for the stars
But the world don’t love us.
Instead we’re martys
Marred by the very place we call home.
Yet we continue to say “Stay up”…
Stay?
Staying here is the last thing I want to do
And I don’t think I can get much higher with all these fumes in the room.
These herbs help take away the pain
Better yet they make me forget my name
Sometimes…
Better I stay motionless to stay safe.
The more I obtain the more they take away.
My blackness ain’t nothing but a warrant
For my life.
I’m trying to excel but these excel sheets
Can’t protect a black man from the police.
Better to them that I lay 6 feet deep.

I’ve always felt like a pebble in the sea.
Pushed and pulled in every direction against my will.
Never feeling in the right place at the right time.
Never asking myself if this is what I want for me.
Scared of disappointing every wave assisting my movement.
I was one in a million.
So wrapped up in a hardened protective shell
That I my growth was stunted.
More concerned about the expectations of those outside of me.
The moment I chose to breathe in the air that I created for myself
Was the moment I felt life for myself.
Living in a world where only my actions would affect my future
I took the pebble into my hands.
A bird came by, took it in its beak, and flew with it.
Letting the pebble see the world for itself.

The water and moon have nothing on you baby.
Your well never runs dry.
Life overflowing from your delicate lips
Watering my soul and heart
Making me grow at every syllable,
You get right to the root.
Your light shines more luminous than the moon.
In the midst of darkness your glow is infuriating
To those whose light is too dim to distinguish from the darkness.
You see they are too dull and could use a sharpen
But baby you are picture perfect.
You provide me with clarity

Might my nerves keep me from being great?
Immensely Shaking.
Not a sound slides out.
Might they keep me from making a fool of myself?
Or maybe my nervous system is a result of the oppression placed on a man of color.
They say you might never find a book in his hand.
His grammar just ain’t right
Let’s just silence ignorance early
So he can’t speak until the night.
His life just ain’t right
Worthless if worth that much.
A penny for his thoughts.
A grand paid for the cause of his demise.
A salaried slave killer with a gun on his hip.
And you ask me why I’m nervous…

Poison
Not only a substance
But anything that misleads you physically, mentally, or emotionally
In a way opposite of your original direction of intent
A poisonous dart will have you running in the wrong direction.

Reality is something we deem real through our eyes
Or is it just real lies we prioritize.
I don’t know.
We fool ourselves into thinking everything is alright.
Just good enough not to explode.
Souls set sail when we let go.
Breathless and lifeless are not the same.
A web of lies that us spiders seem to stick to.
Never falling off but losing our potential.
I know better.
I know that life is much more than an existence.
That life is much more than a pension and some Benzes.
A lifetime to leave  people feeling meaningful
We all have a purpose
so just know your feeling of worthlessness is worthless.

Chasing the sun
Chasing the light
I need just one more second to keep it in sight.
Another day passes.
Another black man passes.
Can I live?
I made it from the jungle,
But at night it's a scary rumble.
In the dark we're all the same.
Am I sane?
Home before the street lights go off
Trying to make it home before the cop lights
Take me home
Make me groan
Pains from reacting
What if you were in my shoes
Jordan 3s
Living in luxury, but never free
Black is all they'll ever see.