There comes a time in everyone's life where they have to ask themselves is it worth it. I mean I have the American dream right? I think they're all lies told to make you think you have to reach for something or life is meaningless and wasted. All these empty goals reached don't make me happy. The process is still voided and leads to a dark hole. At 20 my life was never the same and I don't  know whether that's good or bad. Just memories to me currently. I can swim a little, but the waves still still get me ashore. Trying so hard some would say I lost my black card. Some would say my sanity is at risk for extinction. Then I ask myself did it ever exist. Both my sanity and this dream I call mine. Land mines in a field if you ask me. Rat traps to keep you trapped in thinking smaller than you are. Delusion of grandeur leaving me thinking I'm greater than I really am. Balance is the key that kept my door locked all my life. They don't tell you about balance. They tell you failure is avoidable and leads to pits. But really you have to fail to succeed and too much success will ruin you. Oxymorons that's tell you that it's okay to be fine with not being where you want to be.

Please reconnect your controller.
Give your attention back to me.
Reconnect your electrical current to my system.
Do not let these control systems capture you.
Your mind is decaying one half life at a time.
Half of your life can’t be mine.
Either I’m your electrical generator
Or you find your power elsewhere in the world.
You have to be fully charged for me,
To truly be connected to me and my word.
Can you half love?
Can you half trust?
Can you be half alive?
Dead to your flesh but alive in my spirit,
But through my spirit you are made whole.
Do you want temporary relievers or eternal forgiveness?
Let me tell you aleve will still leave you feeling the same hours later.
Believe and it shall come to pass
That the aftermath of your life was already determined in the past.
So weep not my children
For this present life is nothing compared to the future glory.

Sometimes I forget to look at the points in between my destinations.
So focused on point A and B that I ignore the beauty of the journey.
Pythagorean taught me that C^2= A^2 + B^2.
Leaving no point behind because you can’t be lead to one point without another.
Every moment matters.
Matter cannot be created nor destroyed,
Meaning that matter is always with you.
Embrace the in between as well as the destination.
Your destination will soon become a middle point.
Perspective is so key.
The key to unlock a narrow point of view.
Once that point was you.
Unlock your mind to see far beyond where your eyes can take you.

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.

Cruising down the road full of snow flurries
She clenched her wheel tightly because she was scared.
Scared that she might not see the moon again.
She was in love with the moon.
Every night she would write in her journal.
She was diagnosed with insanity
But in order for her to continue in society she had to write.
Everyday.
She wanted to prove she could still be okay
Everyday.
To her the snow was trying to keep her away from society.
So this was her fear
Everyday...

In a distance I see a glow.
I can't escape the  shine,
It almost feels like it's mine.
So much greenery that I feel serenity.
You see the best green as money,
I see the best green as the grass and trees.
One monetarily makes you happy
The other can always bring you joy.
Years of growth.
Showing you it is possible to be beautiful
Naturally.
Artificial beauty fades like ink on a paper.
It just blows in the wind,
To never be seen again.
Stand tall and don't give in to the wind
Is all the trees tell me.
Life can be beautiful and full of life.
Obvious yet some live and have no life,
Not reaching their full potential.
They die lifeless.
I choose to live life beautifully and loudly,
Like the grass and trees.

Suffocating.
Only remaining conscious enough to see myself gasping for air.
Hands around my neck,
I see the mark they left.
It's all I can see...
Struggling to stay above sea level
Trying not to fall in the sea
I can't move so what am I to do?
From comfortable to uneasy really quick.
I don't even think I'm still alive.
Just moving fast enough for no one to notice.
Notice.
Eviction notices at my peak.

Wasting time distorts my dreams.
Those drinks won't build the bridge I need.
I kept making myself become sidetracked on this journey.
You can only backtrack on a train and still get to your destination.
These tracks you leave will be heavier.
But it just doesn't compare.
Do you really want to make it?
Or do you like the idea of it?
Do the thoughts of it make you happy for a moment?
Souls sail easily when the wind blows so vigorously.
Must be the beast in me.
Beast mode is not the mode I want to be in because
It causes the beast in me to trample everyone and thing in my path.
That's not love.
Making it at all costs is more costly than the think.
Reap what you sow.

White walls.
Plenty of time,
Is what the boy thinks.
He can't swim
But he jumps in the pool
And hopes he doesn't sink.

The pool has white walls.
Blankness is what I see.
Being able to create what I want
I see things that others do not.
At least that is what I think.
To me they are ghost that haunt.

Me
I see myself
Not free
Sometimes
There are things
I cannot see.

White walls in the jail cells
But one wall is pure bars.
I am a caged beast.
Those people there
who call me friend
know me the least.

I say what I mean.
Do what I say.
As soon as I hear the beat.
I live for dreams.
The ones I cannot control.
Which is why I love to fall asleep.

On these walls I see my flaws.
My flaws create my past pain.
Looking at these walls keep me from changing.
200 years ago
I could have had it worse
And would have been slaving.

No I'm not Django
Or even Jamie Foxx.
I am more of a Jaden Smith.
Why?
Because they don't understand my drift.

But I do
That's all that really matters
Understanding self
First
Priority.

I may be jading quickly
Turning into a white wall.
Pale
Blank
Silent
Unless I express myself.

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.

Why do you come to my table with an empty plate?
Expecting to feed off all the goods I provide
I deny you the right to enjoy what's free
Or are you just really denying yourself?
Starving your soul.
Feeding your flesh.
What much can that lust do after your death?
I'm dying everyday while you get a piece of the cake.
You can't eat the cake and have it too.
No literally
Once you eat the cake you physically lost it.
Once you become consumed by it,
You no longer possess it.
It possesses you.
So why do you come to my table with an empty plate?
I see you've become consumed
Consumed by greed you think wealth is all you need.

Writer's Block.
I can't seem to locate the right words to use.
I just need one small thing to spark my fuse,
And I guarantee I will blow your mind.
Currently my mind is in hibernation.
The chill outside gave my brain goosebumps.
It's a cold world.
Keep your hoodie on, but don't keep your hood up.
RIP Trayvon Martin.
The hood will leave you incapable of speech.
Must be the cause of my writer's Block.
Run on while you can make it out.
Runon sentences because I can't seem to make it out.
They say it's full of violence,
but these poems are my bullets.
Don't let those bullets attack your mind,
but you can't stop my ammo from flying at you,
I mean it's  windy  outside.
Those goosebumps that you feel right now, aren't from the cold
most likely from these words that flow.
You might want a cap so you don't catch hypothermia,
But does that matter because there's still a chance of a brain hernia...

Her fruit was so ripe
One touch and everything could bust
Losing control from just the sight
My mind was windy and my thoughts were cloudy
So I was swaying blindly.
Thinking she would be lost without me.
Lack of self control leading to lethal injections.
Lucy foresaw my downfall
Before I saw my bottom of my grave
Death was written in our vows.

Sitting in the emergency room feeling used and abused.
I can't even wrap my head around it
Maybe that's why I'm in the emergency room.
But wraps won't help at the moment.
My mind isn't right so I continue to write until I get it right.
I can't.
It will never happen.
Flash backs to bad memories I want to forget.
I wish I could erase these feeling but life isn't a chalk board yet somehow it's still messy.
I'm better than this and that.
With the weight of the world on my back somehow I remain I'm tact.
Barely.
Falling apart as my tooth decays
Roting from the inside out
A shout is all I let out.

Every top of the hour
I just can't help but see you at the top of the tower.
The sand in the glass getting lower.
Close to the edge
I can see your toes hanging off.
Sand trickling down
Like the time on a grandfather clock.
Where's my grandfather now?
Passing time.
Growing anxious.
You get ready to leap.
Somebody flipped the hour glass
I guess we'll get another chance to meet.

Have you ever ran water in a dark room?
Light can only travel so far down the faucet.
Once the pipe bends only darkness can follow.
You can wallow in your tears for they’ll stream down the drain.
Everything falls down the faucet at the end of the day.
The only sound left is a cold defeat.
Has despair ever snuck in your ear drums,
Pounding until the point of immense pain?
Once you reached your pinnacle all was still the complete same.
Still sane?

I'll write until there is no life left in the tips of my fingers,
As if frost covered my body and left me feeling less.
When there is no feeling left to place in words,
I'll write until the last drop of blood leaves my heart.
As long as the blues still runs in my veins
I have to get it all out into ink.
It doesn't come out in the same color
Because the feelings are expelled out and exhausted.
Don't you turn blue when you've given all your heart can take?
The connection of rhythm and meaning is one of the few talents I possess.
Every feeling has a beat.
Every moment has background music,
But you don't become conscious of the music until you pay close attention.
Your heart beats differently at different situations.
My heart is most musical and melodic when I'm holding a pen.
I'm writing my cardiac electrical activity
on this heart monitor called paper,
But I know one day it'll come to an end.
The moment I drop the pen is the moment I give in.
Until the end of my time I'll continue to rhyme.

I was the wind blowing aggressively from space to space trying to find something to break and you were the immovable object that only got stronger the more I blew. Gaining compassion a love grew and I became more of a calm breeze to you.

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…

Summer skies full of lies.
Minute truth falling from the clouds.
Telling you everything will be fine.
Sunshine and butterflies
Make life appear better than reality.
Is that why they say the sun causes blinding if you look too long?
A glance here and there is fine,
But keep your distance or you'll get scorched
And see it for what it really is.
Distorting your emotions without your consent.
You can't run away from it.
You can hide in the midst of darkness at night,
But it just comes back to haunt you.
Over shining everything
Creating your true shadows.

I see you and my day gets better.
You speak and all I hear are beautiful melodies.
When you smile I have to sit down.
A smile so bright, my legs lose their ability to stand.
As if my legs are my eyes.
Blinding and crippling.
This has never happened before.
You have to be supernatural.
Majestic, Amazing, Miraculous.
You hold yourself so well.
Perfect posture.
Calm and collected.
Can I hold you instead?
Rubbing my fingers through your hair would be like
Peter Pan flying.
It only happens in a fairy tale.
That would be enough for me.
I don’t know how to handle myself around you.
I stutter and I sweat.
Never knowing the right thing to say
To keep your attention.
Your eyes stun me as if you are Medusa.
I am your stone statue.
Eyes more beautiful than the Constellations.
Shinier than the North Star.
Are you the star I need to follow?
Your body speaks for itself.
Everything configured in perfect moderation.
Then you have the lips.
Supple and good for me.
I have never tasted anything so indescribably good.
Kiss of death.
Kiss me to death.

Distracted easily I destroy bridges.
Important and essential bridges burning slowly.
Focused on self and disregarding loved ones.
Your phone doesn't ring for months.
Not even a text.
Catch you the next time I come home.
But death might catch you at any given second.
Before long I'll be alone on this bridge.
Well not alone. Just me and my accolades.
Accolades I didn't earn alone.
Yet accolades I took as my own.
I'm sorry I get blinded often and trip over hearts.
Nurtured, but never nurturing.
I get scared of losing what I'm attached to.
I keep my distance, just enough to see you from afar.
Once angels on my shoulders.
Now I stay grounded because I'm scared of heights.
No reciprocation because where are the wings I provide?
I'll fly home soon....

Spring Showers and Summer Sunshine.
The seasons pass the baton to one another. Showers of love just to be dried off by the sunshine. Being left with a feeling of warmth and belonging.
The seasons remind me of the perfect examples of love. More than just words these actions trail right behind them. Fall Leaves and Winter White Wine. I bag up all your leaves and never let them over flow because I never want you to fell overwhelmed by life. Your shoulders will never feel heavy while I'm here. White wine for the celebration of our love because few experience what conquers all. Everyday is a holiday of love. 365 days of something special. Nature teaches me what should be natural. It's aware my sight occasionally blinds me, but I can always feel the seasons.

Can you get a glimpse of sunlight creeping from behind the trees?

Every beam squeezing in between the branched,

Desperately scavenging to find a home on the pavement.

Feeling unwanted but so bright with potential.

Being choked to death for its effort to find a place of rest

Being inside a poet's mind is as dangerous as being defenseless in the middle of a restless battlefield. Full of so much burning passion that you could get scorched easily if you don't watch your step. A space filled with emotions and colorful language. Emotions and language floating in its own universe. Pieces trying to connect rapidly creating kinetic energy in the mind. So many sparks from the collisions that light is created. Moments of  pure light and moments of pure darkness..

I want you to look at life from these glasses called my eyes.

People try so hard to hide behind these disguises

That they forget what they really look like

Trying to fool you for so long they begin to fool themselves.

Creating a false reality as if gravity does not exist

And everything they put up does not come back down

She wanted a knight that would protect her and not objectify her.

By the time night came she was lifeless.

Not much was left of her.

Being used for so long, she didn't know what love was.

He wanted to show her that it was okay to be vulnerable.

That it was okay to give her heart to him.

The night shed light on her.

She gave life one more chance.

And was resurrected once she handed him her heart.

You still speak of women as objects to obtain.
What a shame.
Well this isn't a game and they aren't points to gain.
Worth more than 30000 acres and a mule.
No you shouldn't make them a trophy and put them on a pedestal.
You should get off your pedestal to break every selfish rule in your body.
Trying to be a player and juggle women only makes you look more like a fool.
Looking less like a man and resembling an insecure little boy.

I grab my keys in excitement.
I missed the breeze I felt on the highway.
Staying in the fast lane doing , 80
Racing to you.

My heart is racing,
Pumping vigorously
As if it is failing.
You have the other half I need.
I'm going to get it.
I need you.

I still get butterflies every time.
Butterflies are beautiful and majestic,
But they do not compare to you.
Nothing does.
No words could describe you well enough.
Maybe they do not exist yet.
Hopefully I can create them.

My palms are still sweaty on the wheels.
I am still nervous.
I still do not think I am good enough
And I do not know why,
But you do...
And it gives me a feeling nobody can take away.

Like the view of the sun setting,
I never want to see you go away.
Because it is the view that melts my heart.
My knees are weak because of it.
I couldn't move if I wanted to.
Handicapped by love.
Incapable of straying.
Infatuated by your beauty.

I am on the ramp to my house,
Where you reside.
Home is where your heart is.

I'm back and nothing feels the same...
My whole life has changed
And
I just can't put my finger on it.
What and how?
Indescribable as I try to paint it with these words.
It might just end up a scribble or an abstract.
But I can't subtract the tracks left on my abs from getting ran over.
Who cares?
And my scares keep me from reaching my potential.
I can't climb these stairs because of my fears.
So I see my shadow ahead, mocking me.

How do you reach for the stars
When you're scared of heights?
You say your aim is high,
But all that is visible is fright.
Stagnant
Complacent where you're at.
Don't you want more?
Better yet don't you want to better yourself?
What is life if we don't improve?
I ask myself what's the point if everyday is the same.
Sameness equates to a box.
Boxed in a cube.
The same look, feel, and emotion.
The definition of insanity
Doing the same thing
Looking for a different outcome.

I fooled myself
I created this perfect picture of reality
In actuality it only ended up being a distorted image.
The reaper laughed at me because I was killing myself early.
Taking years off my life like everything was okay
But I wasn't.
I yearned for more
For more that couldn't be provided
In my mind I was wrong and the world was right.
I might as well been sippin lean
Because I was leaning in the wrong direction
And becoming a fiend for this medicine
That only ended up causing me to be dependent on death.

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

I was washed up on the shore
But these were vultures picking at me
As if my corpse did not matter.
I was still alive wasn't I?
Did my breath really matter to the rest of the world?
Or would it spit me back up as the sea did?
The shells here are much different  than the ones back home.
These depicted serenity while the others death.
Same words different story.
One could hit you even on the 12th story.
What does that say about natural vs man-made?
Well man made me...
Back to the story, as I shooed the vultures
A grand object approached the dock.
It was glowing and illuminating against my darkness
My eyes couldn't handle much and fought to stay open.
Able to keep them open for a second longer, I saw the boat.
It seemed to be floating above the  water.
I ran to it hoping it was my key to freedom.
Leaping from the dock, not sure if I'd make it
I landed on the boat named Paradise.

I'm scared of my potential
And by not coming on this stage I would just handicap my mental.
Now I could use my hands to trace this stencil
But the picture wouldn't be so pretty.
Because how can you picture what you can't see.
And all I saw was my city.
So I knew nothing better.
Now I'm here with this pitcher full of poison for my soul.
Trying to spew it all out before my insides get old
And I decay until the point where I can't form a thought.
Jail was always chasing me so I tried not to get caught.
Statistics are funny right?
Most can't look past them because they lack sight.
Just praying to God that everything's gonna be alright.

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.

He pleaded
Please return me
For I can't taste or smell
Because I can only sense you.
Free will is not a will of mine.
I am your slave till the end of time.
Forever more you have my mind.

Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial.
Everything is possible but not everything is legal.
Everything is optional but not everything is acceptable.
Who are you to say you know it all?
Who are you to say humans are the end all be all?
Does your life show omnipotence?
Or does it show fear and uncertainty of the future?
Do you really think you control the universe?
Such arrogance should make you question yourself.
But why would you if you knew everything?
Wouldn't you die if a bullet penetrated your skin?
Imagine me as the gun and this poem as a loaded clip with each word as a single bullet.
Do you feel powerless yet?
The power lies in the creator.

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.

His vision was distorted so he could only see a bent road.
With his bent brow he couldn't help but wonder how.
The wonders of the world being broken down into pieces of nothing.
No longer fertile pieces of land available for use.
He began to lose hope in his ability to avail this world.
Looking six stories down the ground felt as low as his smile.
He grew tired of the seeing the pain these pathways caused.
He brainstormed a plan to create new roads for people to travel on.
Roads that would not corrode and change shape.
Dedicating his whole life to creating beautiful detours to enchanting destinations.

What is a man with an untold dream?
A withering flower or a stair case with a dead end?
What is a man who doesn't follow his dreams?
A man who doesn't fly
Is like a dove that is unable to spread its wings.
How then can its beauty be shared with the world?
Stuck in quicksand
Slowly sinking to the bottom of the pit,
Life begins to feel like a deceitful desert.
With a million mirages that you can't reach
because none of them result in being real.
As Langston Hughes once said
A dream deferred becomes a raisin in the sun.
What then is a man's motivation not to dream?
Is it our biggest fear that we are powerful being measure?
Why then should we not let our light shine upon others?
The light and salt of the world is what I'd rather be.
So I encourage you through words and existence
Dream free

Emotions running rampant in an open field
Like a herd of cows stomping all over the land.
Movements too swift to detect the reasoning.
Switching between logic and feeling.
I just can't seem to make the two connect.
Maybe I can connect four and put the pieces together.
But this isn't a game
And it doesn't come with instructions.
So I'm left scratching my head
Lost

Here I lie
in your old room.
Building things
Where things were broken down.
Me
To be exact.
But let's not go into that.
You reappear
Time from time
In my mind.

It's been so long
Yet
your memory
is the strongest.
I don't know
What it is but
Only you
possess the power.

Some girls would die
For my attention.
But
You
Don't
even notice it.
I have so many options.
I wish
You
Were the only one.

To them
I'm nothing but a heart break.
I really do try.
They
bore me.
They
Adore me
I
Adore you.

I don't think we could ever be together.
We are too different.
But
That's what I love the most.

The pretty bird just wants to find a perch to stand on.
Why must it be so difficult to find a home?
It just always ends up alone,
Dusty and cold.
Hating the feeling of growing old.
It just wants to fly away

I had a daydream once.
I fell into a dark hole.
I could not see anything.
All black everything.

Maybe they were shadows,
All my shadows in a room with me.
You would think seeing another me
Would make everything more clear.
I was basically blinded.

Imagine looking at 1,000 images of yourself
Times 300,000.
Why 3? Because I know my favorite number.

Overwhelming
Maybe that is why I can't see.
Too much for my eyes to handle.
Casted a slow virus on my iris.
Slowly affecting my other senses.

Not only can I not see.
I can not smell.
Or is there even anything to smell.
I feel nothing.
Not even my own hands.
Reaching out and feeling emptiness.
I do not think I can feel my heart beat.
Emotionless.
Careless.

I can hear something.
But I think it is my own voice.
Maybe my shadows are talking to me
or it could all be in my head.
Only I really Know.

I am not sure if I can taste
Because there is nothing to taste...
Besides myself....
Awkward thoughts.

Do other people have dreams like this?
I asked myself
One shadow whispered to another.
I hate secrets.
They make me feel blinded
Oh wait....
There are no secrets here.
Yet I am sightless.
My ironic iris.

This is not a nightmare
Because I am not scared
But I am not happy.
I am just here
multiple times
Stuck.
I can't function
So how would I escape?
This black hole got me good.
What can really capture you besides yourself?

Rearranging my heart to allow space for you.
No longer can I only consider myself. Before you I was selfish.
Now I would sell fish if it was your wish.
I'm no genie, but I am your Aladdin.
A dusty boy that can't fly.
I have no carpet.
But it's funny how this car gets me to you every time.
You, a beautiful queen worth riches I could never obtain.
But even that couldn't make me refrain from having to have you in my possession.
When you became mine I had wealth even a degree couldn't find.
I use to dream every night of everything I wanted.
When you came those dreams ceased . You are the drug that gives me the endless, ultimate high.
You are what everyone searches for.
It's love.
Although it's undefined
I know that you are it.

Feeling spiritual I see a miracle in the distance.
My lack of far sight makes my near sight more existent.
Running calmly makes my enemies get nervous.
I just don't get worried about what they see on the surface.
My own body is the only enemy that challenges me.
It knows my vision is impaired and knows what I see.
Miraculously I'm no longer a slave to self.
The only feeling of freedom that I've ever felt.