Remember when, he
Called me on that rooftop night,
Just checking, to make sure
I got in—pulled me in for half a hug.
Joined me for a dance,
Thought about the time he
Told me that I’m so fun.
One last night out,
Young and free, before
Careers kick in and reality sets in.
It ended before I knew it,
On the car ride home,
Thinking about what coulda been,
He tells me he’s crying,
Begging me to stay—but
Saying yes is not an option.
Remembering when I found out,
He was reading the book I had,
Or felt he that fire in chest,
About our political crisis,
in a way like me,
In a way I hadn’t seen yet.
Spending so long settled in
The idea of a man lesser than &
Surprised to find the joy
In expanding my horizons,
Learning about my self imposed limits,
Watching them crumble in,
Realizing I am capable of
Every bit of the life I wanna live.
Found solace in the similar ways we think,
A sketchbook of drawings,
Connecting each & every limb,
Far far away
from spaced repetition.
Death by a thousand cuts
Ambition, something else
That I didn’t think I was looking for.
You took me by surprise,
Chelsea boots in that kitchen,
Didn’t ask me where i was from.
Between the bridges and lights,
Guitar riffs playing in the back
You grabbed my hand,
Spun me round, drink in another.
Kinda hated the smell of your breath,
The way you patted me on the head.
When you begged me to stay,
Under the night sky, every sway.

While they sit and watch comfortably,
Baltimore burns.

They use dollars as tinder and the starving and hysterical ancient scream of: 'help us', is nothing but black noise to them,

They sit and watch you like ally rats running riot bruising your own city.

Baltimore.

Hear me when I say
You have every right to be angry.

You have the right to want better for yourself
To not be pulled over for the crime of having a nice car and skin that matches the leather
To have a 'black sounding name' and still have a chance in getting a white collar job
To be represented as humans and not savages.  
To be emancipated from the steel eagle claws of the media.
To not be abducted, beaten, publicly shamed or killed by the police.

Baltimore I hear your crying
I feel your pain like 6 'warning' shots to the back.

One day it's MLK.
One day it's Trayvon.
One day it's Freddie.
Executed by the state without a word of repent,
without a snippet of change.
It's been this way for as long as we can remember
and they can't seem to forget that they were never better than you.

There are only men with anger
and then men with authority.

While the rich live in their charm and picket fences, they let the poor decay
in dens and gangs with **** poor education and no chance at all.

I can't offer you arms, but I can offer you heart.

Baltimore;

I feel your pain
But don't be their slaves.

Don't let them turn you into monsters on the streets

Don't let them say: this is what they're like.

Don't let them play chess with your city.

Because this is no more than a game to them.

Don't back down,
Play them back.

Win the freedom and equality you should have been granted in 1863, in 1954, 1960.

Scrap that.

The day you were born.

Let me tell you a secret
I am bored

I'm bored of corporate America flashing their endless subliminal ******* in my face every second
So much so that sometimes without me realising I adopt their accent and mimic and quote what they want me to think and say

I'm bored of reality TV
Of keeping up with the Kardashians and how their name fits so nicely in my mouth like a chunk of poison apple

I'm bored
Of skipping past adverts of skinny black children starving to watch skinny white children starving themselves pretty
I'm scared that I'm the only one whose minds those adverts cling to,
I can only do so much and I can't even trust that I'm helping

I'm bored
Of seeing perfect white girls on TV in their perfect clothes with their perfect hair and their perfect families in their perfect churches with their perfect god who somehow claimed dominance over all the other gods, over my gods
and called me backwards for worshipping the sun and the moon for giving me life and light as opposed to a man who may or may not have existed who they claim split seas

I am bored
I'm bored of being the supporting role
never being pretty enough
but being hot for an Asian girl
being told 'when I think of a beautiful Asian girl I think of you'
being asked 'what are you?', 'no where are you really from?' 'are you gunna go back?' 'were you born on international waters?' Always followed with a 'If you don't mind me asking',  I do,
Let me tell you about the waters that broke and brought me here on this home soil,
let me tell you about the struggle of my mother and the mothers before me and the lightness of being dark skinned in a community of dark skinned beings,
let me tell you about my heritage not like it's a story in a child's book like or a myth, it is real history,
let me tell you about the struggle of my people about the beauty of our most simple words and minds,
let me tell you about how our bodies moulded from the dust and sand around us is no less than yours,
let me tell you what it means to be nothing in your eyes.

We are the products of your mishandling, broken artefacts caged in a glass box with a steel rod stuck up our **** to keep up still in a viewing room in the media's museum
keep us down and keep us quiet keep us looking brutal try to tear us apart from the inside,

Try and tell me I'm a terrorist not a freedom fighter for daring to breathe to speak.
Try to blotch out your wrongdoings by scapegoating us as a region as a religion I don't even belong to as a pigment in a skin colour I can do nothing about I couldn't change it even if I wanted to
Just wait and see how we react

I'm bored of your Islamophobia
I'm bored of you telling me to hate myself
I'm bored of trying to be middle man for two cultures whose only real difference are climate
So *******
**** both of you
Excuse my English
No my Punjabi.
No
I'm done with your negotiations and attempts at tolerance I'm done with trying to blend you both together within me I can't be what either of you want me to be
I can't do this
I won't be a part of your glamourised butchery
Anymore

BREAKING NEWS
Lights flash:
a shooting in a church.
A white man who hates the black--
he thinks he can get rid of their "poison",
their culture,
       their beliefs,
             their stories
with bullets and higher-than-mighty flags
stitched to his jacket.

They call it a "tragedy."
          (it's terrorism)

A few words of sympathy,
even Hollywood is tweeting about it,
holy cow!
Isn't it crazy that they care?

Ten seconds later,
we're on to trending, trendy topic number two:
         something about Samsung cellphones.

I think, maybe, these news people
(journalists, they call themselves)
they must be in denial, too.

Cause no way,
no way,
would they brush that under the rug.

The little girl who played dead,
as a man physically lodged his
"beliefs"
into the heads, the hearts, the blood
of her brothers and sisters.

It must be denial.
I pray that they will stop
and see the mural
in Charleston, SC,

and help the paintbrush drop.

Because 400 years of this
supremacist crap
is 400 years too many.

And if a picture is 1,000 words
let's start with one:

equality.

I'm in love with summer.
Standstill air,
dandelions drifting
the weight of the sky
pressing white heat.
Cold, waves beating the shore,
ceaselessly into the past,  
of when I was drowned
in your dreams.

I'm in love with autumn.
Crisp air,
Nudging leaves off gnarly oaks
and tall, regal cedars.
Lost in the anagram of colors,
I see fire,
      I see blood red.
I see a Faustian bargain
            but we won.

I'm in love with winter.
The biting cold in my fingertips,
the solitude of confinement,
walls of windows show snow
that blankets every edge.
And the birds that have left,
to warmer places.
Opportunity, that's what you said.
And your bags, and you,
were gone in the blowing snow.

I'm in love with the spring.
The clear blue waters,
and ferryboats beating against the current,
the gardens bursting into light,
the promise of growth and
of future
and of hope.
but, I guess, we weren't meant to grow old.
And the sight of spring flowers
and trees with bright green buds,
makes me sick to my stomach.

I am in hate with the spring.

Confusion
It settles over me
Not like cherry blossom petals on a still lake
But more like how lighting strikes tall figures lying between the atmosphere and the relentless floor, trying to stand its ground
He tells me I'm more beautiful than all of the sunsets and sunrises
Clearly, his blue eyes have never seen the beginning of autumn.
He asks me to come over
He wants to spoil me and give me treats
I'm not a dog, darling.
He wants to kiss the indents in my cheeks
Smother me with affection, I think.
But then I remember her.
I wonder if she's well, if they are collectively well.
Clearly, something is missing from her.
She is so dainty and careful, and I don't even know her.
I know she must swim with her head above the water, but I am guessing soon she will drown.
Her wits are more than a series of books, however, she's clueless.
She may have a perfect complexion.
She may be unique, with an ethnicity I'd never be able to own
She may, speak swiftly of her problems, instead of shoving them to the bottom of the ocean
Which of course is something I've always been guilty of
So
Why is it that he runs to me at night with a bouquet of complimentary thoughts???
Why is it that he reads me his poetry at midnight?
"You're so easy to talk to." He says.
Maybe everyone is looking into the doll house and seeing two perfect figures and small acts of kindness, affection.
But when the lights go out, things get ugly.
Back to confusion
He says he loved her, but he always comes running to me
Mixed emotions
I'd tell you I love you in a heartbeat, if it meant you'd never leave me stranded,
Waist high in sand with blood dripping from my forehead
You know that's how he left me, so I can only hope you understand.
What are you doing with a girl who no longer satisfies your needs?
Why is it that love always becomes more complicated, rather becoming silk?
I'm praying someone will answer my questions before I become Ophelia.

Dear immune system,

it seems you’ve got a vendetta against me,
which I’m forced to take personally.

Why did you offer free lodging to that vile germ?

I water you (more than our sorry, dying garden)
I give you antioxidants like it’s my job,
and at lunch? I treat you to fruit.
I wait on you, hand and foot, like a queen,
(I wash those too, don’t want to get sick)

Apparently, that’s to no avail.

All day, you’ve been lazy.
Your (evidently useless) white blood cells
cower and can’t figure out
how to get rid of the menacing virus
that slithers into crevices of my bloodstream

Now, I wouldn’t be angry,
if I coughed a few times, maybe a sneeze,
but you, arrogant imbecile, won’t retreat.
your antibodies fill my throat, scratching the walls.
Even swallowing becomes undesirable.
All of your minions pile up in my nose,
and spray debris everywhere

If that wasn’t enough, you don’t let me taste -
      a steaming forkful of noodles,
           a rich morsel of blueberry pancakes,
               or a refreshing bite of cool watermelon.

My endless collections of t(issues),
are like soccer moms, screaming
at you to try harder to reach your goal,
which, apparently, is repurposing my nose
as a foghorn.

I’ve tried cups of tea to calm you,
       glasses of water to soothe you,
        and steaming tomato soup to appease you.
Instead of laying low,
      you grow an extra head every time I cut one off.

In fact, you’ve got me writing poetry about you.
Don’t mistake this as an ode,


   or a Shakespearean sonnet,


     This, my lovely friend, is a hate poem.


    Please, let me breathe.