I know the toothless women
Who crumple on the streets
The rain bleeds through their cardboard,
The cold drips through their feet

I know the dying children
With anaesthetic arms
The angels crowd around them
With time that burns their palms

I've hugged the brainwashed gangsters
With money drenched in blood
I've heard their broken weeping
While digging up the mud

I've seen the starving faces
Of the tired girls at home
The broken, hectic psyches
That eat them to the bone

I know the burning poets
With a desperate thirst for life
The need for finding soulmates
That pierces like a knife

There's weary public servants
Who risk their lives for good
And prove compassion every day
Yet stay misunderstood

Human love is buried
Beneath the plastic weight
Of angry allegations
And a world that feeds off hate

These people may be messy,
But they're beautiful and real
With hidden dreams and secrets
And ability to feel

We have a place to run to
With lights of peach and gold
Where all the weight is lifted
And all our tales are told

We live in total freedom
So safe beneath the moon
And though it seems ambitious
Our dreams will save us soon

Kiss me asleep
with your obsidian lips.

Protect my ears
from the cacophony nights would bring.

Fill the void
between heartbeats that skip.

Take me into the lull,
and into the siren song that you sing.

I want them to look beyond my face and my body
I want them to realize that my best is me at 3:37 am, with a notebook in one hand, a pen in the other, and Charles Mingus playing in the background
I want them to see me
I want them to realize that I am naturally soft spoken but my voice is so powerful sometimes that MLK, Maya Angelou, Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Malcolm X themselves take turns looking down from heaven in amazement at the fire my belly has produced
I want them to feel me but not in a ****** way because I get tired of people trying to get inside me and not learn the inside of me
I want them to love me
I want them to love me in a way not even myself can love me because self-love is cool and all but admiration is for my ego and as I look around this late at night I realize one tiny confirmation from ten thousand people means so much more than ten thousand tiny confirmations from myself
Why is that?
I want them to understand me
I want them to be able to look at something I create and it touches their soul they way the person beside them cannot
I want them to rejoice in the sweet hallelujahs of connection but I don't want praises for a God-given talent
I want them to be inspired
I want to move them in a way their teachers never could and the way their parents should
I want to teach them
I want to be able to say a line the aligns with the situation that's dwelling in their hearts as they look with glistening eyes waiting for the solution I cannot fully give away to them yet
They must hang on to my every word, following my movements with the sway of their bodies until I tell them the golden word that will spark that change for them
I want them to listen
God, I hope they listen
Because being a black girl in the ghetto with depression no one would listen to cries I often let out
No one would pay attention to the warning signs I would give them
I was told to get over it and it would pass but years have passed and it's still here
I want them to pay attention
To the tone of my voice that indicates my feelings
To the way my eyes dim when darkness is approaching
I need them to be observant for when they come across another person as sad as me they know that depression isn't just a state of mind
It isn't just a trend or something you say for attention
I want them to be aware
I want them to feel
In a generation that takes pride in feeling nothing and destroying everything they touch I want them to hold emotion strong enough to be someone's healing component
I want them to love
Love as if it is the only thing that can keep them from dying
I want them to believe in something bigger than anything they can ever imagine, touch, or feel
I want them to find themselves
I want them to find worth in themselves and not one-night stands, substances, or self-harm
I don't want them to be afraid anymore
I want them to know I'm here
I want them to to be expressive and free
I want them to know I love them
But most of all, I need them to be okay so that I can have hope for myself