i have lain here
for nights on end
trying to make sense of the stars

mama never did teach
me how to read
the patterns in the skies,
what reason did i have
to look up
when the fairy lights
we hung
were so pretty
if i wanted constellations
i could take a pen
and map out the spots
on my skin

mama never did teach
me how to dream,
what need could there be
when hers were already
big enough for
the both of us
to share
i could look up
and count the stars
in her night skies
and never worry about
my own

mama never did teach
me how to walk
tall, keep my back up
straight, with her chin
raised high she
looked right past
my crooked posture
and in to
her future,
i stood straight
in her visions,
it was all she needed
to see

i think she gave it
her best
i think she gave her
self better
and i’m still trying to make
sense of the stars
unsure of whose they are
anymore

Perfect balance can easily be ruined,
With just one adjustment into the wrong direction,
Crooked, alike tilted glass,
Is the pain of betrayal.

~ Umi

You pray on the hurt,
too innocent to know of your tricks;
we know not of the worlds cruelty.
You violate our bodies as you do our rights;
take our freedom,
and take our pride.
But in our grief, we lie to ourselves…
for who would ever dig their nails into us,
like these scars we bear?
We are forever marked
by your sloppy lack of humanity.
We are defects of this world,
Never knowing love, for who,
would want to love a crooked soul?
Sincerely yours,

A Crooked Soul, left broken in Your greed.

There are words that haunt me worse than the ghosts of a burnt asylum.  To hear someone say, there's nothing we can do, nothing will stop them. Makes my blood boil . We are people created as equal , yet one man holds the fait of one's life in his hands. He hands down a sentence of whatever his choosing when it's written to obide the punishment set forth for a crime to follow. Who or what is  this  law enforcement, making arrests, setting a bond, sentencing to prison, for what they claim to be defeating violence or crime on the streets let's not forget their war on drugs. For sake of my humor as I'm laughing out loud, I was under the impression in order to solve a problem you must start with the source, well I'm screaming this loudly so I can be heard, the law enforcement officers wear a badge on their chest and took an oath to protect, through the barbwire fences surrounding our jails and prisons they work every day, but the problem at hand when they preach to stop crime, Mr. Officer this man is in prison for the sale of a drug, how dare you make it more accessible than the streets you arrested him while he serves time in this prison and it's law enforcement peddling the weapons and drugs and promoting violence where loved ones lay stabbed but nothing done. Stop kidding yourself it's too plain to see the war that they are fighting will never end because it's the ones enforcing the law that need to be in prison the drugs on the street starting with them

The torrential wind blew my brain around my neck,
Like a whiplashed skewer,
Crooked and bending in ways wood should not.