Red flags are waving
Red eyes are staring
Behind sheer curtains
When I exit the door, dreaming.
Radiating,
All around me
Scorching my skin.
It's hard to think clearly
When the storm begins.
Scabbed wings and itchy spine
I was flying, but now my teeth are starting to grind.
A familiar sequence
Clings to the back of my head
It's hard to breathe clearly
When paranoia befriends,
A real visualization
With no dead end.

when people are
suffering
in deep pain
pain that is greater
than the pain you feel,
how can you think about
yourself?

when you can
survive
in discomfort
discomfort that is less
than the discomfort they feel,
how can you think about
yourself?

when they need
healing
so much more
more that is desired and
even more than you need,
how can you think about
yourself?

the truth is
i can’t.

their pain can’t be ignored,
your pain can’t be ignored.

i would live every day with
my pain
if it meant everyone else was
forever healed.

but someone else already paid that price
and his name is
Jesus.

To grow into a shell
behind a screen unintentionally
put in place
by our own actions
happens gradually
like a storm forms
along a distant horizon

First come thoughts of doubt
vapors white against the sky
clouds of fear
that others know more about life
that they walk firmly
while our feet shift
with each cautious step

Within our shells
our shoulders never
touch those we meet
our eyes dart away from
others afraid of what we
will find in their glance

To stay behind the shell
leads to distorted
comfort, a slow numbness
crawling through one's mind
then the body acquiesces
as contentment
is discovered within loneliness

“Decolonize your mind before you become a new black slave.” He whispered to me before pushing one of his dreads behind his ear and grinning wildly at my perplexed expression. I lowered the straightener and stared at him for a while – I had loved him because of the way he was self-assured, it never faltered and I knew an explanation would follow as I leaned forward, raising an eyebrow, questioning him.
“You know you’re a queen right?” He continued, interrupting my train of thought, while turning off the straightener at the plug point.
“Ja, I know.” I answered blatantly.  
“ Then decolonize your mind.” He shouted before thrusting his hands into the sky and exiting my room. I think he knew I would figure it out for myself because as I stared at the straightener on my desk- it clicked. The statement vibrated in the very depths of my soul and an untapped reserve of energy was suddenly channelled into my aura. I could feel my ancestors, I could hear their cries, I could feel the weight of shackles, I could feel a whip, I could feel resentment, I could feel hatred, I could feel the power of a God who didn’t look like me, I could feel my peoples names that were written out of history books, I could taste blood in my mouth, I could feel blood on the cotton, I could feel what it meant to be black.
It was an epiphany, induced both by drink as well as the stench of my burnt hair. The epiphany spoke to me, reminding me that who I am was holy. That black was undeniably beautiful and not in the clichéd way that I learnt of in history when people averted their eyes, avoiding discomfort presented in an unacknowledged truth. It was in earnest, that I realised that my melanin was paramount to a glorious dynasty that I was privileged enough to be a part of. I would wear my ancestry daily and no longer shy away from the truth of my being. I am sun kissed, I am regal, I am Cleopatra, I am King Shaka, I am the soil and the trees and everything that matters in this universe, I am a closed fist lifted in a rally where mercy has intersected rage, resulting in non-violence.
The only violence that is accepted is that which vehemently opposes the status quo that my people are not good enough. That is what was meant when he told me to decolonize my mind.
“ You will be villianized in your pursuit for emancipation because the margin of melanin present in our people will always render you a slave so choose now what you will subscribe to. “ and I made a decision, standing upon the raw backs of my ancestors- I chose a discarded truth and the truth is this-  I am art. We, are art and art cannot be subjugated or castrated by a close minded agenda, set by people who have never bothered to understand you nor will they ever begin to.
I am  a poem that breathes and speaks and therefor has no choice but to be remembered. I will be etched into the minds of people who would rather forget me. I will be written down in history books next to men who would rather deny my existence.
In that moment, in my epiphany, I began to wade barefoot through my soul. I began to find pieces of myself I didn’t know where lost – and is that not courage in itself? Finding the corpse of your soul, buried beneath a cruel, mercilessly pale agenda?
          
Is speaking the truth not brave?
So I set down the straightener, and began to live.

Age

It does not discriminate, nor does it hate rather as much as it assimilates

Age

It's one of the universal constants,
like change,
it never changes, age, it never ages.

We all live, learn, love, and lose

We've all loss
We all Age

You see it in stride of everyday people
Young flowing towers left and right.
Old creepers like moving shells of night like as a
baby turtle looking for shelter

This vacant warmth
I ******* hate it

I think I lapsed and missed my own funeral
Shrugged and felt my head roll off
But did nothing

Because what’s the point, anyway?
What’s the ******* point?

My heartbeat races
A marathon per minute
And the familiar static of
Discomfort returns,
Muscles constricting
Beneath my skin

My hands like tiny
Earthquakes shake
With each shallow
Labored breath I take,
Heat rushing to my face
Staining it with red

My mind casts illusions
On indifferent faces,
Tilting their heads
‘Til they stare
And whispering words that sting
And simmer in the air

I smile with my mouth as I
Fumble over pleasantries
But my eyes burn with tears
That are dangerously close
To spilling over and
Revealing the fear behind them.

The walls howl at night--
they shriek, they
moan aloud and wake me from sleep.
My House is haunted
(it’s been haunted for years)
with all the shadows I’ve projected
just to empty my tired mind. I
tip-toe quietly,
speak softly,
because my ghosts, too, are light sleepers.