Why people see potential in me
When I feel I am so empty,
And unworthy of warmth,
I cannot conceive

How fortunate I can claim to be
Of the love I have received
That has been held in reserve
For far too many

And it starts with you and I,
Cause I've got love to share
And you can help yourself
Till you've got enough,
Cause I care

If you need a hand,
That's something I can lend
If you walk shoeless
You can have the ones I wear
Forgo crumbs, break off a piece of my bread

What price is too high, for a just world that's fair?

You subject me to the norms that stem from your fears,
your ignorance shrouds you from the generational trauma endured by the BIPOC community,
you continue to suffocate and silence the masses,
it is the color of your skin that reigns supreme,
however the same heart beats within us all,
a tantric hymn fighting for recognition,
so the world rises to have their voices heard,
to end the norms that are wrongfully placed upon marginalized communities,
for we will be heard,
it is well deserved.

Some like to journal on paper
Some scribe into their skin
But my testament hides
Behind guarded lips
Primal etches in a cavern

My mouth the masterpiece
Of misfortune’s skilled eye
The colors there bewilder
Red, black, green, purple, blue
A rainbow amidst the dark

A master of media
Poverty often crafts
The most intricate of spoils
Among the discarded class
Our mouths a showcase of toil

Charcoal smears the tops of my teeth
Red paint adorns my gums
Abstract strokes of white in front
Deep purple patches peek in back
The one hurting is mystic green

But when throbs wake my sleep
Ripe stench repels my taste
And pills hold no respite
I know a piece has rotted
And my collection must shorten

Emergency receives me
Teeth matching their coats
I share my exotic tapestry
Its realism, pain—my story
They cannot appreciate

And I lose one by one
The slow craftsmanship
Of life’s daily brushstrokes
With no compensation
And a receipt of crushing dues

A hundred years from today
Excavators will unearth history
They will decode messages left
In script, skin, and scraps
Piecing together our lives

I tour my dwindling sculptures
And wonder what will be left
When I am a studied remnant
How will they share my tale
Of slow anguish without glory

Two
Multiply
Four
Multiply
Eight
Faces, voices, actions
Feeling is fact
Fact is fiction
Truth is myth
Myth is truth
Divide
Gray is choice
Choice is opinion
Divide
Black is nothing
White is everything
We are lost
We.Are.Lost

Emptinesses
framed by inequalities
that sew the disaffection,
throw the disenfranchised into
blues sharp relief,
stark contrasts of
black and white
rich and poor
needful and needless cries

There should be no politicking
or filibustered unkempt bluster
in the emptiness of children’s stomachs,
nor grave injury from
the ignorant knuckles of authority

Hunger of all kinds
in guts and minds
brings pain
and a shame to even voice,
for there shouldn’t be cause
to have to

Hunger has a way of spreading
to hearts and minds
and when hurting enough
will drive change

But not alone

The comfortable,
careful, silent,
the full,
must give time,
use voice,
use currency,
and fight

Exhausted
kneeling so grit is driven deep
and the sneer and shove
of those robed in a fake love
harries

The smug, paid for fists
of sanctioned thuggery
inflict blows that go beyond
contusion and haematoma
deep into a world soul,
and scar

Solutions are there
if we bring a whetstone
to the keen edge of care
and weaponise kindness

Because something that has
been a mess for generation upon generation
can’t be ignored to fester more

It is time to exercise rights
and excise

Let’s think
of the sunk cost fallacy
whereby
the sweat, tears and cash
you’ve ****** into your endeavours
means you never let go
of your burning ambition
so you beg borrow steal
to stave off the immutable truth
that you’re wrong

Then let’s think
that instead of a business
or crazy high jinks
you invested in the sense that
some humans outrank others
at birth
and hidden behind the privilege
of that thought you ignored
what was often in front of your face
or at your work place
or fatally jogging through your neighbourhood
til it shone straight in your eyes

and your beg steal borrowing
does nothing
because lies and filthy ideologies
can’t stand the light of day
so grasp as you will at
the pictures and voices of shills
who defend the grotesque
and try to mess up a people,
a nation,
with fat cat, fat handed,
fat tongued oppression
your fingers *****, but empty

The lesson:

it’s ok to be wrong

it’s ok to draw lines
under ugly pasts
so futures can be brighter,
you can apologise,
learn
and make right