Surrounding backgrounds, backdrops that empty glass eye
Ringing in your head; no means to pretend pretence
—always a means to an end. Like a long goodbye to an
old friend still one who owes you tens

A decade of friendship in these confused lines —you onced
slept with one of the guys. Not around, but a lot of times with
the same person, to say at least you've gone a few rounds
The only one to make you come out of a shell; fuelling up
the tank of a monthly desire. But you couldn't tell your friends; despite feeling sensations good as Heaven on earth— their preying
eye opinions would give you a lot of hell.

Still last night was one hell of a night, as he held you so
tight, a knight guarding you from those nightmares
As he tasted your lips, and tears while seeing all those
dark scars under your white night dress

Said, "you're too dark to be found by love," your usual
yellowbone cousins liked to make such comments.
You felt too ashamed to go play with the other kids on the
sunny beach. And it stained your heart; once trying yourself
to bleach

You just forgot your feet; a foot in your mouth kicking back
your words. Unlike the other girls, he liked you more
for trying to stick to your morals. Floral, a scented glow-
a light smell of tragic beauty caught under his nose
Some nights hoping you'd be court, but in your family regards,
you're breaking tradition's law.

Lore beliefs, feeling seven days kind of weak, and it felt
so stranger that you fell in love with him in a week
It took a trip on this crazy life journey, for you to be riding
this long love trip. But he was only meant to be a friend
still it benefited you knowing he had seen you as more than
that from back then

But those still living behind, say you and him don't mix
into a good kind. As to mean the dark can't kiss a light,
such mean judgments, regardless of it being a modern relationship.
It's an old mindset, and I know he won't mind keeping it in secret
But it will all stay stuck in your mind, along with him

Oh my friend,
how'd I ever give the best advice to your situation
But only say and imagination that Adam and Eve
we're black and white. So wouldn't we have been
interracial from our creation?

I hear
Hindi
In the hallway—
Suddenly
My American
Lips
Can taste
The masala
In your kiss;
I smile
And let the memory
Travel
Across the sea
Where it belongs

every person on this earth
has got a certain fear
spiders incite panic,
public speaking invokes tears

mine isn't too uncommon,
but only some women can relate
it's a special kind of fear
to a special kind of hate

it wasn't whispered in my ear
it's just something that i know
it's been ingrained since my beginning,
a part of how society flows

you see, i'm afraid of a guy.
or rather, his rejection
afraid i'm not enough
because i'm darker in complexion

did you know his hands are white?

that's why around him, my skin burns
instead of reciting numbers and letters,
what if it's racism that he learned?

i was taught to admire passions, looks, and intellectual minds
if only to darker women,
love could prove to be more kind

im 18 in year '18 but it feels like '63
hiding feelings from a whitey cause ****** is defined as me

And when her eyes turned,
brown to blue,
I drowned in them
navigating too far into the oceans

She blamed herself
took matters into her very own
pale
impish
hands

And before they could arrest her,
She buried herself
into the the eyes of her lover,
smudged in soil,

Maybe that's why I loved her.

Sunny days bring smiles on faces
Girls with ***** shorts and sunglasses
Guys with muscle tops or floral hemps and snapback caps
September 19th was sunny
Well, that's until the clouds acuated the skies
and made all the smile evacuate to dystopia
This was an apocalypse
in my parent's house,
a place I used to call home
My father, Christopher
was the devil, Lucifer
and my mother was an angel with wings-
a delightful servant of Venus,
the goddess of love
Only, she couldn't fly
Not mentally, not physically and definitely not verbally
Her vocal chords were shaking as she passed her voice to my dad
She was the rainbow and sunshine
that was no longer divine
it was cryin’
while the devil was roarin’
as if he was a god
in which he was, but only of hell
He omitted fire but this time, it was cold
So cold that a tornado spun around the dining room
as I sat there, frozen, and watched like a snowman
The pupils of my eight year old eyes
witnessed the ending of a love I thought was immortal
A love that I used to think was magical
and illiterate
A love that formed in two hearts that bided into one
on their own
without the education of authorities
This was apartheid!,
and my parents were illegally married
A white European knight in shining armour
to an African goddess with attractive eyes
I started to believe that my mind
used to be a foolish thrall to the world of perfect love
But now I believe that it’s a vendee
who bought the saying, “love is blind”
I was a child who no longer believed
in the love of mankind
I had trouble finding myself
‘cause faith is to believe what you cannot see
and self-love was nowhere in sight
Now love is something I have to draw
and I cannot neutralize it
with optimism ‘cause my world was at an apocalypse
when the sun was supposed to be out...

Oh my, am I humbled
Loving v. Virginia
History that is blood

Do you hear the pumping
Oh man, I feel it now
Riding on the winds of change

You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when on that day you proclaimed
to have learned nothing and on that
day Dr. A. held no doctorate degree.

You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when bodies: sick, overweight, in-shape
fell from buildings and into to TV screens
into history books, only to be stuck forever

in a New York newsreel in their Tuesday
outfits with Monday night’s love and touch
brewing, aged and earthy, from their falling
lives. If you listen closely on the eve of this day

the wind still whispers their scent of perfume
trails, still whispers what really happened
that busy day in the clouds, in the sky.
I was ten and can’t recall where I was

or in whose company but like the waters
stretched between Europe, Africa, and the
America’s, I was (am) far removed, was (am)
still putting together the blue-black lineage

of my triangular history that drowned
in the salty waters stretched, flowing
between three continents. But fifteen
years later, we (you and I) have overcome

the billowing black clouds of Tuesdays
the Monday night upsets, and the routed
maritime of our ancestors. 15 years later
you are still alive with your blue eyes

and clear face, are still four years my senior
are still my guiding light and sight of sun.