Split pathways splayed on palms and face
Each line runs according to its own race
Deep, undefined or shifting aside
Inescapable writings on the walls
Nothing seems straightforward at all
On reviewing in hindsight
The circumstance of chance
How much space do we have to play
Was I supposed to be late
Another carrier of an attitudinal barrier
Loss of control often feels immeasurable
Despite conflicts of character
At times are we in charge of our own lives

You loved her in the womb,
Until you saw her face,
Then you decided she was an ugly baby,
You loved the story until you saw the person,
Then you decided you don’t believe them,
Because of their Race.
You wanted them teaching your children,
Until you saw their sexuality,
Their appearance their beliefs their eyes.
You loved them until you saw who they love
And how they choose who and how to love,
Then you decided they weren’t worth hearing.

You decided that they Are crazy.
You decided that they belong in a box,
Because we know “how to deal with people like them
How to fix people like them”.
But what you don’t do is listen.
You are so quick to change your opinion,
When you judge with your eyes.

You are so quick to tell call them worthless,
And to say, “YOU’RE FIRED”,
For believing something you didn’t.
You are so quick to ostracize them, to hate them,
To say that something is wrong with them.
Because you judge with your Eyes,
And forgot your heart.

Copyright Ashley Marlow ©

Statues may tumble
But hate still stands
On a pedestal, proud
And foolishly clinging
To a dying light
To a long since lost battle
That will never end.
Walls crumble, steel bends
And the spirit bows
But right or wrong, friend,
It just does not break.
Even standing there
In the rubble of "what should be"
Realizing that doesn't exist now.
There is only "what is".
And all you can do is fight.
Bridges burn, and we'll never
Make it back to where
We were before the fires.
Simply standing on the banks
On our pedestals
In the rubble
Chest puffed
Chin out
Needing to break something else.

Aankhe bhi nam
Man bhi udaas
Bas yahi nahi pata kya chahta hai dil

Kuch apne me hi uljha raha
Dekhta raha neela Aasmaan
Bas yahi nahi pata kya chahta hai dil

Vakt thoda kathin hai
Manjil bhi dur hai
Uljha hu apne hi sabdo se
Bas yahi nahi pata kya chahta hai dil

Harna hai nahi
Jeet bhi muskil hai
Bas is sawalo ke jabaab me laga hai dil

Aasha hai fir uth jaoonga
Fir naya ban jaoonga
Thoda baki hai
Bas hai nazdeek manjil ke mera dil

The staff on demand
Pulls tight a ribbon to its decadent throat
Corporeal being spills empty its spent space
into the corpse of clay
pressing its leer thru a slip of truth
peppered to the eye of its socket

the blood cloth inks its let
to her red rosey prejudice
blackened by its banished stain
relinquent and beastly
delicate and deathly
oer the swinging skull of memory

dripping its smelt on the suicide skin
a pest be its pleasure
pining and clad on the hang of hope
hurling at the end of a tethered rope

Your roots run thousands of years deep
whether you’re proud or not, I haven’t heard it through the grapevine
but I see you sitting still on this rotating axis mid-bloom, rising to my height
rising with the Fahrenheit

Look across, I’m with the cacao trees
growing yet again, dying off yet again
resurrecting yet again, growing, again

on the same soil, we know the flavors of dust after biting worse
we are neighboring streets but parallel worlds
we are all closer than magnets can fathom with tempers of exploding atoms if ever pushed that far

What would it take for you to see through my eyes?

Well, could you race a maze the shape of brain creases and make it from start to finish in the time a fading wick will diminish

but I’ll show you the routes
put your heart in my compass and unlearn the pillars of your thoughts for a moment
I’ll lay a darker foundation for you to build on,
only for a moment, a sec, a yoctosecond
and you can return to yourself

Look me in the soul
spit your lies on the asphalt
exhale the truth and nothing but
even if it burns on the way out of you
it hurts me too

But it’s just the air I breathe. We adjust.

Like mother Earth, we adjust and keep growing, keep growing, keep growing, keep growing.

It’s about black
It’s about white
It’s about power
It’s about rights
It’s about politics
It’s about tribes
It's about right and wrong
and everything else in between

Life
deserves better than the news
Are we
better than the history

He raised up his head,
Trying to speak,
Yet speaking nothing.

She opened her mouth,
Trying to mutter words,
Yet nothing coming out.

I can't breathe
Words never to be forgotten

I can't breathe
Words we carry on placards

I can't breathe
Words kicking down whiteness

I can't breathe
Words doing-away with racism

I can't breathe
Words demanding equality

I can't breathe
Words bridging the white and black gap

I can't breathe
Words changing the times

I can't breathe
Words destroying white supremacy

I can't breathe
Words uniting colors

I can't breathe
Words uniting races

I can't breathe
Words signifying unity

I can't breathe
Words causing race inequality uproar

I can't breathe
Words knocking down white brutality

I can't breathe
Words ending police brutality

I can't breathe
Words
Great words
Creating equality for all race
Ending police brutality
Doing-away white supremacy
Uniting all race
Uniting all colors
A must for all nations

Written by Tosan Oluwakemi Thompson