I’m in pain.

Every step that I take
It breaks
My soul
Into pieces
As I watch the things
I love
By the sidelines

Every step is a memory
A flash
To my past
When the only thing
That drew lines together
Were the stitches
That I wished
Had existed
Were the solutions
That I wished
Had saved me

Even as I stand
My weight shifts
Like the soul inside
That shifted from live to survive
That shifted from give to keep
That shifted from grin to weep
That shifts from try to die
Each time
The sun sets
And rises

I use tape
To hold together the pieces
That slide away
To repair
The rips
Within
To change the scars
That failed
To keep me strong
That made my right wrong

I wish I could forget
The days
Where i faded away
Where I looked for a way outside
Instead of a way back in
And out
Of the halfway
Half living
Half dying
Half trying
Half crying
Place I existed

And even today
I can look to live
Or to die
To thrive
Or survive
To grin or weep
To give or keep
To feign or my pain

And its tearing me apart
From the outside in
It makes me feel
Like my life is just sin
And to the person who knows nothing
Who thinks my soul is whole
Not a hole
Who thinks my smile
Isn’t a trial
Who thinks my knees
Stand and don’t buckle
Who thinks my legs are steady
And my head is high
Because I tried
And with pride
I stand
Not because I’d drown if I didn’t

To the person who looks at my mask
But sees my face
I wish you knew
I wish you knew
The trials
I’ve had to face
But I’m glad you don’t
Because you’d see a victim
Not a soldier
You’d see a patient
Not a survivor

So stay in your box
And I’ll stay in mine
And we’ll see
How time
Changes us
We’ll see if I live or die
If thrive or survive
We’ll see which way
My soul shifts
From dark to light
From sun to night
We’ll see who guides the way
The scars in my shoes
Or the stars and the moon
To show me the way
Up or down
Left or right
Sun and day
Or dark and night
Heaven or hell
From poor to well
I will see my way
To the end
Because for any beginning to start
An end must stop.

And so

I’m in pain.

Untold secrets and untold lies,
They thrive and live and die.
Withered and forgotten,
Waiting to get rotten.
With thousands underneath,
Truth is just as incomplete.

Layers of dust and dirt,
Simply to cover up the hurt.
Is there anything we know,
Other than the ones we're told?
How do we truly breathe,
When this world is full of deceit?

While waiting for a good day,
You waste the one before.

You and I
Are gonna be alive
For the rest of eternity.

Even when we "die"
We will all the more thrive
Now free from all perversity.

He approaches, from a completely different background.
He sees an odd, irregular image
Minding its own business.

He approaches and the image moves.
The irregular image faces him as he admires it.
It is smothered in beauty,
So much, but he doesn't understand it.

She, the image, sees him too.
She falls in love with his body's outline,
But when he steps into the light,
She doesn't understand her love anymore.

Mutual love was clouded by race.

Eventually, they learned to love their differences.
They created art through their differences;
Contrasting colours thrived in their newly ordained similarities - obtained through love.

Multi-racial relationships are the artwork of humankind.