The black woman is more valuable to the earth than diamonds or gold
She is powerful, strong, she is fire providing warmth to those in the cold
The black woman is more beautiful than the sand in the Caribbean sea
Her eyes shine brighter than the red of a ruby
The black woman is the only one born with the capabilities of raising black boy to black man in America
The only one that has proven herself strong enough to brace the cold winds of slavery, systematic racism and oppression
The black woman, her heart divine, her soul connected to the divine
The black woman, her womb a mine of gold,  constantly being robbed
Lives constantly being stolen, We care about black lives outside the womb, but what about within. More lives being taken from us, what about our next of kin?
Why do we keep falling for America's sin?

I am a girl
I am a boy
I am who I wish to be
Only this,
And everything more.

I am smart
I am dumb
I am what I aim to be
Not limited to this,
And reaching outward.

I am strong
I am weak
I am made of these things
They are a part of myself
And they make me, me.

And I am loved,
I am hated
I am someone's sun and another's mortal enemy
I am who I will be
And I will be who I am.

do not get hard
do not let life harden
the beauty of a broken soul is much more lovable than that of a ****** heart

do not get hard
do not let life harden
these trials and trespasses are the water to your seed, don't you see?

go and grow. let your roots turn from ash to soil to stem to life to comfort.
stay soft.

And may everyone you touch run their fingers over your scars with disbelief.
Show them how your painful life is not pitiful, but beautiful.

beautiful.

me
there are things
i should burn for
but i won't
there are things
i should burn
but i don't
burn for you
i still burn for you
when i drink i still drink
but only in fiction
i try my best
to avoid looking at
pianists guitarists and singers they don't upset me
but i guess their art is too honest
for who i am
as it should be
i will never
understood anything done
for me out of love
me i
shouldn't be alive
last november i kicked
my friend in the face while
he tried to save my life
i'd forgotten about it and so
when he visited me
in hospital the next day
i asked about the bruise
above his eye
he looked at me real
funny and told
me he ran into a tree

Instead of dragging knives across my skin
expressing self hatred or anguish,
I take small breaths of cigarettes.
It's liberating.
The minutes I can choose to take from my life.

I want to die young.

Touch the sky with me
and we can fly, fly, fly
away from these places,
wrong faces, all the traces
of the spaces we created
between our lonely hearts
and forgotten minds;
the parts of us that shouldn't exist
crying in their cavernous
pinholes, echoing
and rupturing in feeling
through the waves of something
more, something undeniable
and true. The pinprick
in which my emotions
are contained
is gargling with a blood
that pours black yet,
as it trickles through
me, I can feel it restoring beauty
to the yellowed valleys of my skin.