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 Jun 2014 Et cetera
Marquis Hardy
I thought I could beat it.
I thought I was better than it.
I wasn't. I was only human.
I fought for a day I promised myself would come, because I was ready to be invincible. That idea, the innocent, unchanging, unbreakable idea that I created in my head was the realist thing I had ever known. The idea of something flawless, pristine, and timeless was the perfect constant to an ever-changing variable. Only one thing could ever crush something as unbreakable as an idea, and that was the idea itself coming to life.
Willing itself into a reality I couldn't control, it appeared in a body, in a name, and in the eyes of someone I had never known. It was there, but it felt different. I became an invincible vessel to a vulnerable outcome. My greatest weakness became the idea I had once hoped would make me indestructible. Instead, I found myself a slave to the hope I hoped would enslave the fear of being forgotten.
I found myself human.
Better, battered, beaten, but never broken I became invincibly vulnerable.
Finally, I knew I could beat it.
I knew I was better than it, because I indeed was human.
Beautifully, yet impossibly human.
Sunlight filters through
Your own colourful viewpoint
Your green is not mine
First attempt at haiku ^__^
 Jun 2014 Et cetera
Nikoline
when you feel as
useless
as a white crayon

all you have
to do
is to find
that someone

who prefers
black paper
I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?
Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness--
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.
Democracy will not come
Today, this year
   Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
  To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

      Freedom
      Is a strong seed
      Planted
      In a great need.

      I live here, too.
      I want freedom
      Just as you.
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