“I am sorry I called you a fat assed ***** in seventh grade. You were smarter than me and you had your life bundled up and handed to you. I was…jealous.” Is what I imagine Keisha would say in her apology letter to on her deathbed. The white blonde hairs falling out of her head as she shriveled up like raisin.

When I knew her, her skin was always *****. She wore fluorescent clothes with spaghetti straps and she had a stick and poke tattoo of butterfly behind her ear.

Before I met her, I was scared of her because I accidentally confused her for the 6’6 ball slaying giant who could dunk it faster than you could say “we’re running sprints next practice” was also named Keisha, but then I found out Keisha didn’t play basketball (well) and was white.

Keisha rolled with her crew of other fourteen year olds. They wore matching hi-tops and hoop earrings. They were tsunamis scaring the innocence out of the other pre-teen kids. They spewed sewage on any slide-rider or sea saw-sitter that set their sights on.

She would scream obscenities at me from the sidewalk. Too proud to let her toes touch the sand that I stood on.

In my ignorance of the consequences, I said “stop” and she shouted, “say it again” and defiantly I did.

Her jaw would come unhinged like a snake as she lunged fangs first. She laid her hands on my shoulders by the swing set shoving slurs into my face in a way that said “I didn’t fall far from the tree; I was dropped by hostile hands the first time I tried to say ‘no’.”

I stepped back from her fury and I wiped the verbal ***** from my eyes. I walked away, understanding at that vulnerable age that there was nothing I could do to quell the rage of someone with venom in their veins.

The tables always turn, but I would have stopped that Lazy Susan with my grubby fingers the instant I fully swallowed the fact that her front door was a mouth of its own. From the moment she walked in, she was chewed up and chewed out. Drowning in stomach acid, to be spit up back on to the street. The child of chaos covered in caustic burns they said she “earned.” Mutilated by their incisors, canines, and molars. They drained the very life they had expelled into her bones, digesting the marrow of her wire hanging. As a result she was starving. She was bare ribbed and hollowed out. She lived with her hands stretched out before here, blind, breaking her wrists from trying to twist her way out of the straight jacket of her situation. Slashing the souls and skin of anyone she came in contact with because she was scared of the monsters that birthed her, that sang her to sleep in the next room with livid lullabies.

Hate germinates hate. It is an airborne infection eating away at the soft tissue beneath your skull, overtaking any capability to function lovingly.
So to Keisha, as you hang in holy suspension between here and somewhere else, you were corrupted by a corroding covenant and lived in absence. You lacked self-control and displaced your damagedness on anyone more available than the wolves that raised you, but you are not a laughable collection of Mr. Vultura’s failed general science quizzes, forged parental signatures, and blue bruised knuckles. You are just as human and bursting forth as me and every other person on this planet. You are vines and branches yearning for the sun, for the brightness of hope and peace. Now rest, because you are forgiven and now infinite.

I love when you all over my lips
And it's the same air that you and I breathe.
As I take you to cleanse my soul
With each breath I take you in.

Why would I ever want to leave,
When you keep me afloat when I'm drowning in my tears
And vanish with my fears when I prophesy the future bleak.

I blow you one last kiss,bye,
As you burn,while you whisper with the winds "everything's all right"

Take a step into the Firestorm.
Lyrics/Vocals Skitz AKA Mr.Sandman
Track,recording,production-Jay/Eclectic.Collective.
Lyrics.(Copyright Skitz AKA Mr Sandman)

Spittin' fire-desolation of the Sandman,
blink you'll miss the decimation of your clan man,
musical massacre with an Irish style,
time to stop driveling,your old cold style-

cause I'm riled up,fed up sick of your ****,
sit down or be knocked down,listen to the skitz spit,
flammable fumes,verbs turn to flame,
grammar fallin like a grand piano from a crane,
straight to your brain a flash of white light,
wear a fireproof suit you might catch light,
pay stage crews danger cash cause I'm scorchin',
E.C.-Schizophrenic-Sandman torchin,
a four alarm fire,I cause high premiums,
show respect or you'll be rappin through a medium,
mic's a flamethrower leave you screamin,
think you'll burn the Sandman?,wake up,you're dreamin.

Venue's on my menu,get it insured,
I walk through the flames,immune and immured,
immersed in hip hop, a sun gone nova,
drop the mic kid, just run,it's over.
my tank's full,petrol for adrenaline,
flame and blood like my name's Targaryen
you don't want to see my dragon's fly loose,
spit heat like a turnspit-cook your goose,

Stage is flaming,boy you best ghost,
hit the fire bell,you get burnt to toast,
white phosphorus combined in my mind,
get your goggles if you're goggling,you'll wind up blind,
Armageddon approaches,best make your way,
last stage I blazed you may have heard of-Pompeii,
you're gettin calcinated muy calor!,
a Supervolcano eruptin' on a dancefloor.

(chorus)
Magma,Plasma,they're not even warm,
Air Ripped from Lungs becomes fuel for the Storm,
Melt Icecaps,Globe start to warm,
****** Aircon-I spark a Firestorm.

Time to raise the heat,time to raise the stakes,
you're a lost smokejumper,praying for a firebreak,
trees turn to shrapnel,you're out of breath,
"I am fire,I am Death"

Reverse Mic Fiend rhymes steal the oxygen,
lungs collapse as I spin the storm again,
a terrible beauty,and an awesome blessing,
3rd degree burns,apply cool dressings
thats if you're lucky when I spit the gift,
last MC challenged me burnt to a crisp,
by words,deeds,heat bleeds stage smokin-I'm just gettin warm
thoughts spark the flames in a forest I'm a firestorm
fuel air bomb combined with Tsar Bomba,
Mount Doom blowing about to get Sundered,
hate is stokin' me,fuel to the forge,
16kept the heat banked long enough it's time to gorge,
Smaug heats up-flames spew forth,
you're guy fawkes on a pyre of fireworks.

Wondering,and blundering it's time to burn,
time to get roasted,you fool's won't learn,
that I'm hotter than a sunflare,beyond compare,
you're richard pryor tryin to smoke michael jacksons hair
don't dare me to flare into action,
don't care Keisha fusion core reaction,
fukushima and cherbobyl are my barbeques,
couldn't help yourself, you had to light my fuse,
I refuse to cool down-I'm scorchin',
Firestormtrooper lit,time for torchin'
Firewalk-comparison? Huh,a cool breeze,
flatten the building like Tunguska's tree's,
eyes hotter than Cyclops,you're weak at the knees.
supernova 200 billion degree's

(chorus)
Magma,Plasma,they're not even warm,
Air Ripped from Lungs becomes fuel for the Storm,
Melt Icecaps,Globe start to warm,
****** Aircon-I spark a Firestorm.

Dear white boys in my class
I hear your whisper
I see your fingers pointing
I see the way your thin lips curl into a smile when I mess up

Dear white boys in my white class
When I raise my hand it’s because I have an answer
Don’t mistake it for a request to be your servant

Dear white boys in my class
You think you’re smart huh?
You think you’re the bravest?
You think you have the most history?
I’d hate to burst your small white bubble but it’s about time you got a true history lesson

Dear white boy in my class
You say my hair blocks knowledge to my brain
Well remember when you got a 13 on the ACT
Yeah who got the 32….oh right not you

Dear white boys in my class
You say because you took your friend back to the “hood” you’re brave
That you were the minority so you know what it feels like to be me
Well dear white boys in my class
You don’t know anything!
You live in a world where you make pit stops when you wanna feel “ethnic”

Newsflash this isn’t ethnic this is my life
One I wish to get away from
Because my world is full of gun shots and drunk family members
Of young black boys pictures hung up in church
But you say my struggles don’t count
That because it’s normal it’s not brave
And you’re right

Dear white boys in my class
The bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life is what you call a right
The right to an education
To wake up and go to school where everyone is against me
Because my voice is different
Because my skin is deeper
Because I’m too loud

Dear white boys in my class
You think you’re history is the richest huh?
You only think that because it’s all they teach
Let’s go back to when you were the refugees
And my grandmother’s tribe was nice enough to take you in
Your payment: ******

Dear white boys in my class
It has been engraved in your mind
That since all the books in school look like you they must be right
Must be holy
Must be the standard
Well dear white boys in my class
You say you’re the standard
Yet my scores matter more on standardized tests

Dear white boys in my class
It must **** to have the one thing you’re “good” at to be taken by the black kids
***** to have all you ever worked for dragged away
I would know
It’s my life
First line in my autobiography is
“I worked hard to show I could do it, but forced to write another name on it”

Dear white boys in my class
Why do you assume that the only way to end your problem is to **** us?
Dear white boys in my class
My name is not Keisha
My name is not Jaden
My name is Trayvon Martin
My name is Michael Brown
My name is officer I can’t breathe
My name is silence

Dear white boys in my class
On graduation day
When we stand next to each other
I want you feel my presence
I want you to see my glow
See the pride I bare on my face
And stand behind the one you tried, but couldn’t hold back

Even in her late forty it could happen
the joy of her life, the blessing she have been waiting for
She woke up with hope,
the world seem much different
the soft lullabies sweetened her soul:

Dreft is as gentle as a summer breeze,
circle the misty air
even this late her beauty shines,
yesterday tears dry on their own
Keisha breastfeed her baby…