its the difference between separation and anxiety
that breath taken and the stars you see
my head spinning and the scars they bleed
hands with trees and parts for thieves
taking more of our wants notta needs
deceive and leave before our guilt does freeze
precede to do what our greed internal feeds
triggers the fingers that only haunt our sleep
it treats the feet as stumps
smiles flip flop and fronts
drugs snorted huffed and blunts
man thats just the story of my month
mouth cancer after spliffs with lunch
abdominal six pack or beer crunch
i can stop taking all the medicine that is you
an addiction that i didnt ever see before it grew
its true
who knew
that you
would only humility the few
that tried,
never lied
and flew beyond more then his backyard or stoop

I hate marijuana.
It is a class A drug for a reason.
It destroys your brain and brings anarchy to the world.

Me looks both ways to see if anyone around
ok mon, now dat da feds are gone, lets get ta business.
Me inhales me blessed ******

**** is cool. It's actually really nice.
If ya t'ink otherwise, den ya better t'ink twice.
Me gonna tell you, why Reggae is my life.
Me love Reggae so much me wish it was me wife.
Marijane is me love. Spliffs and Reefers too.
Kush makes me so hot you'd t'ink I had da flu.
Why should ya smoke herb? Me gonna tell you why.
When ya smoke heaven's grass ya feel like ya gonna fly.
Away from all ya problems. Towards a purposeful end.
Makes ya feel, so nice. ****, you will soon befriend.


Reefer
hErb
Green
Grass
Anus
­Everything Cook and Curry (Reggae term for "Everything is Fine")

*REGGAE

Like a captive, I capture rapture wrapping around stakes that matter
Joan of Arc battered
Also tattered but, easily dismissive
Refracted from fractured prominent phrases people play with
Distinctly persuasive and evasive, dressed boyishly attractive, lax stature, dawning armor crafted by absence as if asked about it-
I’m drifted
Protection is principle prerequisite, when fire is lit
I sort of implore your aorta before it’s incinerated to ashes
Dethatched as a habit, with swords or hatchets crafted to singe heartstrings that attached it
While I slash slick Rick as a quick fix,
To fend for pretend pretenses or presumed tricks,
I can’t quit
Cause I hit lips against hash spliffs fashioned with dashes of passion all while rationing fireball cinnamon sips
Martyr to avoidance
I gaze at fabled dazed gossipers galvanizing grips on gritty grapevines while licking warning labels through smoke haze on blurred lines
Capably unstable
Other eyes attending scandal circles able to shout lies and rekindle handed arguments on tables with locked smiles stay boxed in
Avidly amiable
Searching for counterparts when combusted or branded
Toying with matches loses meaning when rules reseed
Those vagabonds claim love is some all end hard bent to mend what the same above can’t comprehend.
Breaking boredom, I pillage pillows with night terrors
And ardent arsonists yearn for flames that churn, turn, liquefy and learn learned thoughts and smoldered feelings
Completely complacent
Melting in one another they are completing each other like two candles tryst true at a wedding day
However later the blaze is severed, smoke sears, and charred black wick stands alone for them.
Aggressive and progressive.
As for me never pleading, fire forever fleets to streets between iron bars I built that cage in deep heat and seep dire dreams once desired
Suppose I’m a skeptic
Roasted or disconnected
Just jaded, just met you
Always over it too soon
Burnt but I’m amused.
I’m useful.

Baa, baa, Green sheep,
Have you any kush?
Yeh, mon, yeh, mon,
Three bongs full;
One hit for ma tyke,
And one for ma ****,
And one for the batti boi
Who lives by caribe.

Baa, baa, Green sheep,
Have you any ******?
nah, mon, nah, mon,
no spliffs mon;

Reggae night, rasta night,
Blunts are rolled, tru de night.
Round young spliffs, rolled so tight,
***** and ****** hit me so right.
Smoke in heavenly peace,
Smoking in heavenly peace.

Reggae night, rasta night,
Island boy, raised up right.
Radiant beams from thy holy ****,
All night long, we be singin' dis song.
Poundin' dat kush so hard,
Pounding that ****** so hard.

Reggae night, rasta night,
Slappin' de bass, it's quite a sight.
Kush smoke climbs to de heavens above
Jaco greens out, Hallelujah.
Reggae the Savior is born,
Rasta the Savior is born.

Control the guns. Or unload on one. Under the hopeless sun. Or control the shooters who stole his future.
Patrol in stupor when the gaping hole is super. Rolling in supras.
Holding and maneuver, round the bend. Good lord, glad I found the pen. But white men found the pen. In there, Black men down and spent. And they're wasting away in the pen. Write a letter to their friends. Either their behind the bars, or drinking in bars, or rhyming these bars. Spit it like I got tobacco juice in my mouth. Another shooting in the south, while I watch from the couch.

Kendrick said we gon be all right. And I'll believe him, when everyone has the same rights. When the white man know wrong from right. But just because you're light in your skin, it doesn't mean you're gone from light. Let this song break fights. Still though, as long as we're nice, you'll still invite us to smoke bongs and pipes.

But when the summer heat scorches the streets and the Porsches, next to the fortress with the smooth grain porches, you will ignore this. Warning shot coming at you, hot enough to light torches. I wake up every day thinking life is gorgeous, but at night I still walk like the tortoise.

No more of this.

Blood spilling on the pavement, now you wonder why I lounge in the basement. They say practice patience. They say keep waiting. They say there's saving. Pop a pill, forget about life, start raving. Po-po after the po, so send Edgar Allen Poe with a raven. Calling us kings, like this Game of Thrones, but this war is ancient. God vs. Satan. Medusa vs. the Maiden. Neo vs. all the agents.

Take hits before I escape to the matrix. Tired of eating fake ****. Make spliffs, out of makeshift wooden ships, that Cuba Gooding Jr. Gripped. Won't take lip, go and save it. Why are they loved and we hated?

Emotion flowing from the mac and the healing potion flowing from the track. Go in the back. Put the slow motion in the stacks, the records from class, tethered in snacks. America's anger is growing in fact, because every one knowing life's back. Shoot the body and throw it in the back. Fiction, or reality? Turn on the television, that has driven your vision to a complacent state of living. And you wonder why we're so forgiving?

But we're never forgetting. This here is armageddon. This is how life be when karma getting to be like, getting to be like, getting to be like fatal. Like Cain did abel. Death, or disabled. Missed the fable, because I kissed the label. Then the bottle, as I went and risked the stable. Now I'm gathering my crew and we're ****** and a holes.

Hear the shot ring from Baton Rouge to Chicago. Thinking about becoming a florist. Foreigner in this land of tourists. Listening to beats from Morris. Joshua hit me up for the chorus. How many black Americans need to die? If it were white people, would you ignore this?

Last night, I awoke to a sound so sweet
The soft sound of rain hitting the street
But as I drew closer to my front door
What I heard was not a downpour
Men of all walks jammin' out reggae riffs
The rain was not water, it was, in fact spliffs!
Spliffs were lit, people did smile
I thought I'd stay up and jam for a while
Happiness abound and sweet ***** steam
I opened my eyes, it was all a dream

I lay awake in Babylon, tears in my eyes
My brothers from Zion are deaf to my cries
My chalice, my comfort, I pack the kush up
Bring it to my lips and I take a deep puff
I cry, oppressed
My mind, distressed
Babylon got me down

One day, darling.
One day, we shall meet.
One day,
We lock eyes across the room by pure chance.
Whilst I am playing a wallflower
and you are playing a rockstar.
In the midst of my seeing
and your being seen.
We look directly into each other’s pupils.
One day, darling.

And I see a town crier,
my voice and feet,  in your face.
Maybe you see a poet, a dancer.
A storyteller.
Your spigot. A minstrel.
Like a fairy that whispers
charming sweet-nothings in your ear.
One day, darling.

You give a smirk
that gives me flutter.
I touch your shoulder with my pinky
as I reach for the plastic cup to fill it with another dose of cheap wine.
Your skin perks up and contracts.
I act as though I didn't notice,
but you know it was deliberate.
And I know you know.
My half-hearted bashfulness.
Your half-arsed cockiness.
We drink ourselves to semi consciousness.
As we indulge in our awful drunken dancing,
your hand slips in and rakes across my abdomen, and
my hand lingers around your bony hips.
I want to just grab handfuls of your ****.
However, even drunk, I am not that bold.
One day, darling.

I ditch my friend who dragged me there.
You fall straight onto my bed.
My bedroom in a flat I share with my best friend.
I look at your feet dangling off the edge of my bed,
kicking off the shoes.
I think of how quickly you have claimed my space.
And how much it excites me.
I slither in next to you.
And you engulf me, wait for me to overflow.
Both of us half aware, but fully euphoric.
One day, darling.

In the morning, you fry up my flatmates bacon,
scramble some eggs.
In my kitchen wearing nothing but
your underwear and t-shirt.
I make tea.
When you ask, I simply say I don’t have any coffee.
There’s a bag in the pantry. I just can’t be bothered to take out the press.
We eat together on my balcony.
Barely dressed.
Sober but painfully hungover.
Your smirk is now a softer grin,
but with the same glint in the eyes.
We don’t speak a word,
because it gives us headaches.
I put the dishes away and
set up a pool chair in the balcony.
And we cuddle up under the sun,
feeling the light breeze on our ears and brows.
So naturally. Naturally.
One day, darling.

We break every rule written in Cosmopolitan,
told by our friends from school,
by people on television.
Those mind games to test each other or
guess our feelings become moot.
Because your hands become so
comfortable to rest my head in.
and I enjoy the weight of your head on my back,
like it belongs there.
And because there is no time to ask, wait, or waste.
One day, darling.

We spend countless days on the beach,
bathing in salty water, sand, sunlight, and each other.
We smoke kush and you buy me a ****
because I can’t stand spliffs.
I drawl on about my quasi-Marxist stateless communist utopia.
You stare at my face, not saying a word
and smile, even though you don’t give two ***** about a word I’m saying.
And I know you don’t.
You take me to bars and parties and social gatherings,
and I go everywhere you want me to.
Even though I never leave your side,
or speak to anybody else.
I go every time.
The days I cannot move an inch away from my couch
because I drown myself in useless, endless influx of thoughts and emotions.
You stay-
Sometimes, just far enough that I can’t feel your over zealous heartbeats full of life,
but close enough you can see me.
Sometimes, pressed up right next to me so I cannot make a move.
We drop acid together and spend the whole day
doing nothing but hallucinating while sipping my signature honey-lilac lemonade.
We pop a molly and have ***.
Which short-circuits my brain a little,
and brings you closer to the thing you call god.
You sing my words and
I dance your tunes.
So quickly, your fingers learn my hair.
And my palms know your chest so well.
I have never been so excited and comfortable.
You, of course, have never been so fascinated. Enchanted.
One day. Yes, one day.

And the summer comes to an end.
Because the earth didn’t actually stop
the day we met (no matter how much it felt such to us).
You go back to school, and I probably move on to a new city.
I give you my email or whatever.
But it’s useless.
Because you are young and new.
You have many things on your agenda -
people to become, things to acquire, places to be.
And because I won’t keep still.
Because drastic changes are so inevitable for both of us.
The world is so large for both of us.
Still, I know (I mean, I know) you have carved
a permanent spot in my mind.
But I can only hope I am the same to you.
Because, suddenly I don’t know a thing about you.

Me in da wrong place at da wrong time.
Headin' down da alley on me way to pick up me 'erb.
Suddenly, Big Boy 'pears round da corner.

Ohno

Da Big Boy grabs me and take me lunch money.
'ow am I gunna get me 'erb now?
He beats me like me papa did.
Jus when Big Boy gonna trow da final punch...

ohyeah

Da boys arrive for battle.
Spliffs in der mouts.
Vengeance in der eyes.
TruckerWithAPassionForReggae grabs da Big Boy.
'olds 'im down n saves me reggae life.
Blunt Blastah Mastah punches da Big Boy.
Don touch me boombastic buddy he says.
DertyBeatzFromDaStreetz goes in for da **** with a ***** reggae kick.
Reggae Mon Offishal gets me kush cash back.
Me in da clear.

We killed a man, but our flame of friendship burnt bright that night.
Like our spliffs, the light was jus' right, mon.

I hear you
in the music
I see you
in designs
I smell you
in pints
I taste you
in *******
I feel you

everywhere I go.

I hear you
In all the funky jazz beats
I feel you
In the rhythm
Even when I'm dancing with other men
You never leave my side
Our bodies
Electrified
Our souls
Intertwined.
Got me mesmerized
All wrapped up
In your rap tunes
You know how they make me feel
Like I'm floating
On the *** vibes
Totally lost in our world
You understand
My art
My love
My ***
They're all the same thing, you know.

I see you
In passing
In stores
In movies
In products
In fine dining establishments
This is when I know
I know you
When I can see you in the designs
In clothing
In an artist's painting
In a pair of shoes
The colors and shapes in a tie
All the art I see
I see you.

I smell you
In spliffs
Rolled in the finest tobacco
Packed exquisitely by you
Late nights after ***  
You'd roll one up for us
I'd feel like a ******* queen
In your arms
But now
I smell you in the morning
When the coffee's being made
Never have I ever
Woken up by your side
Without the boldness of your coffee
Greeting me
With your love

I taste you
In every whiskey cocktail
In every bartenders ice cubes
In every microbrew
I taste you mostly in the IPA
But some nights I taste you in porters
And chocolate beers
Most of the time
Your flavor shows up
In the finest French restaurants
That we used to adore
I'd always have my red wine
And you the whiskey.

We were in love
With each other's art
And that's when I figured out
That's all life is, is
Sharing each other's love
Through art
***
And mystery
You are my love
My past
My present
And my future
Even when you are not in my present
Or my future
You will always be with me
I will always hear you
In the music
See you
In paintings
Smell you
In spliffs
Taste you
In whiskey
and love you
Like I've never loved before.

Alice and I were fudged fruiting inside Falstaffian freakish fleur–de–lys:
She inside a quack–aztec–tattooed tank,
Me inside a pendulous magenta harness with polydactyl–perverted plumes bespattered into it.  
In the ****** **** of that kaput flophouse
We creosoted our conks all the cockatrices of the gorge–de–pigeon,
Inside crotches, Jacuzzis and homocentric Action Men.  
Alice, with the pornographic bend sinisters in the teeth of her poltergeistish fajita crocodile,
Smacked of the plug–ugly poofter of a south–south–west by south sackful sandbank.  
I cemented the jaundiced dangler of an ostrich to my *****.  
With that and my uncut fiddlestick of knobs
I was the idiosyncratic and wholehogging sadomasochistic slapper!

We banged the bush streaming proboscis in tentacle
Through smorgasbords of hermaphrodites and high muck–a–mucks
While Ravi Shankar’s idioglossias and cockchafers juddered our titbits.  
Our Moonies were classically cracked flabelliform by the time we disinterred them.  
Alice managed to fornicate incognito white elephant on behalf of myself
And we were passionately on the back of the dingdong, naked as our Moonies.

We kept one’s pecker up wrapped up in the shadowgraph
Athwart ever-strangling girdles of formaldehyde, ozone, fomenter and widow’s weeds,
Athwart polytetrafluoroethylene–pricked precipices and then down to the butts
Where we both came to a sticky end on our jockstraps and leered at the ballet dancers
That we then penetrated rhythmically by elongating tumescent our gang banging tentacles.  
Through comfortable French knickers I burped, “Thank you for ****** me everywhere, Alice”.  
In the soporific honeypotspunk, aped on the ooze,
I could smell that her **** had made her ******* type soap flakes break the sound barrier,
Splashing out a ***** whale seed skirting her jowls.  
“You’re fragrant, flypaper”, she rapped.

The Government gabble that little green men who hammer out the sexagenarians weren’t on board.  
Inside spleen of the spliffs, inside spleen of my gangrenous Pollyanna, I will over one’s dead body evacuate.  
I will over one’s dead body evacuate.

On the fifth day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

We wish you a Reggae Christmas,
We wish you a Reggae Christmas,
We wish you a Reggae Christmas,
And also some kush.

Good ****** we bring,
To you and your spliffs.
We wish you a Reggae Christmas
And also some kush.

Now play us some fresh Bob Marley,
Now play us some fresh Bob Marley,
Now play us some fresh Bob Marley,
And we'll jam out some too.

We won't smoke until ya roll some,
We won't smoke until ya roll some,
We won't smoke until ya roll some,
So bring dem right here

OH ****, please don't green-out,
OH ****!, please don't green-out,
OH ****!!!, please don't green-out,
That was a close call. PHEW!

Good ****** we bring,
To you and your bluntz.
We wish you a Reggae Christmas,
And a Happy Blem Year.

On the eleventh day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
11 ragin' reefers
10 lightin' lighters
9 hefty island boys
8 bowls of cereal
7 dabs of oil
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

On the eighth day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
8 bowls of cereal
7 dabs of oil
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

On the ninth day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
9 hefty island boys
8 bowls of cereal
7 dabs of oil
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

Scratch my back
           I bite yours
I come from ***** **** and tantric
Tongue twisting magic
Body fluids
              and spent ***

Animals **** Animalistically

Too bad
           if they catch you ****** in the street
they stop selling you coffee, and **** in your food
Alley cats learn
                 the back roads
behind the dumpster
Spark spliffs and spin sick rhymes
bendin over with the bass
and the throbbin over bubblin
bizkids this is how we burn in the mornin

On the sixth day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

Put my name on the deed to a Rolls Royce. See a live elephant, before they all go extinct. Spend a year in New Orleans, with no one else's help. Win an Oscar. Own a Super Bowl Ring. 

Train my husky to walk my Boston terrier. Finally quit cigarettes. Never quit spliffs. Go hiking, every day. Drink less coffee. Get a better job. Get an even better job. Take less bathroom breaks. 

Fall for someone that helps me up. Have a talk with Fiona Apple. Write the screenplay we'd always refused. Ask relevant questions. Give accurate answers. Win a Peabody. Own a football stadium. 

Write the news my now doesn't know yet. Drink bourbon in Kentucky. Learn how to program. Make the best-sellers list. Fill dad with pride. Do laundry this week. 

Go see a chiropractor. Stay off the junk, would ya? Smell less-like I just smoked. Pay back your lenders. Keep close, your real friends. Let someone publish my work. Win a Pulitzer. 

Be punctual. Write something you'll want to read. Clean my room. Lower the volume of my voice (but not really). Earn my P.h.D. Adequately meld the personal and the real, the universally and the delusionally relevant. 

Make them pay me to do what I love. Spend it all on you. Get a bigger ferret cage. Live a greener lifestyle. Trash fewer K-Cups.  Let people be themselves, without worrying if they're sneaking around. Hug Tom Brady. Thank him. Explain what he means. 

Reconcile with the town of Webster. Pay the city of Brookline for those parking fines. Spend time in all 351. Read Infinite Jest, and all of Ulysses. Identify when a work is "Joycean." Interpret it, as such. 

Act. Tell a good joke. Become a falconer. Hug a chimpanzee. Dismantle a hate group. Put them all in their places. Cry easily. Stay happy. 

Revisit Paris. Discover Ireland. Stay awake. Talk to another wolf. Record the perfect song. Compile the perfect playlist. Want to go to work. Enjoy New York City. Maybe live there. 

Inspire society to care about poetry.  Re-certify my black belt. Center my self. Listen to it. Take photos that stop you. Draw pictures worth buying. Keep the gun in your waistband, in the small of your back, and never, ever, pull that **** out. Mean something, when you flash metal. 

Learn photoshop. Laugh at the all-encompassing parody. Love first. Haunt your dreams with a good story. Make you truly regret it. See the ****-good in everyone. Know the past, own the present, visualize the future. Catch a fist, dodge bullets.

On the tenth day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
10 lightin' lighters
9 hefty island boys
8 bowls of cereal
7 dabs of oil
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

Our quiet dispositions made for a double-edged sword, as we sat on blood-stained sheets, littered with stems and shredded tobacco bits.

Listening to "Blowing It" by Dinosaur Jr. I realized I, too, didn't know a thing to say to you. We seemed similar, in a way to a certain extent.

He had a stick and poke on his thigh that said "NO"
and we ******. Casually.

======================================================­==================
"I think you're cute and I like that you're tall."
"I think you're cute too and it's nice that you like that."
==========================================================­==============

We smoked spliffs and talked about how it was nice to be dating multiple people.

And what it's like to have a sugar mama,
And that crack is an underrated drug,
And that I should meet more people who like The Velvet Underground,
And how we both like beer, IPAs,
And how I smelled nice,
And how I shouldn't have chosen "Women" of Bukowski's to read first,
And that he should read "Slaughterhouse-Five", and I was willing to give him my copy

(The blood on my sheets wasn't mine, he had skinned knees.)

It was odd, but also nice, to meet someone with a similar disposition to me,
but there was nothing incendiary to hang on to, more just a slow warmth.

(After the poem by Shinji Moon)

Lucy’s smoking spliffs out the window
and I keep thinking about how I’ll probably
always love you
a little bit.
We haven’t spoken in months,
but tonight New York is sleeping under 24 inches of snow,
and the last time I was in a blizzard
I was 16,
and in Chicago,
and the softness of it made me think of you.
Everyday I pass by this flower shop in Brooklyn
and I steal a tulip to pluck
like I’m forgetting you in petals.
Photosynthesis is another word for heartbreak.
The truth is I think of you often.
Sometimes I make eye contact with strangers
and wish they’d look at me the way you used to,
or say my name like they were tasting a truffle,
like the Italian word Rimembrare,
or a drag of a cigarette.
I’m trying to stop smoking.
I wanted to tell you
that I’m not afraid of the wind anymore,
and in the past 2 years
I’ve drifted through so many places but keep finding synonyms for you
in every map
or language guide.
And I guess only you know why that would hurt.
I remember almost nothing about you already
except that you loved the story
about the seagull who taught himself to fly,
and the way you laughed,
like you were imitating
oceans.

Oh!* saturday nights spent
wishing for my father to come early
and tell me "I love you"

Sunday nights spent awake
waiting for his return
to drive me to school on monday mornings

How my mother, my little brother and me
curse the day he became best friends with John

Knowing John changed it all
all board games now in the back of our wardrobes
with dust on top of them
waiting to rot

Sometimes, I waste my birthday wishes
pretending they'll work out
wishing for my father
to have never met John

My little brother and me,
now replaced for slot machines,
gambling tables and spliffs

Give me a hint, dad
should I still call you like that? Nah.
Now I've met this "so called John"
and I do not like him
he makes me do funny stuff

His silhouette is bright
and he uses a cane
I don't like him, "dad"
Please stop seeing him

I know you say
he helps you to get through
but does he help us? No!
Maybe one day mom will have the guts
to sign that divorce paper
and hand it to you

I hope she do it soon

The saddes part is, when I asked you to quit John,
you said, No.
"Why?"- I said.
**"Because Johnnie is the only one who tells  me to keep walking".

I went to a party on Saturday night,
one of those inane get-togethers
for so-and-so who came back from
that place that they went.
Though of course,
it's only an excuse to get drunk since
someone scored some cheap, ******
beer from an older sibling or whoever.

I spent about 45 minutes leaning
against some sticky couch before
I saw you standing in a corner, stupidly
close to the speakers and you were
wearing a hessian scarf that had to be
scraping your blemished neck, but
you didn't seem fazed by it at all.

It's probably the new trend like last
week it was platform sneakers that only
the Flinders Street Steps would ever
wear. Sometimes I imagine a conversation
with one of those kids, though it never
gets past them glaring at me.

I nodded, you nodded
(this means we're now friends)
and passed you a cup of some
****-beer that I'm sure you didn't want but
you probably just took it to avoid saying
no and making this more awkward.

I asked you what school you went to and
you replied with some made-up name
that was probably indigenous or something
since a bunch of old, white preachers
didn't want to offend anyone.

You shrugged.

You asked me a question and I countered
it until it became some kind of 20
questions tennis, minus the ***** secrets
but still adequately laced with teenage
awkward. You told me you wrote poetry
and I laughed saying, "Doesn't everybody?"

I realise now that I'm a little hypocritical.

Prodigies, poets, peacemakers:
These are the names we were given before
Avery or Jaxson or Ahlivea
(because ***** the traditional names).
Why couldn't Ruth or Peter or Hester
fulfil these standards for us? I asked you this.

You just shrugged again.

I looked around the stupidly cramped room,
watched some girls pull down their skirts
(for decency, of course),
watched some boys light up their spliffs and
fall over their post-pubescent yeti feet.
I pointed this out; you just nodded and drank.

I noticed the school captain from last year
passed out on the sticky couch.
We talked about him for a little and you said
he got into law at that fancy university in the city
but he shows up to all of his classes completely
hammered. He still manages to hold a 3.5 GPA.

Eventually, we descended into silence
and turned to our phones,
as is the apparent course of action and the
easiest out to a conversation with someone,

Since none of us know better.

I'm Runnin Jews like Lil Dicky
Run the Jewels, and Ricky
With soso flow of Biggie
Ever since I quit the ciggie
Livin life straight propper
Givin props to Big Poppa
I'm off the spliffs and poppas
Writin riffs for beats that drop ya
Lingerie ladies who have
Curved bodies tight Mercedes
Hot as Hades 420 degrees
Just hot enough to chrisp my cheese
Torchin these trees
Straight from Belieze
Blowin Bolivian keys up they ***
As their friends ends they pass
None of y'all thought this Jew could last
Two days past your last meal
Didn't really know how to feel
Cause I ****** you so raw
Y'all got mistook for veal
That means hyper tender
No allussion to child *** offender
Call me a money stack lender
Back ****** but never a pretender
If I split her in half
God'll have ta mend her
This **** is known to send ya
Into bliss quick
That feeling'll stick
When the tip touch they lower lip
They get oil slick
Just the thought get's 'em hotta than a candle wick
Though you know I don't flow with no trick
Start off slow so we can show each other
Our flame be sure not to smother
Like an over protective mother
Reflect on it while it's lit
Climb inside my mind
See how I visualize thee
Undress and become pantiless
You're sittin on my face
I impress with the pace
I carress your **** with tongue
Spell sinless you'll be a wet well
When you see how well I'm hung (do tell)

On the twelfth day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
12 tangy totos
11 ragin' reefers
10 lightin' lighters
9 hefty island boys
8 bowls of cereal
7 dabs of oil
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

There's a little girl deep within my heart that sometimes never wants to leave the play ground.
as if I was Peter Pan in never land, I wish I could never land..
like a bird in the sky..I often wish I was one of them..
the way they openly spread their wings,
live in trees and soar in the clouds, glide with the wind and create rhythmic sounds...
The beautiful part is...you never see them too long on the ground...
see..there's fire on earth blazing through these streets in the hands of the ***** white police.
Suppressing, attempting to frighten us rather than protect us.
My arms, Immensely breaks into sweat hoping their perception of me from the way I'm dressed or the color of my skin doesn't make me appear suspicious.
many men blazing out of mini vans blasting at innocent citizens.
The system doesn't know of love. All they know is war.
Bullet wounds creates scars that screams out
survival..violent, violence, for all the blacks that were victimized..
may we have a moment of silence?..
there's fire on earth blazing through the actions of the wealthy..
capitalist blatantly continuing to ****** the minds of the blind, appealing to humanities deprived fantasies to establish green funds
with bank accounts more bigger than their egos...
Now were Young Rich ****** attempting to live the lifestyle of to the Migos.
Using their greed of green to deceive & keep down my people..
There was a time when mainstream rap music was socially conscious..
consisting of young visionary artists When music came from the heart, enlightening, unity, cultural, empowerment, hope.
Now it's all about the dough, these Multi billion dollar corporate vultures are marketing rappers like chief keef
Devaluing the lives of black people for exchange for financial gain.
Dominating air waves with hate..
now were ski masking down the fast lane, rafts of shootings down the street, opening fire to one another, doing the job of the KKK.
When we invited that white man with a dog eat dog nature into Africa, he possessed a mentality to eat us away, now were possessing his same mentality today.
Now were hating ourselves and killing others.
Embrace your rich melanin..Love this...*points at black skin Love this.
the true present is this gift from God, not st Nicolas.
There is no American dream for me, there is only reality.
see, I unlocked through the chains of restriction and while fire burns through these streets to keep us down, fire slowly burns through these joints to keep me lifted, I inhale through these spliffs because they drift me to the road of freedom. I spread my wings, I fly soaring the skies without no fears...
when the smoke clears,
I find myself skating by the Lilly fields where the warm winds blow in hopes of running into a 4 leaf clover..
People staring as if Im An alien although I sometimes feel alienated living in this 20th century with 70s bohemian ways..
Im building blocks to reach greatness, I keep my head up & pray...
I'm learning Patience since even the great pyramids of Giza wasn't build in a day.
Still dreaming,
I untangled from these chains,
With the confidence of Harriet Tubman when she followed the north star, I am truly free.
Still dreaming...I proudly spread my wings..

Mhmm...
Mhmm... yea!
Mhmm... ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah yeah mm... mhmm

Mhmm... mhmm...
Mhmm... yea! yeah
Mhmm... ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah mm mm, mhm

Hey, yea-yea, yeah-eh-yeah-eh, yeah-eh-yeah-eh
Hey hey-yea-eh yeah, mhmm

Professional or beginner doesnt matter
Every sinner is a prisoner in a body that is subject to time
Now my entwined mind tries to form a straight line
not like twised scoliosis of the spinal chord

Construct
Cross eyed carpenters are cuttin' crooked lines
Can't construct
man-made shrines when the winds and the water move sands of time

Many minds on a deadline, yet live life like a live wire
I'm not tired!
Of blood and fire
Spirit's moving higher than the green grass ever lifted me

Spirit's moving higher...
Than anything else ever lifted you
Mm, see

We got spirituality
It's living in us like one in three
Injustice is concerning me
in the non-linear eternity
I'm speaking paradoxically
but you can nod your head now when you understand me-e-e-ee...

This is for my free men
whose backs wont bend in the lions den
now with their eyes on the ending

This is for my free women!
They fight with their love
The bearers of our children

Free men whose backs wont bend in the lions den
now with their eyes on the ending

This is for my free women
They fight with their love
The bearers of our children

We shine like lights exposing
what lies underneath decomposing
Unearth those chains that are rusted
my sweet Lord, is that what i trusted in?
That sin? That tomfoolery? Ugh!
What it is is mental jewelery that I adorned myself with

The enemy's gifts, the man-made myths, the ignorant bliss
of marijuana spliffs and alchoholic fifths
I got so sick and tired of it

Delivered and redeemed
by christ i mean
It's time to start livin'
and get a reason for the rhyme

I dont wanna be dead-wrong on the deadline
Standing on the dark side and all out of time...
Like a blind pantomime's fantasize
climb up his own ladder to the sunshine

Nothin's mine
that hasn't been given
No one's alive here
that hasn't been risen
For 19 years i was trapped in a prison

Feeding my escape by means of derision
but every man-made attempt just failed
when trapped in a jail
of my own guilt, shame, and iniquity

I was looking for freedom
How'd I find freedom?

Oh! Oh, freedom...
from all of this

He said believe
He said believe

Who are you telling me to belei-e-eve... yea
'Said I'm the Christ

Oh!
...he said I'm the Christ

So I believed.

Freedom!

Mhmm... yea
Mhmm... ey!
Mhmm... ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah yeah eh, mhmm

Mhmm... Hey! No, no no
Mhmm... yea!
Mhmm... Yea ey-yeah-ey yeah yeah mhm,

Nah na-na-nah

Kanye West made me think polos were cool. I thought playing rap music while wearing polos would make me into a rapper. And then I turned into a tennis player. Tennis got me out of the hood. Let it be known. I could have went to court, and instead I chose the Tennis Court.

Tennis is fun. Before it was ratchet. Now it is tennis racket. Rapping was fun. Bernie Sanders liked rap. He liked Killer Mike, and he was a phenomenal rapper. Hilary listened to me. So I don’t know what that means. I should have been a rapper, but when I saw a videotape of Arthur Ashe playing tennis for Wimbledon, I felt a yearning grow inside of my gut, and it grew until I raised my hand to my mouth to smother the scream of nostalgia that I was feeling.

I wanted people to like me so I started rapping at cafeterias and bleacher stands. People drank cola and munched on popcorn as I talked about growing up in the hood of Burke. Real **** went down in the Burke. Like **** you wouldn’t believe. And that’s real.

I hung out on a rooftop overlooking the city drowned in sunshine that was sad as the girl who left me. Kanye West saved me from becoming a *******. And even if he’s an ******* now, everyone knows he was the greatest with 808’s and Heartbreak. Robocop used to play from the car speakers, as we rolled spliffs in the front seat, the wind pouring into the windows.

On the seventh day of Reggae Christmas
My boombastic love gave to me:
7 dabs of oil
6 blazin' bubblers
5 smokin' spliffs
4 grams of purple
3 beautiful bowls
2 boombastic bongs
and a brand new marijuana tree.

Entry ~
*I'm lost in my head, staring at an ash tray in the middle of the coffee table. It amazes me how a simple object can hold so many memories. I've had that ash tray for so many years. It's moved with me from 5 different houses in the last 10 years. It holds a piece of my soul locked up between its clear glass walls. I can't even remember where I got it, but I remember it wasn't always an ash tray. I used it to hold random little trinkets, like necklaces and earrings that didn't have a match. That was when I was about 13, before I really even took up smoking. By the time I was 17 it was used for cigarettes. I remember opening my bedroom window, climbing out to the flat roof of the sun porch, lighting up my camel cigarette, and staring up at the stars. I would sit there for an hour after my last drag, my glass ash tray sitting on the open windowsill, contemplating my existence in the hundreds of galaxies swirling above my head. I remember thinking they were close enough to know they exist, but far enough away for you to doubt it. By the time I was 19, I was no longer using that ash tray for cigarettes, but for joints and spliffs. It sat on the corner of my mahogany dresser, right next to my incense and antique lamp. It sat there for about a year. Until I left it behind to drive across the country. That was just a few months ago. I'm 20 now, and have just returned from my journey. I've come home to the same house I lived in before, to my glass ash tray sitting in the middle of the coffee table. I can only imagine what it saw from its resting spot. I'm glad it sat there, collecting memories like settling dust. It makes me feel like I never left at all. Like a piece of me remained here with the people I love. They just didn't know it. I think when I leave for good, I'll leave it behind once again. It'll be like leaving a piece of my soul with them, to leave my mark on their existence. They may not realize it at first, but at some point they'll look down at that ash tray, and think of it's origins. When they do I'll cross their life for just a brief moment. They may not even know it was my ash tray, but it won't matter. They don't need to know it was mine for our paths to intersect. The past is a witness, and I can live with that.

Through history are we distinguishable
What is the principle difference
Do we need a reference?
Human beings two legs
Wait what about paraplegics
Two eyes
What if they don't work?
You tell me to stop being a ****!
What about arms and hands
Don't monkeys have them too
What is human about you?
A humans conscious thoughts legendary
But what is scary is that we form packs
Smoke crack
get high
and die
Follow our leaders like sheep
Morality isn't that deep
The Majorities rules ok
They say that atoms are interchangeable
But are they unique
Is there are creaking reality
Under the microscope
As we **** on our spliffs
And forget we ever thought of this
Try to forget as we spin out
On an ever changing axis
Like the earth we live on
Like the merry go round
I want to get off
My heart is beating uncontrollably
I try not to cough
For fear of being sick
Atoms between me and you
And I don't want to be a ****
I change the tv channel
On to something less learned
As my mind fashions more questions
To things I know more about
Or do I?