Unravel your mask & show me the real you
The weave attached to your real hair to
ruby woo lipstick with the choker
powder cake foundation
Second layer of eyelashes
rose gold hoop earrings
rainbow colorful nails
Let every flaw bloom as a flower

I could tell you multiple stories of jealous people who tried to steal my light,
And fail cause they had no self-control over their own life

I could tell you about the time, I was a kid & almost got shot
While mom was calling my name to come home, right up the block

I could tell you, one by one, how I met each girl & thought I had a potential wife
But one by one, they showed me that was a lie

I could show you how hard life is right now, living as a black man
But if I did, I bet you that you still wouldn’t understand

-More debt, more problems
-More bills, more silence
-High like the Covid cases, Feels like each month’s recycling
-Working sleepy through the day, wide awake through the night.

-I feel like drinking right now will help change my mood from being bitter
-Invite some company over while I pour this liquor
-Stretch this drink like a river.
-I want it, I have it, I got it
-Getting faded quicker, Killing my liver.

-Head shots, head shots take one baby
-We in the moment just living
-Emotions & *** in the air mixing, yeah.
-A new rememberable night flowing through my memories
-She put her drink down, took me back to the room
After we finished, she called me her boo.

-I wake up to her calling her man in the next room
-She lied to him saying, “I’m still at my girl house”, stretching a lie from the truth
-I didn’t know she had a man: the slightest clue.

-Thinking in my head how could you sit here & do this to me
-Seriously, do this to me
-Treating me like some side-piece.
-But you know what I appreciate this lesson man, I mean I really I do.
-You’re not one for me, you’re not the type I need to pursue.
-Sometimes I wish things were different growing up becoming a grown up.

-The next day, I sit back, then lay back, trying to relax as I light up the candles
-I been through some battles. Pray that God heal me from my head to my ankles
-Times like this, I wish things were better now like back then
-I’m casting out more demons and letting more angels come in

Between the lines
of now and then,
you’re drawing me
with ink and pen.
Every ridge
and every curve
you’re carving out
what I deserve.
Tangled veins
and knotted hair,
a thunderstorm
of senseless care.
Between the breaths
of God and man-
You’re writing me
just as I am.
With fractured bones
and black-hole eyes,
painted purple,
ringed with lies.
All I am
is what you see
and what you make
is all I’ll be.

Good enough to keep
Addictive like a bad habit