Make him watch

Last time I was in this back seat some things went down. Legs shaking, heart racing, and my panties came down. Gripped my legs, licked his lips, I stroked him on his shoulder. Hands played the heels between me, tried to keep myself from moaning. Wanting to move more than just his finger was the reason he deceived me. Played the guitar with the string of my thong, he always did like music. Sang mellow hellos to my lips, and hips. You felt all on my legs. Every inch you touched locked my soul in you. Ankles, locked in heart. Calfs, locked in mind. I can't get your print out my mind. Thighs locked in lust. I lusted after you, I'm lusting after you, bottom parts of you still throb in my palms. I still lay in your arms on dark nights, I pray by your side whenever strength doesn't find your eyes in the morning. It rains in the summertime for you... You missed a great thang, I handed me to you and that's where I went wrong. But I will never want to right this wrong cause you were right about everything. You use to be the stutter in my speech and the reason why I could not think about anything other than you. Couldn't think about how life would be without you. I couldn't imagine what the other side of me would look like without you beside it. You looked me square in the eye and told me you loved me with a mouth full of lies. Every fictional thing you said gave me butterflies. I once thought you saw me as beautiful. Because you have a Big Beautiful Woman for a mother you will find something beautiful about me, or maybe I can't be as beauty to you as she is, at least I thought I wouldn't be disrespected. Too fat for your sex, good thing that wasn't what I came looking for. I came to play for hearts and keeps but you came for child's play. I imagined us to be something like a game of chess. The queen protecting her king however, you are not a king... You are simply a peasant in the presence of me the queen, you will one day serve my king. Until then I hope you find our father who art in heaven hollowed be thy name thy kingdom come that will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily fool. Behead him and make him suffer, make him watch as the men is supposed to love me fills his spot. Make him watch as the man who is supposed to love me takes on the characteristics of God. Make him Christlike and make my husband whole, but make him watch for I am happy and he will never be whole without me. Make me the single puzzle piece he will forever miss. Let him know that my heart use to beat simultaneously with his. Let him know that I used to would not inhale unless he breathed in my direction. Make him watch as the man who is supposed to love me makes me whole... Make him watch. 

Come Find Me!

I know niggas in shackles that'll stomp your face into the gravel. Tangled wrists and minds unleashed, I may be in jails, but my minds running ramped. Hide, seek try to find me flesh & mind intertwined. Death row means nothing to a nigga that's already incarcerated by the streets. Dance, shoot me. Go on a killing spree. Do not rescue me. I am spiritless. 

      Bones crushed. I am fleshless. I do not exist in your vision. I am blind to whom ever I enter, my wicked is colorless. Can make a mockery out of a brown boy or a god. I am the best and worst angel ready for my return, he isn't the only one that's coming back for his people. 

        Step back into your chain Gangs and nooses, I've made them more expensive than you can afford, I've memorized the whistles in between your jive and finger snaps. This is why I kept you enslaved for so long. Written books that had various ways to decode you, but you'd rather read the back of CD's and still stumble over your own credits. 

         You are spiritless, flesh fresh to death, but you are upon my mercy. I show no mercy, I am spiritless. Don't give a good god given damn about your Tim boots, I hung your daughter from that tree. You left her with me, I show no mercy, I am spiritless. Dance, shoot me. I am fleshless. 

        Upon this rock I shall sit my universe this is not the playground of the holy. You couldn't read the music, but you can hear it begging you to shoot me. Dance shoot me, I am fleshless. I am spiritless. 

      Everything that once was holy can be evil. Everything that glitters can't be yours. You are fleshless, fit fresh. Corner boys and brown liquor, somebody's bound to be made to be fresh to death. This is what you get when you march to maybach music. 

      Not rich enough to know you come from Queens, cause that isn't just where you've slept. No candle lit memorials for the beauty that died the day you signed yourself to me, no young money is old enough to know the coldest nights is spent with a crew that wouldn't die with you. Get money, but would they pay for for your funeral when I'm done with you? 

        Spiritless, I show no mercy. Fleshless, I make niggas fresh until death. Tangled wrists and minds unleashed. I am running ramped, come find me. 

Sweet 16

16: "when the sky falls and we're all lost, we just open up our hearts to you." 

1: not yet grasping the world with my feet, at the age where I'd learn most... I never learned to run to you.

3: She said that was your uncle. He looked at some of your lady places that made you grow dirt under your fingernails for poison. He is why you be so introverted. 

2: you never lived with your mother. This, this lady holding you is not your mother. You live with her, but you do not belong to her. You live here, but you do not belong here. You'll be out soon. 

4:   Our Father who are in heaven Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread...

6: you're a lil chubby.. But it's okay. You can pass for cute, right now. Soon this will get old. 

5: there are no girls out there like me. I want to paint my nails... But I still want to play with worms. Why won't my auntie let me play in the dirt? 

7: She doesn't love you. She's out in the street. He's dressed nice, but that isn't your father walking behind her. 7... I tossed and turned on the foot of Grand mama's bed. Hot, cold sweat. Cold sweat. He's mastering your flesh, but don't open your eyes. It'll all be over soon. 

9: you can't even fit in a 9 year olds cloths anymore. You are the hand me down fabrics, not even the nice ones, the only ones that stretch. You're quiet, why are you so quiet? I bet you eat all of your words... 

8: stay back. No telling what he can do. Stay back that can burn you. Burn every part of you that no one can see. They'll all say you're lying, but only you'll have those battle scars. 

10: discover parts of you, but not too much. Leave parts for someone else. 

12: Sit up straight! Wear these stockings! Get up! Church in an hour. But who is God? 

11: ooooh boy, this is not good. Tell no one. You're weird, cross your legs, no one can know this. 

13: YOU AINT GROWN!!! 

15: Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.

14: you're not sure if life with a him or her will be befitting for your resume into heaven. So "pray you will be ready, pray you will be ready. Pray you will be ready when Jesus comes."

16: "all of me, loves all of you. Love your curves and all your edges. All your perfect imperfections." 

16... 16... Sweet, sweet, 16! 

Freedom in education

Freedom in Education...

Hey, what did you learn today? She expected me to say I learned quadratics or reproduction in my Biology class, but the hallway's and corner boys teach you more than the teachers do. 

       

This isn't an average day, but it's black history month and my school has not one single black inventor, teacher, or any blacks that were the first to do anything in out hallways, but expect me to pay attention in class. 

     

An open heart is better than a transparent book. They figure we learn more from Twitter and TV so they don't even bother to give us books in school anymore. 

        

Old work sheets and snapped pencils, snaps in poetry club make me human. 

     

Take away the Chicago in me and just see the poetic free that they try to put a price on. They say there's no price on education to justify why they keep taking our money. 

       

Sleepless nights constructing projects is the price I've paid for a free education. 

      

  Poetry told me more about life than any of my mothers lessons, school only taught  me to keep my eyes on own paper, yes I'm talkin' Green. 

Red, Black and Green because there was no room to fit my black in their flag.

     

 I spend class time in the hallways and still pass everything. Learn to listen to yourself. Never be afraid to be Bi-Racial and curvy self because the bullies don't know how to travel within your guide lines. Never mind them, stay in your lane. 

      

Don't dumb yourself down because they aren't educated in life. Don't tell them your secrets. Coming to school is what keep you out of trouble. Better a class room than a court room. 

        

But seems like our court rooms are more populated than our classrooms. Schools shut down, but graduated kids smarter than the suburbs. They say because we're poor we're stupid... But we say it takes skill to dodge bullets, run to catch a bus home from school and carry our siblings all on one breath. 

      

But since when did being speechless  parallel us to ignorance when we choose to rap our words instead of cram them into college essay's. When will you learn to look at us as human and not test scores. 

        

Maybe if you talked to us instead of failing us you'd know why we saw our answers as right, but your un colorblind ignorance chooses color over character. Colors are the only thing school has seemed to have taught you. 

        

It is possible to still be an educated fool. And no, this poem is not a permission slip for my generation to act like we're ignorant. That can no longer be in our vocabulary because we are literate. No matter how much or how little we may be we can read and write stupid statuses on Facebook non the less we are literate. 

          

School is something they kept from us so do us all a favor and steal it back. They always blame the black boy in a robbery so you might as well go to jail for having a voice  instead of sticking to no snitching. 

       

Have you ever stood in a third grade classroom, misty eyed with emotions in your throat because the kids only knew Martin and Rosa but the teacher forgot to teach about the one who in the opinion of many was the most educated in life, Malcolm X. They're trying to X us out of their flag. 

       

Adjust your jeans and show them what righteous looks like. We were the first creation under God, but we're proving to not be all that indivisible. 

       

We pledge allegiance of the red, black and green, Our flag, the symbol of our eternal struggle, and to the land we must obtain. 

One nation of Black people, with one God for us all, 

Totally united in the struggle for Black Love, Black Freedom, and Black determination.

   

In education is the land of the free

Cane

White trails under oxygen 

               I inhale, exhale and hold 

Onto the truth. 

              Infinity records spin

Blood shot red.

Blood shot blue.

Sorry 3,000 times

This year alone more than 3,000 mothers will be lost among the masses. Trapped in death, they will stop beating. Always trained to give ourselves to our babies, we lost it when we lost them. No one tells us what to do when we cry. Not even how to hurt out loud, no one tells us how to stay alive after still birth. No one can ever warm this cold in my soul last night I saw my baby. I reached out, but couldn't feel a thing where was God in all of this? We are alone in all of this. Tonight, somebody's mother will be the eyes in the background. The song when this earth is crying out loud. Can't you hear that child humming in my melody? She is my rose that grew in concrete, and I never got to see her smile. Tonight 3,000 mothers will be lost in the system. They said they would help us but nothing can help this, can you hear the hope in all of this? Can you hear my spirit crying out in all of this, where are you? Never had to yell your name, I couldn't even mumble it. I knew you wouldn't be there. Trapped in death, we've even been trapped in silence. SILENT... Sometimes our heart beats lump in silence, silent like their cries. Silent like my cries, and sometimes it's okay.. There will never be another you, but baby I love you for all my imagination stretched you out to be. I've praise danced on the sides of bridges, fettling with life and death in my toes cause my hands were much too tied into expunging you off of my records. Deleting the plans I had of putting all of my favorite records on and teaching you how to step. They didn't even let me see you. I have to play dress up with the assumptions of you I have tucked between cheek and teeth, I prayed you'd be a good girl. Much like momma, I would dress you like a pearl, but you were one of the dreams God asked to stay still at birth. I had to stay still in the mist of missing you. It rained during the burning of my feet, I danced on your mercy. We danced on y'all's mercy, this time it wasn't mommy's fault. You just slipped away from me. This year more than 3,000 women say sorry. 

Locked in skin

I'm Skin. I am no longer your prisoner. 

Brown woman know no fear no more. It cremated itself. Seemed to have taken the shape of me, I feared myself. 

       Promised granny I'd never cremate myself, she said it'll send me to hell. Closed my eyes and made a pact with the devil, pinky promised him infinity to forever. 

       Wouldn't want to stain God's angel costume with my color, you say black is forever, but they didn't think so. Water blasted by those made to protect us. I cremated myself before they got the chance. 

       Prepped myself for my own casting down to hell. Black robe and red lip stick. I took out my soul, washed it & put it in his pocket. Devil you took hold of my soul, but this earth will forever have this body, brown, and blistered. 

       I'm another black body swinging in the earths breeze cause we don't just die in the summer time. Black berries be sweetest so they eat us alive, vultures they are. 

         Come to the darkness, where you may, but most likely may not survive. This body, brown skin of mine, never asked to be light so to have some kind of burden my hips lay heavy weight upon the world. 

        They always got to find something wrong with me. Maybe this cremation of her was mental. Maybe she was molested. Or maybe she was black... But why can't I just be tired? I wanted to sleep forever. 

      Being black blocks bad business dealing with the devil. He may have glitter, but it will never turn to gold. Burning for a fix we sell souls for phony kicks & stones. We wait all weekend to get high for this. 

       No tan can get brown like this. They use to cremate us, now we do it for them. Skin. I am no longer your prisoner. Brown women know no fear no more. We pinky promised to cremation, for infinity to forever... Locked in skin