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

Black Music

Ears black like leather, he could hear my every move. As quiet and as humble as he was, he rode the bus to get use to himself. 

     Said he had never seen a lady quite like myself, said he had never heard a tune so smooth. He shuffled his fingers into my hips, he played me like I was his guitar. 

        He wasn't as hard core as rock, more mellow like acoustic. He said I talk good English, I speak good. He had eyes as deep and dark as my soul, no yet rotten. 

     He would holler: "Ay, yo brown eyes, would you be my blues?" Flattered, I let him find all the right places for his fingers in my hips, I was his piano. No other woman could confess and make home out of the hallows in his chest. 

      Though I could never fill the hole of the lost of his son, a touch of my body insulated his soul so he wouldn't be as drafty, he blamed me for why he didn't get drafted into the NFL, he said: "You be too music for me. If I left, there would be no reason for me to scream your name everyday, it's like I almost stopped singing." 

         Your sway is a melody, your vocal cords wrap around bodies, brown bodies like bags. Will you let these rings wrap our fingers? Be my broadway. He sang to me like I was his microphone, the theater and the only one who'd listen when Def Jam was too deaf to listen to his mix tape. 

          He had ears black as leather, lips, black as an oil slick and I had hips and body he made music with I was his instrument. 

       I was the grammatically correct talk between his stutters. I was the incorrect one to mess with cause... Momma ain't raise me to be no fool. She said my daddy was black like sam bow, he be half white. 

        But black as the residue from week old crack infested teeth, black like you, him and me... Even though according to Granny I be yella. 

        According to them if I'm darker than a bag, I'm not eligible for their society. I'm black like his ears. My daughters will be black like his ears, their daddy will be black like his ears. Their daddy found the ridges of my hips past my belly, I was his piano. 

       I was his wife, we could never afford a car so we rode the bus. I was his instrument. We could never afford a car so we rode the bus. He strung my heart strings. I was his guitar. We could never afford a car so we rode the bus... 

     He said it was how he would get use to himself, he being black as an oil slick, me being light as pencils, I wrote his music. 

Beast pt.2

I look at you and imagine a beast. But I am the beautiful. The red in your corvette which is really a bus card I gave to you. 

   

  You stumbled on my door step and demanded I mend you back to health. Heart all flustered I did it anyway. Jumped off of cliffs into hell for you and I still lost. 

     

  And all you said was "Sorry." Not even face to face, but through 

e-mail. I cried out your name in satisfaction, frustration, and even hope but I refused to put any of that feeling into my text back, so I didn't reply. I don't know how to be anything other than truth. 

     

     I could never get into the habit of lie like you. 

  I never could have lived knowing that I didn't share with you all of me, didn't know what you didn't love on me nor did I care. With out a care I gave you all of me. 

       

So beast, why'd the rhythm in your love change? Pressed against stone walls on winter nights you made an oven out of my back pockets. To the world our hugs appeared innocent. 

   

   And in a sense I believed it. 

  You be enough fiction to believe yourself. You look nothing like innocent so I never suspected your loving be good.

   

   I wrote about Beauty's kiss and the beast's transformation. Pushing away my gay I prayed you were Prince Charming. 

     

    Like truth in my heart, I'll be that missing punctuation, you need to finish your sentence when you're much too broken like dialect falling off lips from under developed countries. 

This affair hurts worse than 17 hours of labor and coming home with no baby, I gave birth to your heart prematurely. 

 

   Never imagined a soul I could tell, too afraid to be stoned by sinners. They threw stones and hid their hands when this earth to God is like glass houses, he saw everything. 

So pretend like you didn't love me all you want. 

God has seen, even I have seen you on the nights your speech was too drunken to witness me in the middle of your heart like drunk drivers, stop signs and oil slicked roads. 

      Everything about me said stop. But, you couldn't.  

Had all the signs, but you couldn't. 

Couldn't resist having me whole bodied 'cause part of me wasn't enough. 

     I traveled your heart like serpents on hallow roads, I am the beauty of your beast. We be like beauty and the beast.