Core
Book of Ages
last year i looked at my art like a burning book
pages and pages of charred words entering the sky
embers of torched dreams falling to the cement
cementing my failure in stone
i'd pen my power to paper as if the space
between ball point and blue line
was a World War II trench
i used to write within an inch of my life
as i inched closer to saving someone else's
ever been a poet so long
you begin to think your poems will write themselves
like when you're sleep
inspiration will get inside your head
fire off your neurons provoking your arm
to ghost write for your own body
last year my art made me feel like a ghost in my own body
like the pen would fall through my spectral hands
hit the floor then laugh at me and tell me it was a metaphor
there were times when i thought in similes
i thought no one was like or as great as me
i stitched my poetry into audiences
made them feel like they could conquer a world of fallacies
and in my heart i believed since i was the one who penned it
i could best the same challenges
last year my art was in the hands of a black boy
who looked at black joy as something that
comes when i finished a pro black poem
i laid poems to rest in the mausoleum of my notebook
i master locked my masterpieces
pieced together my mediocre
forgot my pastor's thesis and sewed my seeds in plantation
like gardens just like master pleases
the master being my doubt
that anything that falls from these fingers aren't fruit
like any word that dares to part my lips
and sit on the precipice of my tongue doesn't
deserve to dance its way into existence
if i have any memory of the year as it passed
it's my love for my art has not shifted
with the change in its consistency
in the hands of that black boy
it wanted to fade into mystery
in the hands of this black man
it looks to re-write history
and if this thing we call poetry
is really all it's cracked up to be
then it's time to crack down on the
doubt that's opposing me
last year i looked at my art like a burning book
this time around i look to publish it
Flips
fell in love with words when i was young boy
used sentence structures to build up my black joy
i use a pen like a viking/ ink hiking up loose leaf
with a smile so inviting/ i may enlighten your whole week
my poems pain releasing Vicodin
let Kev show you that light again
never associate with rats or end up like Of Mice and Men
i'm enticed to win but a loser's mentality is common
even a nigga named Common won Grammys
and other accolades often
so i fight the system like squaring up with an Xbox
then make my own way it's like a personal detox
but the ops look through their optics
then release shots that leaves a nigga like me on the block
and his mom holds the wound till the bleed stops
or till he drops
can these cops...
be empathetic
so i can stop living in public with a smile that's synthetic
these stanzas electrifying
this shock therapy would release the cravings of addicts
this is acupuncture
i use needles
you use bullets
but you cocky niggas think you could cock a 9 and pull it
gun control happens when 9’s
are passed over like the number 10
and bullets aren't made to be put in bodies
for coroners to behold
let me flip it
coroners know there be holes in bodies by bullets
9’s aren't made to be put in the hands
of people with minds like 10 years old's
that's what happens when lunatics have guns controlled
this pen is not counterfeit and yeah i said lunatics
get angry and i'll throw a counter fit
this what happens when a poet can kind of spit
you're going to start hearing sentences with all kinds of flips
boy fails to become man in the face of woman
because his feelings loose
but good woman turns boys to men
like a singing group
and that's a flip
i swear i'm not doing this on accident
relax and let me spit
there's a present dent in our society
because of a consistent focus on the irrelevant
but irrelevant focus seems to be a consistent trait of our president
and that's a flip
back to back like a Meek diss
when i'm at my peak it's
kind of scary, i'm sharper
find me in the eye of the bull
like a prime archer
i'm going farther than my father's expectations
watch this poet stitch stanzas and bars
what you've witnessed is open heart operation
ops per nation look to open hearts
witnesses you've seen sit still
but with these bars and stanzas
this poet will stitch them and never just watch
and that's a flip
Crayons
cursed with the calamity of kaleidoscope dreams
reality drove me insane to the point i wanted
to cremate the color off every one of God’s creations
i was
fighting to stay sane in a sea of red
whose waters wanted me dead
dreaming in an ocean of blue
whose love i wished was true
withering away in a wave of white
whose words wanted to write my suicide note tonight
basking in the beauty of black
showing me what i loved
not what i lacked
Deep. Press. Shun
my bed is the sweetest escape i’ve ever known
wrapping myself in sheets
is the same as being blanketed in oblivion
but i’m warm
i’ve probably counted more sheep
than i have breaths left
even in my dreams i’m tired
my unconscious body
boa constricted by comforters
my weighted blanket isn’t heavier
than the gravity tugging at my eyelids
to never see the light of day again
i invest in quicksand mattresses
sinking deeper than my heart when the alarm
screams my body into separation anxiety
my snooze button resets the bomb
i tire as it ticks
dismantling at the thought
of escaping from an escape as great as this
my muscles force themselves into rigor mortis
the floor is lava forever
why do pillows and pain sing such a beautiful duet
why do i shun my sadness when not conformed to a cushion
i’ll never understand why it is i who cannot rest
A Birthday
i'm not always on par
i'm not always on excellence
i'm not always a nappy haired
Huey Newton reincarnate
i'm not always wrapped around a poem
pens don’t live in my fingertips
my notebooks don't bend into the shape of a therapist
i am human
with a Jesus like spirit
welcoming him whole heartedly
appealed to my vision
snapped my spine to attention
like ADHD prevention
i don't wallow in sadness
i don't break at the seams
my heart don't slack on it beats
death don't walk next to me
and by practicing patience
i've become a token in this prodigal nation
year by year i end and begin
a birthday;
a wedding of moments
contributing to my design
but before i repeat the actions
that got me here
i'll look at today and thank God
that after a year
i'm still alive
i'm still learning
and i'm still here
Misshapen Memories
i have misshapen memories
of when i had the tendency
to tend to the ill gotten
dreams this life has sentenced me
my mind is not a jail cell
nor can this world inhale
enough of my prowess
to cripple my power
and put me in chains
i lift a strong fist
tackle the temptation
that i'm trying to resist
sun like fire when these
moons try to eclipse
this life tried to paint me like the winter solstice
like i ain't have enough light in my life to control this
feeling that darkness is this thing i could harness
and make beautiful, i mean, what's the duty of an artist
what’s my purpose on earth
to spin the fabric of my soul into a miraculous birth
baby Jesus like epithets cloud like my pen is a cigarette
i'm not one for air pollution
but when God gave me the gift
to write my life into the air waves
my sole intention was to take
your breath so that air waves
as it leaves your body
Seasonal
summer came and cremated my companionship
in a season where all blooms
my buds never blossomed enough to gather sunlight
i've had grave encounters with heat
keeping our feet from forming pathways through unknown earth
it was almost like separation was seasonal
like the closer we were to the sun the further we were apart
june is the cause of my suffering
the moving of months managed to push me
closer to solitude than depression
i wilted as the roses were born
exhausted as the leaves breathed
and grew cold as the air became inferno
july is the middleman between my happiness and i
my smile was lost somewhere in august
i tried to pry away the seconds of summer
to swim out of season
in fall we frolicked like dying leaves
cooler winds unwound my tension
beautiful sunsets united our souls
loneliness didn’t loom overhead
nor could my future be forecasted
i'd love to live in less summer
if that means my solitude could be shortened
A Birthday pt.2
i'm a quantum loop
my causality casually captures
more kryptonite than a man in a booth
endless resistance threatens to
throw spears through my truth
i'm way too blessed to be seen as a spook
i'm too gifted to lose
21 years is a beautiful thing
march 11th
the day life tied the knot;
a spiritual wedding ring
duty to the earth
enlighten & love
morph the composition of my body
into that of a dove; a black one
with heritage and culture dripping
from my wings to be a symbol of above
and below
my foundation frequently
reminds me where i was founded
upon the wrinkled sidewalks of Maryland streets
is where i found my feet
or footing
now everywhere i'm looking is near the pinnacle
even when i'm cynical
ascension never looked so good on me
until i cut the greed
sacrificed my life to the sky
and watched heavenly rays leak from my father's eye
the moment i fell in love
with the trinity my life turned
from one direction to a quantum loop
"happy birthday” from the mouths of friends
sustains my joy until the timer on the day ends
my life starts whenever the bullseye
on the board darts at the sight of my arrow
i want to be powerful abroad never narrow
as the mind on some of these Einstein's
who look at poetry as just some words that rhyme
i'm a quantum loop
every year on this day i will live
my impact is the proof
before i breathe my last breath
this world will include
my name in the category of people
who gave it pride to continue its loop
Increments
i live in increments
my moments are moon-crescent
never fully shining
i cease like silence
in between gaps i die
my soul dissipates
dissolves and dilutes
when i cannot write truth
my life seems minute
my exhale derails
my spirit from my body
my hand becomes empty
willing to deny genesis
my pen insists i pick it up
to gain my life back
but if my fingers fold around it
i will fold it's tragic
this block brings me closer
to death than disease
my eyes streak comets
and i cannot breathe
this block has the power to
sever the thoughts i have
it singlehandedly snipes the inspiration
hanging above my head
it pulls the color from my eyes
it makes me paint pictures with colorless pigments
figments of imagination turned into fragments
shattered dreams fall as glass around my pen
when words fight over
who will mean the most in my mouth
i swallow them to teach them a lesson
Etched
i want to be etched in stone
like commandments
chisel my name into diamonds
riddle me into rocks
and cast me across the ocean
let me wash up on shore
my pebbles are all in view
my boulders are all here too
what you see is what you get
now don't make me avalanche
i want to be etched in stone
after i erode my fossils will re-write history
my diamonds will stand the test of clock hands
can i become a comet
this gravity keeps me grounded
this gets me sentimental
i want to be celestial not sedimentary
i want to be etched in stone
some of my superiors found a way
to orbit around the system
can i be big enough to find
what i'm destined to do and plan it
or will i be etched in a smaller stone
that will never escape this planet
Sleepless
i try to make sleepless nights look good
while plotting during the daytime
how to escape the moon
i am a night owl
restless bones and uprooted blankets lie in my bed
my eyelids are revolving doors
i find myself trying to slam them shut only to fail
my mind becomes a battleground between the future
and the past as they wage war over the outcome of my soul
how can i sleep
when the past ties tangent lines to my after life
when my bed feels like coffin
consuming my will drift into dream
i am beautiful in the night
like crescent moon tongue kissing cloud
i am alive when the sun rises
outlasting darkness and streetlights
my smile peeks over my lips like
horizon lines mediate the sun’s birth and death on a daily basis
i radiate in light or in night
in this skin and in this body
i laugh at lack of sleep and
boast in the gift of my charm
i try to make sleepless nights look good
Subject to Creation
i am subject to creation like
how words form sentences and
introductions piece together relationships
i was made from dirt;
formed by the functions of my
creator to pick words from thin air
to lighten thick atmospheres
i commune with myself like
pollination populates barren gardens
i'm the bee that carries
creation from paper to person
i am media;
mass producing inspiration
to knock the dust off the brain
that could find better ways to
cure cancer than radiation
i am a light source
no electricity needed
there's not enough wattage
to fuel a mind so vast
i was created to show creation
actually came to pass
Catharsis
creativity boils like anger in my hands
hot potato my concepts
nothing but thoughts in my lands
shades of emerald when i close my eyes
the grass is greener where my pen is
i could make it red if i try
if i’m feeling pain
i could make it color the sky
i write to soften the edge
i will still live when i die
no longer corrupted
my main eruption
when epiphany strikes
writers block lifted
my main addiction is when the pen is in sight
cathartic sentences be my witness
i will bring a star to my night
with spoken word i'm inclined to learn
how to make your life just as light
ain’t nothing sweeter
than when my ideas are alive in the now
king of my creativity
i'll keep their heads in a bow
i’m not defeated
though often seeking an end to my frown
i’m not conceited
so best believe it’s candid my crown
i close my notebook and suddenly i hear ambulance sounds
Conqueror
i am a conqueror
my bones are batting cages of negativity
my infrastructure is an Atlantean city
i am strong enough to stay afloat in the deepest of disaster
my face is a formulation of Jim Crow laws
and Willy Lynch theories erased
my lips are free to open and let words
battle the oppression that looks to place me in margins
i am the only one who can write my life into a margin
take a pen and push it from red line to faded blue
leave my life somewhere between the arms of loose leaf
i season myself to endure any season
from when the sun beams to when the oak loses leaves
i am a believer
the fruits of my mind were picked
by the calloused hands of my ancestors
if i ever desire to throw my apples to the ground
i'll return to it
my ancestors conquered the slave
my savior conquered the grave
if there's life in the voice i've received
then i’ve made a way to revive the tides like moon
and inspire people that end and rescind like water
Author
im binding a book of all the fights
i had over self-worth with myself in bed at 4am
when all my dreams circled around
my head like stars after incapacitation
just so i can remember all the times
the questions i asked myself were enough
to induce insomnia over the awareness of my spirit
i chose to avoid sleep and it caught up with me
i reacted by reaching into the deepest parts of
my essence to find justification in etching
the experiences of my life into composition notebooks
just to feel like the composer of something
something other than the soundtrack to the
sorrow that used to surround the weight
of my footsteps on days where i had to
scoop gravity out of my heart by hand
when i become an author
i'll write about the times where
i looked at pens like a penalty
like to touch ink was to be sentenced
my fingerprint didn’t exist on anything
i wanted to leave my mark on
i’m going to be an author of a book that’s imperfect
but every fascicle will seem minimal in its wake
i will not falsify any facet of how heavy my blankets
were when i wanted to live in beauty but didn’t know how
i will not downplay how direct my path
was to a grave of my own construction
and how almost falling in was an alternate
to falling in love because at the time
i flirted with reapers like i had matrimony in mind
im going to bind a book
that holds all the power
i lost and found again because
nostalgia saves more lives
than being present does