Why I Read

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Because I can create peace in my mind

Even if the world is not all that peaceful

Because people write their truths

And when the heart is contextualized

hidden gems are found

waiting to be resurrected

and valued

I read because reading is valuable

And because books are the only place

where you can learn for free

I read because books are the only schools

I can carry with me

I read to learn from people

who came before me

I read to hear voices

through words

written down

to understand others

to listen to hearts

I read to find the person between the lines.

I read because not everyone can.

Choices

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There are many paths before us,

a starlight fantasy for our dreams

a dose of reality for our truths

and a playground for our games

all candy coated to look alike

and we shackle ourselves

to the decisions, we make

paths unfold like red carpet occasions

so that we may sharpen discernment

and choice spreads its arms wide

like a mother

beckoning for her children

inviting us to lay our head

in her bosom

and there we feed on the free will

to choose our own verdicts

what will history write in our favor

and what will we leave behind?

Choices.

We live on them

like the breath, we breathe

inhale and exhaling ourselves to the next step

what will become of this poem?

will I dare to save a life?

is it possible

that one can live on these words

desperately

nourished simply by the right

to choose

to read them

To Lose a Friend

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From crayons

To paper

To dreams

To memory.

We tied our wanting into a bow

And placed it on each other’s laps

Where neither trial

Nor thunderstorm

Could wash away our fairy tale.

Did not occur to us that neither plastic bags

Nor happiness

And not even the future was strong enough

To hold us.

We were brave.

We were warriors.

We were safe in each others ears

Promises to each others secrets

No one could tell us any different.

Calendars did not lend us its eyes

Did not carve reality into the sticky notes we placed

On our destiny’s

We merely rode on the backs of memories

We created out of air

That smelled of hope

And lullabies

That felt like oxygen to lung

Breath to life

Truth to wisdom

But that bled deception underneath the surface

Of blue lines

On white paper.

That smelled of jasmine

Now shattering glass

Hopelessly pasted together

Encoding our hearts in one anothers chest

We opened up

Fearlessly vulnerable.

Stored our futures away

With the ease of speech

Letting them hide behind our eyelids

Trapping falling tears into bottles for fear

Of losing sight of the other

Amidst the blurs it birthed

When doubt crept in.

And we held onto these bottles

Like we babysat the others gaze

Too naïve to understand

That there were no guarantees

That we must not put our hopes into fallen stars

And wishing wells

For now we bleed

Both apology and need

For our broken wings

Pierced diamonds

Both myth and martyr alike

Legend to sacrifice

Do you know what it’s like to feel every twist

And turn

Of a dying bow?

To be undone?

Shackled to the worst part of your life story

Prisoners to the memories you created

In each others smiles

Now dangling regret

In the sky.

Love Me Into Music

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the birth of tranquil

when words meet music

racing anxiety slowed,

and slick,

and subtle

like splashes of sunlight

chipping at our faces

warm and comforting

like tapping footsteps

love me

like drumming fingers

like dancing

bobbing heads

and bodies contorted

into the full figure of violin

and singing like half notes

like puzzles brought together

and connecting to the sky

we love like wireless

find us anywhere

find us weak

and fractured

our experiences tugging against our very

existence

like tendons and muscles

our faces pulled back

like nostalgia

an orgasmic melody

of words to virgin ears

potent,

and suspect,

and anxious

musical therapy

a body of instrument

like balls of flesh torn

into stuttering syllables,

and time signatures

and melodies and pianos

we play poetry like pianos

like fingers are feathers

every nerve tickled

by the slightest touch

a Katrina of waves

pleasurable

and strong

like euphoria

brushing against the shores of truth

love me into music

like base that split atoms into frequencies

that scrape the sky

that loves like stringed instruments

this is a love

that sounds

like

music

When Hearts Break

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Deafening silence

and the torture

Of stillness

The quiet awe

Of when hearts break

Shattering glass

With no sound

Just pieces of thought matter

And stains of emotions

Smeared

No one will look up

Because pain has no sound

No warning

Except to pen a tear

The silent scribble

Of the scribe

When hearts break

In crowded rooms

Memories

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Nostalgia’s a nauseating

sickness

like four little girls

still trying to tear down the brick

painted on the sides

of their heads

Pocketbook scriptures still dangling

from underneath

their tongues

like a scorched covenant

under burned fingernails

still trying to get me to

remember

Truth be queasy

like first trimesters

be painful

like birth pains

I heard

a roll of thunder

and laughter more frightening

than decomposed bodies

at the bottom of bi-racial rivers

whispering

like the voice of Emmet

till when?

It asked me.

Before strings of voices erupted from some place

beyond the banks of the James River

from someplace before William Lynch’s arrival

somewhere marchin

stomping on my roots

somewhere printed on the back

of the forbidden fruit, I still

got between my teeth

a string of voices

sprung up

from the oppression

marching down the streets of Birmingham,

Chicago, Georgia, Mississippi, Harlem.

Willie Edwards,

James Chaney,

Michael Donald,

Michael Griffith,

Michael Brown,

Yusef Hawkins,

James Byrd Jr, and Trayvon Martin’s voices

sang hymns of “I told you so’s”

for my memories

like women giving birth

to still born children

Till when?

said Mr. Till.

Will you people continue to give birth

to death

still lying on the bed

of Martin’s dreams?

They sang with an authority

like rolling thunder

and butterflies in my stomach

like truth on top Moses mountain they sang

like earthquakes

cracking my memories into lynched question marks

they sang

like blood-thirsty whales behind slave ships

like ripping flesh

torn open

with Hebrew scriptures

in their veins

they sang

like diseases written into the sky

and prison chains

their voices roared

like a million I told you so’s they sang

like voices do

and they asked me a question

but their words

were few

Till when?

Screamed the segregated

Set-apart

and unequal lungs

of Emmett

Till when?

He sang.

Like the lyrics of Deuteronomy

carried up

Till when will Malcolm,

Booker T.

and Martin King

still dream

before

they wake up?