Category: Poetry

Un-Pretty

unpretty

She was fourteen when the uglies came
fourteen when she realized that she was un-pretty
You see her mom’s mother’s mother,
and her mother before that
began the process of digestion that would take place through generational blood cells that rejected what they considered…the uglies.
so she regurgitated this face given her by some fierce creator the moment her life began recycling the cycle of teens who refuse to simply look in the mirror
Why should she?
For the laying on of verbal hands became saliva that practiced the breaking down of insults that made this decision mushy, and easy to swallow
and proactive never helped out,
pushing indoctrination further into her mouth until she has no other choice but to chew smooth skin and straight hair with her teeth
was it her fault?
that when she looked in the mirror a strange girl is all she could see
and positive comments slid off of her chocolate skin like empty belief.
Satisfaction never molding this face into something she could see
Beauty
never pushing its mushed up reality down the back of her throat
this
pretty stuff
never making it through adolescence
never making it through to the esophagus
Un-pretty
It was all she’s known and all she could see
never mind her thought process to ever enter the second portion of the digestive tract
for she was stuck
stuck in a world where beauty rocked air force ones and apple bottom jeans
the prettiest trading her cookies in for a better face
this
pretty little face
or that celebrities were simply pretty little liars
because beauty never came with a price
Un-pretty
It was simply a disease, an infection
moving confidence back to the ugly shaped tears that arose in her throat
that generations of house slaves would teach her to stomach
this mushed up ball of ugly too weak to form strong muscles that could stop it from mixing around images of Beyoncé and her sister Solange,
muscles
that could not stop it from becoming pretty plastic properties of Nicki Minaj
WHO forgot to tell this sista…
That in her world of pretty,
pretty was really
un-pretty?

She Rebels

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Soft kisses and warm hugs is what she gets from men.
Hot dates and perfume smells, but from truth she rebels.
An emotional roller coaster ride he takes her…
every so often they visit this amusement park.
And she wants to cringe when he grabs hold of her but instead of listening to herself
she listens to her heart.
Unwanted lips kissing her face and she takes it all in stride
afraid to admit her mistakes because of her pride.
Soft kisses turn into sloppy kisses
and warm hugs turn into feelings so hard and cold you’d think they were milk mugs.
Hot dates she no longer wants to take
but her financial status is at stake.
No more Christian Dior, Stephanie Taylor or Dolce Gabbana because she’s known on the streets as being his hottest baby mama
so she rebels.
Refusing to follow directions like a sterile sperm cell alone she cannot fertilize
this she soon realize
so she turns back to what she often refers to as hell.
She can’t understand what has happened to the warm hugs and innocent smells, yet she rebels.
He has painted her face with his fist,
multicolor on its sides
Sharpening his nails to cut her thighs’ and insides
but she laughs it off in stride
afraid to admit her mistakes because of her pride.
Excuses upon excuses she is determined to sell, so she rebels.
Convinced this is the last time she
runs to the nearest store praying her favorite make-up is on sale.
But she looks good though!
Driving his Lamborghini
shades on windows down, saying to herself “I know you see me!”
Blasting Jay-Z she agrees, “I can’t leave this alone the game needs me!”
So she endures the nightly screams of “Please don’t beat me!”
Attempting to open her eyes, Truth tries but she refuses to see.
Months and months have passed, and she’s lying in a place filled with screams and death mail.
Truth’s flowers she now wants to smell but her obituary has come too early,
so to the dirt,
she Rebels.

Freedom: The Illusion

There’s a strange fruit

hanging from the trees

but not the kind of Billie Holidays days

with

blood all on the leaves

but these

are a different set of trees

and they bear a strange fruit

called ignorance

with an illusion up its sleeve

an illusion so thick

sometimes it’s hard to breathe

I feel like I am in the days

of Dr. Martin Luther King back when

black folks marched and sang songs

and Martin had a dream but,

what exactly was his dream?

I found myself

asking myself

over and over these things

what exactly was his dream?

I thought and so my thoughts led me

to February 1818,

here was born Fredrick Douglas

a man who also had this dream

To not have to work the cotton fields

courtesy of the curses

was his dream see to

not be so dark

so black

this too was his dream and in

1845 he found himself

on the “winning” team.

Tired of hearing screams of being slapped up

he slipped up into a secret society.

Wanting to be a part of this world so badly

he joined the American Anti–Slavery Society

mistakenly joining a secret society

determined

to tear him away

from his own

society

This was his conclusion

Mr. Douglas my friends

got caught up in the illusion.

So being women some of us and

enjoying the company of women the other half of us

our thoughts led us to some women tales

we thought

well most certainly

we can get our answers from Mrs. Ida B. Wells

But as I studied her story in search for this dream

my mind began to drift away

as I saw that she too had this dream

she too had this purpose

she too wanted to escape

the curses

Blinded by a fake reality

she too joined a secret society

also known as the NAACP

created by Jews

but led by intelligent fools

with black skins

who sought to escape the bodies they were in

So

like Douglas

Ida became confused in a world of turmoil

that led her to believe her own confusion

she too was caught up

in this Illusion

but we had to figure out some way

somehow our own existence

our own being

therefore we continued our search

for Martin’s dream

our thoughts destination

had to steer towards education

so take it

it’s yours

this led us to of course,

W.E.B. Dubois.

something about this man caused an excitement

that ran through you and me we

became amazed

and began to admire his level of maturity

when it came to intellectual ability so we thought sure

“Now this man can school me.”

However, with him too my mind became stumped

as I ran across this myth

and

found that my admirer was in favor

of the talented tenth?

To my astonishment

he too had this dream

He too wanted to be on what he thought

was the winning team

(even if it meant only 10% of the winning team)

see because Dubois didn’t understand the curses

he created the crisis

magazine

so as we caught up to Dr. Martin Luther King and we

heard his many speeches singing “I had a dream!”

we too began to lust for this very dream

even if it was not real

all we had to do was feel

feel like we had this dream

even after our depression still lingers

and our arthritis can still be felt in the fingers

and our AIDS rate keeps growing

and our blood stops flowing

even in the midst of the curses

and the confusion

we’d still rather give ear to this Freedom

the illusion.

I am

history_hourglass

I am rotten lettuces on tasteless teeth
twisted letters
filthy rags
spoiled meat
I am hands shaking chills of cold winds seeping a cold soul
in a cold world,
I am a braggadocios body bobbing back and forth, carving bones of a sick skeletal make-up
I am he who has yet to have woken up
I am dry bones
I am the one to whom you’ve thrown stones, and chuckles judged my attempt simply to exist
You bypassed me,
laughing, you joked at my life,
you did not consider I may have been Abraham’s wife
or Rachel’s daughter
may have been your foundation
you did not consider I could have planted in the bowels of a broken being rooted seeds,
you didn’t believe your saliva could have been running down the face of Jacob’s seed
I am proof of your past
I am not first, I am last
But I am not last, I am first
I am broken waters to quench your thirst
I am shattered glass
Chanted songs and free at last
Beautiful earthquakes, hour glass
The materialized substance of your disobedience
I am the gift to your present
I am crumbled potato chip bags curling in the agonizing pain of empty contents
I am dirty walls and street gangs, schools without common sense
spiritual non-sense
I am slavery folded within the pages of ignorance
I am pregnant mothers at 16,
I am dope dealers
Crack fiends
I am cold rods against soft bones
Dripping water stains like ice cream cones, I am your portion
I am Planned Parenthood, I am abortion.
I am poverty, sickness, I am disease
I am the consideration of obedience to reverse this
I am the judgment of sins,
I am The Curses
I am history
I am present, I am future and I am youth
I am both what you desire and what you despise
I am
The truth

Break the Chain

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Thought I saw her self-esteem in the carpet.
Her back bearing the burden of bare floors
and
forks that scraped the bottom of clay plates
Thought I saw pain on the side of her state
of mind.

Thought I saw her spirit cut low like the grass.
Scattered pieces of forgetfulness floating fluently throughout her bones
that
clung its skin like melted wax welding its warring arms wildly in the sun
I asked her
Why she allowed herself to suffer she said, “I’m waiting for a change to come.”

I walked on…

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I felt metallic liquid lick my cheeks, the blood of one who’s hung.

His body shriveled up in the bowels of his own sadness,
His face “a raisin in the sun”

I can see that his faith had fallen down to his knee caps.
But his eyes bulged boldly on and his life sped passed me in just a few years
Till my taste buds could create a meal from the salt I saw dancing in his tears
Telepathically he told me
that he didn’t die right here beneath this oak tree
But, “stepping foot inside this land is what killed me” He said
And like a mad woman I stared deep into a dead man’s eyes and said, “I see.”
I said.

“So why do you hang out here like one whose been hung?”
He told me, “Cuz I’m waiting for a change to come”

I walked on….

At Play Near The Robert Taylor Houses

And this time crossed the Jordan
And I could hear nothing but the soft laughter of children in my ears
Shouting…jumping,
till I realized I had not entered the promised land,
but this was a street court filled with Jordan fans
Where
hope bounced back and forth to the sound of merciless concrete
polished “Niks” was like knives reaching for revolution in the air
it was cold
but the men were hot
contradictory

the American dream tied around the wings of the goddess of victory
these were project kids with $200 dollar Nikes
unknown vehicles hitting the streets
and then the seats
were suddenly empty

I realized then that I had been standing in the middle of a blank street
a court turned into a corpse
Low income homes now funeral homes, they trampled upon one another
fighting to “one up” one another
silently and still
I saw it
pieces of paper scraped up and scattered to the four corners
(Guess that’s why were still fighting one another for street corners)
a
basketball balled up and clumped like a clot of blood
carved into the cracks in the streets where crack addicts one day roamed the streets
I asked
this balled up clot of hopelessness “Where are you from??”
it told me,

“I wish to go back… but I am waiting for a change to come.”