The Poet Named Pain

I’m so passive aggressive

It’s actually quite hilarious

Name-dropping without spelling their name

Cracking awful jokes about people I hate

I’m so full of anxiety about this world

And this is how I get it out

In poetry, in tiny pictures of my world

And through the eyes of those I love

I show them to you in hopes you see why

I love, I live, I breathe, and I write

There’s a place for rousing speech

But if I can write poems that convey the same

Express my visions for a better world

That don’t incite political or racial tensions

Then haven’t I done the job of two?

Just because I’m black

Doesn’t make my work

Political in every way

But it does suggest I watch what I do and say

Because people have this way of twisting

The ideas they cannot comprehend

And if I write a 10, and they can’t transcend

I leave them to their own designs

Without the red hats and clutter

I tell the world the things it needs to hear

I don’t need a wall, just give me a pen

I will divide the fear, unite the pain

Under one roof, then smash it in

Because no one deserves this sin

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Still

Time travel to a past well dreamt

Dreams are broken, nightmares hardly spent

I took every chance I had with her

And broke it with an sixteen year old wrench

I was bullied, I was cheapened, I was bruised

Not by you, but by someone in the mirror

That said I wouldn’t ever have what they do

For years I had always believed I wouldn’t

Being black, having Aspergers, said I couldn’t

Shouldn’t, because I have no representation

But the only display I want of who I am

Is me

I’m still quiet, painfully awkward, and short

On friends

But it’s my life, and that’s all I’ll ever want

Until the very end

You can spend every ounce of your life

Trying to be someone else, and in failure

Wasted everything

Or spend one moment as the person

You were meant to be

And gained a fraction of deific treasure

Only a select few have ever tasted

If I Ever Cared

If I cared, if I ever did care

Truly for one moment or another

Wouldn’t I have seen you already?

Time may pick at my scars, but I

Have so many they can’t get to them all

So some of me remains traumatized

And the rest in silent perdition

Who knows or cares of my condition

I don’t bother telling because it won’t change

It won’t make you like me more, maybe less

Or maybe I’ll just be the token outlier

Just you can say you’re well rounded

Fuck all of that, let me go to work

Make my money, support my family

Write my heart out to anyone who’s bored

Enough to listen, and sleep deeply

Knowing that one day I’ll finally meet Her

If the prize was truly at the end of the line

Then everybody would make it

But the real glory is in making the steps

For though we may never achieve perfection

Catching excellence is right along the way

I don’t ever mean to be perfect

Just perfectly flawed in every meaning

In every way the antidote in a world of sick

I can be the healing remedy

My Next Kill

Shadows hasten in depth

Silence slows my breath

Nightmares choose my head

To reign, and in doing so condense

my dreams into the smallest fragment

Space and time are no longer relevant

When I’m squeezed by last and present

I can taste my sweat beading off my face

The want to turn and run, never greater

But what if they see me screaming?

Will that encourage a deeper chase? Longer

Farther, faster, until there’s no Earth left

I am under ever present duress by sins

Repentant for, but must feel consequences of

Elicit emotion out of me, I may bow my head

But I fear far more for you, I have had my rest

Explicit emotions, feeling you, touching you

Making you wet, not with excitement

But stimulation needed to escape a hunt

My deathly rituals cannot be undone

And you are my next one

Inner Pains

Leave a drink out for me

And I just make take a sip

Let it be poison, let be a path

To unbridled pleasure and release

I really, really don’t care

Just make it stop

The water logged, clogged feeling

And the itch that comes from being alone

Turned down before I can ask

Disappointment isn’t so painful

When you know you’re just going to fail

Not because you think you’re a failure

Or because you’ve been told

But simply because it’s never worked before

So why would it start now

Agony Triples

Slipped in my need

Thought I’d be out forever

Then I looked up and discovered

Someone like you

And thought, wow

She’d make me free

Gravitational attraction towards depression

Sleeping in to two to avoid the truth

I missed my chance to have you

Every sunset, I remember the evenings

Where I’d leave and say goodbye

Never realizing what might’ve happened

If I stayed

Now I say I would love you more than him

Love you forever

But I can’t, because I didn’t, and I’m sick

Not of him, and even less of you

But of me, because it’s always been me

Never knowing my lucky breaks

Until they were already gone

And you’re so much more than a chance

So my agony triples in slumber

What’s Free To Me

I didn’t get the chance to pick

The color of my skin

If I did I might’ve picked white, they always win

At least that’s what they tell me

They tell me they ahead of us, richer, smarter

Faster, stronger than all of us

They got 24 hours, but we ain’t got the same

I must’ve worked two jobs

And taught myself how to write poetry

In what? 12 hours, man you know that’s a lie

But they don’t ask us why some don’t try

They don’t ask why some would rather kill

rob, and be lifeless

Is it really easier to give up and die?

I could’ve grown up with a hate for the whites

Cause they took so much from us so long ago

Even now, racism still permeates my country

Blatant disregard for my people in my face

You speak so well, you write so well

What, you’ve never seen a black master English?

And I know I ain’t the only one, I know it

But if they really dug deep and found thriving

Blacks, in spite of deviant politics

Then the belief we can’t succeed is relieved

Of its duty to deceive

No longer can we use time as an excuse to fail

And instead we get up everyday with a will

A will to raise mountains out of the valleys

And continents from the seas

A will that says I am greater than the sum of my parts

The parts that make me cry, the parts that bleed

The parts that tell me I can only be what I see

I’ve been off this planet, and taken up high

I’ve seen what it’s like to live and die

In a world that is not locked to our desire

Gravity, gravity, you have no goal but calamity

A sickness that causes and sustains depravity

What I see is not what I can be, see

Everything I can be is everything I imagine

And imagination is recreation of the tragedy

we call every day life, I call it a menagerie

Of blood and disappointment, of pain

And presumption that someone else will fix

What we ourselves caused

And if I’m wrong, then I’ll be the first to admit

I was wrong

Somehow I know I’m not, I read a lot

I’ve seen the lot of those who think they’ve got

Everything on lock, this life is wrought

With misgivings and traps, so if you think

You have a map for it, I’ll show you a pit

None of us expected, better that, predicted

Because science is always right, isn’t it?

With Me

I find the night time to be the right time

To make love to you, the right rhymes

Lead us to the conclusion I’ve always had

We may be young, and we may let our past

Discourage who we are, and who we can be

But just like in these words, there’s much

Underneath the surface that we can’t see

And that’s what I want us to aspire towards

It the secret admirations and admonitions

That we dream for

Sometimes it’s hard, cause we’re so far away

It’s felt like a hundred million days

How can we ever change where we stay

Must we forever be apart?

Or is a changing of guard

In order? A testing of borders?

I am not full of boredom, just anticipation

Rising higher and higher, the electricity

Of a nation

I’ll be a rushing tempest to meet you

Because when that water dries up

And everyone else goes home

I’ll be the one to find you

In the desert, deserted in the heat

I’ll bring you home

I’ll bring you home with me

Sounding Like

Hey

I’m sorry

But I’m

Not interested in your pain

I hate to sound like a narcissist

But I’ve got my own wounds to manage

Guilt tripped, living among the brokest

Cars, they bought this

Emancipation, they call this

Life spent on money, drugs, and strippers

Taking what isn’t yours is life to the fullest

The system broke them, then blinded them

All we can breathe is intoxicating remnants

Nauseous fumes of century old descendants

Black and white alike who never thought to try

To find a new way to live, something more

Than to just survive

And I coulda been one of you

Once I wished to be just like you

Now I’ve got my own, and now all I can say

Is how did I ever even wanna imagine you

Money is good, my own is better

Kitty is great, but the only thing I make wet

Is this throat, cause I gotta stay quenched

But my passion won’t ever, so drenched

In writing and thoughts I might drown

I don’t have many friends, but I love it

When we hang out, give me something

Called perspective, connection, and direction

Cause I ain’t the only one on this planet

And if I ever did, I might regret that

Life ain’t promised past the next minute

So I do what I do best, and that’s living it

Tomorrow don’t matter, the past don’t either

Only the breath today, the words today

I am so grateful for another day

To prove that I wasn’t a mistake, and that way

They can never say

I didn’t make something of myself

Long Ways

I’m honest, not flawless

I’m aching, despondent

And I recognize that in order

To have a semblance of a life

I have to write it, someway, somehow

I’m on it, I’m on it

My past is haunted

I have nightmares still trapped in closets

Different homes brought back new phases

I texted different girls, but they all had

The same faces towards me and all of my

Apologies

I ruined good friendships, stuck in bad ones

She met me through our job at market

And I nearly three away that one

Call it Aspergers, call it youth

Or simple cluelessness

I say I’m a long way from getting it right

The truth is, I don’t think I ever will

I never thought I’d have this time

But I enjoy the thrill of life

And the good and bad that comes with mine