Been There

Been there, by my side

Resonating through our conversation

Intertwined with the distance we share

So finish the task

Because I’m with you

Till the end of the line

Answers can be found when we listen

Not to them, but us

Not to everything, but the little things

Assertive convictions kick down the doors

I’ll always search you

My curiosity delves deeper

Every time you say never mind

They ask me where you are

And I say the left side of my heart

See my devotion, look at the rhyme

Marshall law, my words have taken me far

Avenging the time I didn’t know you were there

Restless mind wonders when you’ll follow

Inside the chamber of my soul forever

Etched in the canvas of my dreams

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What We Both Know

I could never, ever tell you why

There’s something underneath the shadows

Of my eyes, of the time, of the rhymes

I spend in excess devoted to you

There’s a lady in white, smiling right back at me

There’s a lady in white, smiling in the mirror

Right behind me

At first, I thought she was looking at us

Casting a glamorous countenance

Upon a shy man

Then I thought she was looking beyond

Casting a mirage upon parched maleness

Waters to be drunk only in the mind

Of a selectively silent man

Unafraid to write “ask” but afraid to say

Now I know she was looking neither at me

Nor behind me

But instead, through me

Wondering at the hole in my heart would lead

Pondering at the emptiness in my voice

As it leaves trembling diaphragm

Why are my written words so strong

But spoken so weak

Why do I attract other writers, confident and cunning

But hardly any friends

Am I genuinely becoming a loner in the making

Or something else altogether

Is that what she is looking for?

I wish she’d tell me she loved me

I wish she’d tell me she cares

Instead of never mind

Or hours of painful silence

I wish I could tell her face to face

What I think we both know is true

I’ll Never Wonder Why

There’s never a time when I wonder

Why I became friends with you

Sure, we didn’t like each other at first

But that’s kinda the point

I don’t like everyone I meet immediately

Although I know immediately if I’d like you

Or not

And I always felt we’d come around

It took time, but any real friendship does

It took patience, but any relationship does

It took letting someone into my life

Which I rarely ever do, and that took time

So much has been stolen out of me

And so much was beaten out of me

The fact I’m even half as kind as I am

Is almost shocking

He tried to make me the monster he became

But he only finished half the job

By night I’m focused, conscious, and wordy

By day I’m focused on wandering and limiting

The words I use because after so many

The hate, the blood, and the broken comes

And there’s only so much I can swallow

Before I have to spit you back out

I’m as two-faced as anyone can be

Kind but a killer if you get too close, or too far

Sympathetic until I run out of road to run on

Honest, unless I feel you’re not ready

For my truth

Somehow you didn’t mind my differences

Correction, don’t

Because we’re still friends

And I’m glad

I guess not being around limits what you see

What’s not shown can’t be held against me

You’ll eventually figure out, and like most

You’ll try to leave before you see too much

But I hate hurting people I love

So you’ll find my bed empty

Before your heart does

 

I love, but can’t myself connect

I live, but can’t myself deflect

The past life

Vessel Of Troubled Thoughts

The method of my madness

Is the confidence in blackness

In a meadow of white flowers

Some roses, some saps

In a forest of unintelligible raps

Small, handcrafted lines don’t stand a chance

And they never gave me one, no endorsement

But with patience and practice I absorbed it

Now wherever I go I pen the deepest passion

Without inspiration, just routine, no rations

Of any emotion I might be feeling at the time

Be it anger, be it guilt, be it sadness

That often warms as a thick quilt

Draped over a sick child in fits of agony

Don’t look at my misery, don’t behold

The catastrophe

But you can’t help but read, I can’t help but write

The tasers, headlamps, and body cams

The prisoners, the sentencers, the tweeters

They don’t scare me

Not nearly as much as I scare myself

Digging up these solemn regrets

And showing them off to the world

As if I were a vessel of troubled thoughts

With nothing left to give

What Words Bring

I had to get rid of me

To find Me

The suicidal depressions

And disappointment brewed

From pornographic misconceptions

The boiling, bawling anger I couldn’t control

Tearing myself from the flesh I called home

Descending into the valley, alone

I couldn’t come out until I figured how

Embrace my unique in a cookie cutter world

Screaming and crying until my nose would bleed

I was lost, so lost, it would seem

But when I went to sleep, I prayed to the walls

Please help me, lead me to something better

Something bigger and brighter than me

Everything in my eyes is failing, and I fell

Into dreams I haven’t had before or since

Wash my hands clean of the past

And embrace the new Me, the one you read

I don’t know what my own voice sounds like

Drowning in a chorus of many voices

Some needs are prioritized over others

But I always come back to the poet in Me

For words give me peace

Neither life nor death can bring

Nobody Listens To Me

Why should I listen

Nobody listens to me

When I say I’m tired, pouring on the pain

Becomes involuntary

Like the assumption that I’m slower

Or not there at all

Because I’m so still, so quiet

Thinking, wondering, adding

Really, you should try it

But don’t ever ask how I’m feeling, no

They only see what is thought to be insolence

And I became the last one picked for anything

I become the last on their minds, if it all

I become the first to reply, and the first to fall

Somehow I thrive and relish it all

The agony of being the only one in the group

Without someone who you’re close to

Who understands you, who cares about you

What I would give for a perfect son like that

But what I wouldn’t would be a longer list

Because in the space of time I am missed

I refuel with the words of my ancestors

Fellow writers, and leaders that inspire

If anyone is listening to me, it is them

Through the pages of history I am restored

Vindication shall be mine, and more

27

27

Riding off into the dark

Not a thank you

Nor a middle finger

Just a sigh

To keep the bind

Passing time

Till I blend my rhyme

With the flame in your eye

That punishes my good

Rewards my bad

And makes me wonder

Where I’ve been along

Time never seemed emptier

Days never felt so much like night

Till I put myself to sleep in the trust of your knife

Give the period of your wildest dreams

And I’ll show you

Worlds NASA will never see

Because you’re my star

Caught in gravity

Destined to tear each other apart

This Child Becomes Undone

Don’t mind

I’m just writing

Clues for you

Clues for your heart to follow

And yours hips to ride on

Write on

About how I don’t appeal to you

Your sensitivity, shaken, curiosity, awakened

Yet I feel I’m a pawn in your sea

But you’re the one to be sunk

By the weight of my words

The bitter past swells in the eye

This storm feeds off your attention

The beauty on the outside

Fuels the monster within

Never to be feared

And temporarily loved

I sleep with your soul, one eye open

Wishing while wild

To have this child undone

I’m Okay With This

Got a knack for poetry

Crafting heartfelt lines

Borne of an outsider

Watching the world go by

Never done what people said, got into trouble

World’s not kind to my kind, be in my bubble

Silently preying on those with open hearts

Check my blogs, see a lot of orange dots

I didn’t make a lot of friends when I was young

But when you comment “well done”

“Amazing” and “❤️”

The words become alive, the evil undone

My father wasn’t kind to me, but you are

And I’m not finished, but I’ve come far

My life is a battleground, this means war

My heart is a bunker, these words mortars

My spine is a fortress, these tears are arrows

Tipped with fire

The invisible wires around my people

Will one day fall as I climb the steeple

Of supremacy and statues

Identity and virtues

But until then, I’ll keep writing

And you keep telling me how you feel

We’re connected, you and I

Even on a technological level

And I’m okay with that

Taking Back My Life

White light

Switch the day

to night

Black as whips

Cross my skin

I fight

As breath is faint and light

Cross my body go chains of steel

I fail

As hunger burns heavy and tight

The American Dream is frail

As the tears that take vision from my eyes

From my family, from my future

And everything and everyone I hold dear

I’ll never be like you, and always in fear

Of what they might do

Because I’m not like you

Jogging through the city to find my peace

I still can’t find a seat to eat from this table

It’s a fantasy, but these cramps are real

Building my endurance through literature

I cannot outbid you, but I can out write you

I can speak of men young and old

Shatter your old and refurbished ways

The sun shines on me, on this new day

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