Hate Being Right

2016:

Pattern recognition,

Look, look! I said,

I saw the signs.

I know my histories, 

Histories that pump with both guilt, and defiant survival in my mulatto veins

Histories of Europe, of Africa, of brave new worlds of US,

Of capitalism and conquest,

Doctrine of discovery

Of colonization,

And enslavement,

And subjugation, 

And decimation,

Of erasure,

Of cruelty of the most egregious kind, 

The kind too sick to even imagine.

Only, I asked you to imagine it, 

to 

connect 

the 

dots,

To try to

Stop it!

–But I 

was “crazy”,

But I 

was “unwell”

…2026:

But I saw true,

Just maybe it took a little 

longer 

than foretold, 

But, here we are.

Distraught and livid,

 I’m still in it,

Just changed, 

Still trying to plan how to just be;

Survive,

And to help pull us, 

minister us through hell. 

I knew too much, 

Too soon,

Ahead of the times.

But, maybe for once the historians, the oracles, the crazies just needed the mic in the room,

To have kept us from this present doom.

And now the black truck wagons I saw circle,

In this Apocalypse of our own making,

it burns my tongue not to mention it,

And I don’t

(It is of no use now)

There’s No satisfaction in this “I told you so”

But, God damnit, 

I hate having been right.

Trust the Process

Before it had all gone south
And wires crossed
I had been on a mission,
Of gratitude
And change,
I forgot my trajectory
Amid complications,
Things turned upside down,
And I came to regret
So much of this,
Yet further reflection makes me wonder
Was this all part
Of the process,
One that is yet complete,
Of the quest I first began?
Trust the process.

Healing

Healing is bittersweet,
It is hope with a tinge of pain,
The sting of loss,
Healing a heart is beautiful,
And sorrowful
With loss amidst the challenge
Of facing the unknown,
It is an escape room,
With the excitement from
The fear itself,
In a contained space,
The heart beats for what was,
The familiar,
And fears even the beauty of a fresh start,
Facing that conflict
is where the healing happens,
A heart is stitched together, bringing opposite sides together
Cry for what was,
But not for what could have been,
Because it wasn’t;
But there is a “will be”
On the horizon,
If you will let it come
To be.

Cipher

https://youtube.com/shorts/VE3QCMjQPYM?feature=share

I have not the slightest idea
What to write
Yet;
My fingers ache
For the outstretched movement of muscle,
To bring symbols to life,
With a scratch of graphite,
The flow of ink,
In key presses,
Or a screen swipe by impatient digits;
This mind is a cipher
of possible letter,
word combinations,
Awaiting the right alignment,
A key
–Inspiration,
To Communicate
Feeling and thought,
Forged in the furthest recesses
Of this artistically wired mind,
Bringing forth symbols,
Strung into messages,
All in an effort
to unlock,
and light up thine.

Brown and Lovely

Brown,
A color often not given much love,
It’s a color often only liked by association,
I wonder
What is it about the color of wood, earth and chocolate,
That we avoid,
Black is beautiful,
And brown a twist
A darkened orange
Often left out of the mix,
My aunt once marveled about my skin,
As “brown and lovely”
I rebuked
Knee jerked,
internalized oppression
Creeping in,
Not letting me see brown as Beauty,
On me

Fast forward,
Black Lives Mattered,
And layers of concealer were peeled back,
To see hate self inflicted on me,
And others like me,
With little deaths,
Until depleted self-esteem
Threatened and began feeding on worth,
A self-love kick flipped my switch,
Rewound, and unwound
The mental emotional noose I was putting on daily for being in a vessel,
Beautiful,
But with “eyes” made blind to see,
Gazing mahogany to caramel through a distorted gaze,
In snapping out of it,
In waking up
I’m confident in identifying shades of me;
I am brown
and lovely.

Impossible Possible

Do you know who you would be today,
If no one had ever crushed any of your dreams;
If doubters had paid no mind,
And never stole your thunder?
Do you know how high you would have flown,
if as a little one, no one said you “can’t ”?
Do you know right now who you are,
And how perfect and amazing you are,
Regardless of what has come before,
Or where you are now?
“Perfect” is not
A state of flawlessness,
But being of use
for what a “something” was meant to be for.
Be you- perfect,
For you,
And realize it too;
just first believe
even the impossible is possible.