I saw a deacon picking up trash around our church’s parking lot

So I grabbed broom to sweep up empty bags/vials of crack rock

Broken mini bottles of gin, vodka, and rum

Condomsstill filled with #%*

Well, at least they are being safe, I...

Cue the music

Strike up the band

Manufacture the tears

Manufacture the cheers

Sanctified in sequins lowercase lords

At the church of artificial gods

Superficial skin deep mini dieties and divas own the stage

Man made light illuminate singer...

Big momma hands stilled

The kitchen forgot its hymns

Mercy missed supper

was once a poet

then survived the rinse cycle

writer of poems

does healing look like progress a quiet home inside voices children who do not flinch when their name is called perhaps it does but healing is strange because sometimes it doesn’t erase pain sustained under a legal system where the laws were unw...

loose strands growing side by side twisting into one tangled vine strengthen by time grows together into one loc locked up forming a strong bond every coil remembers pot liquor folklore and language older than snapping purple hull peas on the ...

Given a spark of madness is the madness of insisting that all is, when all are miserable.

Difficult to free fools from chains they revere. When seeking revenge, dig two graves; one for madness, one for yourself.

Madness occurs in direct pro...

Christians praise a trinity but are monotheistic

Media is fiction we worship because its unrealistic

America was stolen and became rich off the back of slaves

Those thieves found heaven on earth then buried their sins in gilded graves

Burning down the Wickerman

holds like setting fire

to myself, I built to survive.

Every dry limb,

a lie carried,

every hollow rib, the fear I fed,

the woven smile,

a mask worn .

Flames whisper

as they rise,

a language...

when I say "please" am I asking or begging am I being respectful or begging for a chance to be heard what does “please” mean what does “please” get me besides practiced patience and almost things is "please" really a thing or a way to slap...

These are my damn words

not softened,

not sanded down,

not dressed up

to make anyone comfortable.

They rise raw,

refuses to whisper,

refuses to apologize

for being loud.

If they burn,

let them burn.

These are m...

don’t get the wrong idea
when you read the words I write
and listen with attentive ears
to the words I speak

just because you saw me dancing in the street
and celebrating for days on end
when I heard that afros
black panther tee shirts
a...

There’s a riot breaking... fists, fire,

A storm of everything

Walls shake,

Truth cracks,

the quiet splinters like glass.

The uprising

of souls

tired of being contained.

The chaos is destruction.

It’s release.

Insi...

I AM SO

REAL REAL,

do you know

how I

FEEL FEEL???

some

ISH,

I just gotta

DEAL DEAL,

this ain't

NO SIDE SHOW,

or a

THRILL

THRILL, SOMETIMES

I AM MEAN,

MOST TIMES

I AM KIND,

SOMETIMES

I AM MAD,

BUT

RIGHT NOW,

I'M JUST FINE!!!

J...

STOP, just Stop.

I’m done swallowing storms

to keep the peace.

I’m done carrying weight

that was never mine

to lift.

This is the moment

the world hears my boundary

loud and clear.

STOP

before you burn yourself

STOP, just STOP

The n...

Angry, reflective....

two flames in the same glass,

one burning hot,

one burning slow.

I stare at myself

and see the truth

I tried to outrun:

the anger isn’t wild,

it’s wounded.

And the reflection

isn’t shame,

it’s clarity

the ...

Pour the water to wash away the weight of yesterday’s dust.

Sip the wine to honor the fire still burning in my chest.

I am learning that healing is a rhythm

a rinse, a rise, a taste of sweetness after the bitter has passed.

DAMN—

that’s the only word

big enough

to hold the weight

of what just broke open.

The truth landed hard,

no warning,

no mercy,

no time to brace.

But here I stand,

breath sharp,

heart steady,

ready to rise

fro...