To My Daughters

Why I am here…

I am here to demonize your humanity

To showcase your insanity

To make you crawl back into the incubator that birthed you

Because you are not yet pubescent, not even invitro

I am here to cast my shadows upon you

Because only in darkness can you see the light

I am here to taunt you

To torment you

And in the end

Give you sight

Because the only thing you see now

Before anything and everything else

Is yourself

And that is more blinding than the solar eclipse

And keeps you from your higher self…

"Everybody is a Genius..."

"Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid." ~Albert Einstein

In a world full of sheep

Intelligence doesn’t creep

Doesn’t tiptoe

Or even rear its brainless head

Intelligibly

Take Forest Gump for example

And tell me

If you can’t exist in the world

And simply be

With all the help

Of the community

Because intelligence

Has to do

With relativity…

In Describing What It’s Like to Be Black

There’s no silencing

The noise in your

Head when

The volume control is broken

And there is no power button

Nor plug

Because you don’t do the controlling

You’re just a speaker box

With a horrible song on repeat

That you do your best to tune out

Otherwise you become immune and each time you hear it

It becomes a little less enterprising

Until it no longer capitalizes

On your positive energy

It’s just sound

-noise

-one perception

It doesn’t burn in the ears of

Those who’ve been here

For the past 300 years

With inferior fears

Black, shiftless tears

That have honed enough sanity

To live through the inhumanity

And degradation of the notes you

Unapologetically call “music to my ears”

I...

Trash Heads

I put fear in my pocket

And ball it up like trash

Ready to throw it away

At the first wastebasket

I see

You see

Fear has long been

A conundrum to me

Exuded in my flesh

At best

To those who see

Me

As an enemy

The stereotypes

That play

In stereo

Resounding unanimously

To the beat of the drum

The world pounds in my ears

But I pretend that I just

Don’t hear it

It’s all noise to me

The noise of fear

Fear being calamity

That spins in the minds

Of those who choose

Not to think on their fears

Not to question

Not to reflect on

Where their fears stem from

Or how illogical their fears...

Burn Victim Haikus

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her soul

-Only her burned flesh

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her mind

-Only her body

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her heart

-Only her anger

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her dreams

-Only her vile life

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her hope

-Only her despair

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her light

-Only her darkness

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her grace

-Only her unease

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her smile

-Only her sad tears

She was beautiful

But nobody saw her fate

-Only her perils

And thus her beauty

For D.B.

Your perception of me

Is a travesty

A conception of which

You will never understand

Embedded so deeply

In your lack of humanity

Because you refuse to be

Humane

And I’m the one who becomes insane

In trusting friends

Who never were

Or loved ones

And family

Who don’t want to admit

They share the same blood as me

Who can’t see

Intrinsically

I am not the sum of my sexuality

That there’s more to me

A duality

A sum of parts

That made me real to you

At one time

Now you treat me as if

I’ve committed a crime

In being me

Who else can I be?

Should I pretend

To be something I’m not

To feel something I don’t

To mend the fences you erected

Because y...

On Loss

In retrospect of all the major losses I have had,

I am grateful and recognize they weren't meant to be

They weren't meant for me

Dead weight

Men who never cared for me

Even loss of virginity

Didn't mean I was impure

But rather gave me a greater view of what love

Was supposed to be

Jobs that weren't good enough for me

The rejection lists were no great travesty

When the door of opportunity

Opened to reveal something even greater

Than I had previously

Believed I was worthy of

-Something worthy of me

Loss in retrospect

Was the least best thing

That I'd expect

Could be the greatest single thing

That has ever happened to me

Loss you see

Isn't negativity

It only sharpens your course

For what is supposed to be yours

Li...

Support VS Acceptance

It’s not for me to accept

But I support you

In your decision to accept it or not

Though I prefer you didn’t

Accept a label

Or wear your reality like it’s some fine robe

Or carry the weight like an unmovable anchor on your soul

And let it limit you

Or use it like an excuse

For what you say and what you do

Because the truth is

It doesn’t define you

You are more than the hand life dealt you

Don’t be out of touch

Don’t be out of reach

Your life means so much

Though you can’t quite see it

But you are young

Have yet to discover your purpose

And find your life’s meaning

You don’t need a crutch

And you don’t have to keep bleeding

Be who you are

It is who you were meant to be

If the world can&r...

We Control Our Destiny

This poem will be featured in my upcoming work "The Chain Breakers" set to premier black history month 2.14.2018 on Amazon by M.D. Johnson

From the shores

Of L’Afrique

To enslavement

Upon a slaver’s ship

To America

Home of the brave

Land of the free

Passed war &

Passed Civil Rights

Right back into the clutches of captivity

To prison

-enslavement

-in amazement

-I’m complacent

It’s no mystery

-the hypocrisy

14 million whites and

2.6 million blacks

Report illicit drug use

Yet, despite the fact that

5 times as many whites are using as blacks,

Blacks are sent to prison at 10 times the rate of whites.

I’m not making light

Of the fact

Or pointing the finger

At the other g...

Moses

This haiku poem will be featured in my upcoming work "The Chain Breakers" set to premier black history month 2.14.2018 on Amazon by M.D. Johnson

Harriet Tubman

We will follow you always

Through freedom’s vast doors