Walk

He said
“Ay Yo Shay…Why you walk like that?”
and I paused…..
Back straight,
shoulders lowered and back.
I walk like…..
I walk like I can’t be broken though my cracks are clearly visible
to anyone who dares to look close enough.
Intertwining to weave my history into my skin…
Run your fingers down my forearms,
see if you can feel my sacrifices.
Linger at my wrist and you’ll find scares that resemble those of He
who was nailed and hung from parallel trees.
I’ve been crucified
multiple times,
just in different formations…
Age 18,
arms cuffed behind back.
Faced pushed against hood.
Penalized because the melanin in my skin made me fit the description of guilty.
My skin tone mimics molasses,
which must mean my fingers are sticky.
Age 15,
body pressed against his living room wall.
Right arm locked behind my back.
Left arm pinned to my side by wall,
and his body weight.
Hair gripped tight in fingers.
Head yanked back,
he said that he’d be damned if I left him…
and then he told me he loved me.
Age 8,
body sprawled on concrete.
Arms bound at wrist and held over my head.
Legs spread wide like an upside down crucifix
to unwillingly welcome snakes into my garden of Eden.
And then after he was done,
I was left behind.
Discarded as carelessly as the rag he used to wipe himself off with.
I can still picture it clearly on the floor…
tattered and bloody,
worn and covered in his viscid explosion.
The mirror reflection of my hymen.
“Ay yo Shay, why you stand like that?”
A pillar of defiance,
I stand so I can be knocked down.
Broken,
and rebuilt
so mold me.
Transform me into everything they told me I could never equal up to.
But please,
leave Me pieces of yester Self so I be reminded
that She was always beautiful.
I was worthy…
once.
Before,
I use to walk like I held God’s envy in my womb.
Before,
I use to love Me
who was in love with Self.
But Self broke Me’s heart too many times,
and I couldn’t pick up the pieces
so now I’m choking on pieces of potential self acceptance.
He asked me,
“Ay yo Shay, Why you walk like that?
Always gotta stand off to the side like that,
like you to good to look at people?”
But looking at people makes cracks visible,
and the thing about cracks is…
they have a tendency to be contagious.
So I try to keep mine to myself,
‘cause under pressure,
they stretch,
then they might reach yours,
and the pain gets transferred.
Then your cracks grow longer and branch out,
then those branches spread like trees,
and then everybody ends up broken…
like me.
Looking at people,
usually leads to eye contact,
and eyes are the windows to the soul,
and souls tend to be reflective,
and it should be clear by now…
I don’t really like looking at myself.
So I walk like my feet are tectonic plates.
Slow…but with purpose.
Feet sometimes brushing against each other,
that’s why I stand like mountains.
He kept asking,
and I finally answered.
I walk,
back straight.
Shoulders lowered,
with the bible tattooed on my spine,
and Lucifer’s sin sitting in the dip where my ass meets my back
so that with every step I take,
Hell quakes under me.
An angel walking through a fire pit with scorched wings.
I pulled my own feathers out my back burning
just so I could write the sky a lullaby in the form of lightning…
thunder mimicking my heartbeat.
I walk to set an example.
I walk,
because my grandmother
and mother had to.
I walk,
simply to remind myself…
I still know how to.

Mindtrip

Sitting…
Reminiscing on how good it use to feel when I would remember
how to forget.
Running fingers through my hair,
trying to retrace my roots as if I could find my ancestors ashes in my dandruff…
I never did like washing my hair.
I always thought that each strand that fell
was just another unused opportunity to find where I come from,
so I forgot my name.
Took to trying on the glass slippers of others,
but I found out all too soon that fairytales…
weren’t meant for little girls like me.
Split between 2 families,
2 wars,
and I guess 4 inch glass stilettos would make it a little hard for G.I. Joe to stand his ground in,
so I was given my father’s combat boots.
I was taught how to march in them,
but one day I couldn’t remember how to lace them up.
Barefoot and broken I ran back into who I forgot I was.
Have you ever witnessed a butterfly
fling it’s self into a bolt of lightning like a Buddhist monk self immolating?
I was always something like a pyro.
Amazed by the flame,
and obsessed with the burn.
I torched my memories and set fire to my veins.
Black is suppose to be beautiful,
but I wonder if my ancestors could see beauty in their hung loved ones with scorched skin.
swinging from the necks of trees,
old school Jesus pieces.
I wonder if they could remember the smell.
Sitting,
barricaded by broken I remembered…
went back to the day I saw life in brown skin.
The day the beat was given back to the music box hidden under my left breast
I tripped into love with ice.
Fell,
and couldn’t remember what standing felt like,
so I forgot my affair with the flame.
Damn if the cold didn’t feel good sometimes….
and sometimes,
I would stay low and pray for the rain
just so I could run against the clouds and maybe mistake my tears for raindrops…
Numb myself enough so that I could break this bloodline between us without hemorrhaging.
Till I saw the sunrise in your smile
and felt the blaze in your touch.
I.
Forgot.
My name.
My ideological foundation cracked beneath me.
I found myself free-falling through galaxies,
so I renamed myself Halley,
Comet,
‘cause just like he,
she,
it,
I challenged the Sun’s beauty.
but only in the darkness…
In the daylight,
I would lose luminosity and just blend in.
Maybe that’s why I would always cry come morning,
afraid that my son wouldn’t rise right.
So while reminiscing on how good it use to feel when I would remember how beautiful forgetting felt,
I forgot.
Got lost inside my hair
with my roots wrapped ‘round my throat
like my ancestors’ way of screaming remember me.
I choked on their ashes and I remembered the dirt and bone I came from.
Remembered the war,
the fight.
Remembered the first night I forgot.
Remembered the flame
the smell,
I finally remembered-
my name.

Thy Kingdom Come

We were bred to be kings.
Murmured from lips the moment our heads are first freed from womb,
why do you think they call it crowning?
Our kingdoms are hidden in the beats that dance from Adam’s piano keys,
I am royalty…
I’ve constructed castles out of the sand I stole from Time’s hour glass
just so I would always have a safe place to keep my memories.
I’ve used the petals that fell from the rose in my chest like bricks.
Designing dynasties and hiding them sporadically in overlooked beauty.
My lost Atlantis,
They were not ready for you
so I hide you in the ocean above me,
formed the clouds to fit you.
The sky is my canvas
and I dare anyone to try and take it from me.
We are kings.
Even when our crowns are in pieces
you should still walk like royalty.
Learn how to carry broken on your shoulders,
a reminder of where you come from.
Sister,
though your crown may not be acknowledged
it doesn’t mean that it is non-existent.
Let no one tell you that you were not bred from diamonds.
You should only come second to God.
Get closer to God.
And don’t be afraid to let your rivers flow from your oasis,
cause you will never be stronger than when your weaknesses are exposed.
Listen,
because you have not been blessed with no greater gift
than the ability to hear beauty in simplicity.
See me,
I am everything lost.
Pieced together with the pieces that I have found
left from those who have come before me.
Trust,
I’ve been fucked by broken,
I know how it feels to feel hallow.
We can rebuild each other,
and re-shine crowns.
Now brother,
why do you deny your thrown.
This is where life begins
You are Adam…
you hold music in your chest that escapes from that missing piece.
You are king.
So act like one.
Even when you are not treated as such,
we are sorry.
But you built to walk up-right.
Powerful like thunder,
this storm will be over soon.
Brother,
you are beauty in it’s purest form.
Life is built on your foundations,
so lay a good one.
Don’t worry about old cracks
they make plaster for that.
If the world was not meant for you to carry alone
then that bone would’ve never been broken in the first place.
We are kings.
Even when sleeping in garbage
we are still garnished.
This world is our dying dynasty,
and too many of you have discarded your crowns
but I’m here to give them back to you.
Only if you want them,
we were bred this way so accept it.
King,
your thrown…
is waiting.

Eyes B

Eyes…
Big brown beautiful blessing that behold the unseen masked behind behavioral banality
‘Cause sometimes….
reality bites too hard.
So,
eyes be lying sometimes,
I mean,
I’z be lying sometimes.
In my mind it doesn’t seem so wrong ‘cause I’ve been doing it so long.
Now my eyes sing songs that lyrically manipulate mind frames
into reverentially relying on lying.
Eyes hold stories that can evolve into a series,
seriously.
I’ve gotten lost inside a pair that was homeless.
Instantly my eyes became vicarious,
and I aged with him.
then went back in times when daddy was never there,
and mommy wrote in her skin often because life was too hard for her to bear,
and one day her pages stopped singing.
I’z was there,
our eyes were there,
but didn’t leak as we picked up mommy the empty journal up off the floor.
Walked out the door of the only home that we would ever have.
We kept going back…
Back to the night we were born,
we were beautiful.
And mommy said she say potential in his eyes…
What happened?
I’z be,
Eyes be crying sometimes,
and don’t know why they leak.
Why their souls bleed.
Why they see things that they never should have in the first place
and keep replaying them over,
and keep replaying them over,
and keep replying them over
and over like a bad movie,
moving me.
I’ve witnessed tragedies.
Now it seems like each one of my heart beats is a lifetime gone to waste,
so I pace myself…
‘Cause eyes blink,
and worlds end.
Eyes sleep,
and galaxies are lost
and universes crumble.
Oh how the mighty are humbled when eyes be opened.
Eyes be widen in bewildered shock when they realize that they
have not seen everything.
And everything
is anything
anything is nothing
and nothing is always something.
And sometimes…
messages are lost in the crevices of eyes.
Then those crevices get over run,
and stories get past on,
extended,
remixed,
and flipped.
So let me flip the script.
Eyes be,
dead.
I’s be…
dead.
My eyes be….
Locked, loaded and cocked back,
ready to lash back at the last motha fucka that put these dagger wounds in my back
but then sometimes my eyes be like…….
man fuck that.
That bastard was just a right of passage,
no more significant than an act of flatulence
and I don’t need them to validate that I’m the shit,
‘cause I’m
the shit
to me.
And yeah you right…
that is slightly cocky,
but I’z be the only one who can take care of me.
My eyes be watching,
watching how eyes be ducking and dodging.
Dancing around they sockets.
Trying to keep their stories untold and their secrets unheard,
but still they eyes be singing.
Eyes be captivating.
So what are the ones next you saying?
I guarantee that if you take the time to look you’ll see that
your eyes be,
his eyes be,
my eyes..
be.

Mindtrip

Sitting…
Reminiscing on how good it use to feel when I would remember
how to forget.
Running fingers through my hair,
trying to retrace my roots as if I could find my ancestors ashes in my dandruff…
I never did like washing my hair.
I always thought that each strand that fell
was just another unused opportunity to find where I come from,
so I forgot my name.
Took to trying on the glass slippers of others,
but I found out all too soon that fairytales…
weren’t meant for little girls like me.
Split between 2 families,
2 wars,
and I guess 4 inch glass stilettos would make it a little hard for G.I. Joe to stand his ground in,
so I was given my father’s combat boots.
I was taught how to march in them,
but one day I couldn’t remember how to lace them up.
Barefoot and broken I ran back into who I forgot I was.
Have you ever witnessed a butterfly
fling it’s self into a bolt of lightning like a Buddhist monk self immolating?
I was always something like a pyro.
Amazed by the flame,
and obsessed with the burn.
I torched my memories and set fire to my veins.
Black is suppose to be beautiful,
but I wonder if my ancestors could see beauty in their hung loved ones with scorched skin.
swinging from the necks of trees,
old school Jesus pieces.
I wonder if they could remember the smell.
Sitting,
barricaded by broken I remembered…
went back to the day I saw life in brown skin.
The day the beat was given back to the music box hidden under my left breast
I tripped into love with ice.
Fell,
and couldn’t remember what standing felt like,
so I forgot my affair with the flame.
Damn if the cold didn’t feel good sometimes….
and sometimes,
I would stay low and pray for the rain
just so I could run against the clouds and maybe mistake my tears for raindrops…
Numb myself enough so that I could break this bloodline between us without hemorrhaging.
Till I saw the sunrise in your smile
and felt the blaze in your touch.
I.
Forgot.
My name.
My ideological foundation cracked beneath me.
I found myself free-falling through galaxies,
so I renamed myself Halley,
Comet,
‘cause just like he,
she,
it,
I challenged the Sun’s beauty.
but only in the darkness…
In the daylight,
I would lose luminosity and just blend in.
Maybe that’s why I would always cry come morning,
afraid that my son wouldn’t rise right.
So while reminiscing on how good it use to feel when I would remember how beautiful forgetting felt,
I forgot.
Got lost inside my hair
with my roots wrapped ‘round my throat
like my ancestors’ way of screaming remember me.
I choked on their ashes and I remembered the dirt and bone I came from.
Remembered the war,
the fight.
Remembered the first night I forgot.
Remembered the flame
the smell,
I finally remembered-
my name.

Royalty

We were bred to be kings.
Murmured from lips the moment our heads are first freed from womb,
why do you think they call it crowning?
Our kingdoms are hidden in the beats that dance from Adam’s piano keys,
I am royalty…
I’ve constructed castles out of the sand I stole from Time’s hour glass
just so I would always have a safe place to keep my memories.
I’ve used the petals that fell from the rose in my chest like bricks.
Designing dynasties and hiding them sporadically in overlooked beauty.
My lost Atlantis,
They were not ready for you
so I hide you in the ocean above me,
formed the clouds to fit you.
The sky is my canvas
and I dare anyone to try and take it from me.
We are kings.
Even when our crowns are in pieces
you should still walk like royalty.
Learn how to carry broken on your shoulders,
a reminder of where you come from.
Sister,
though your crown may not be acknowledged
it doesn’t mean that it is non-existent.
Let no one tell you that you were not bred from diamonds.
You should only come second to God.
Get closer to God.
And don’t be afraid to let your rivers flow from your oasis,
cause you will never be stronger than when your weaknesses are exposed.
Listen,
because you have not been blessed with no greater gift
than the ability to hear beauty in simplicity.
See me,
I am everything lost.
Pieced together with the pieces that I have found
left from those who have come before me.
Trust,
I’ve been fucked by broken,
I know how it feels to feel hallow.
We can rebuild each other,
and re-shine these crowns.
Now brother,
why do you deny your thrown.
For this is where life begins.
You are Adam…
you hold music in your chest that escapes from that missing piece.
You are king.
So act like one.
Even when you are not treated as such,
we are sorry.
But you were built to walk up-right.
Powerful like thunder,
this storm will be over soon.
Brother,
you are beauty in it’s purest form.
Life is built on your foundations,
so lay a good one.
Don’t worry about old cracks
they make plaster for that.
If the world was not meant for you to carry alone
then that bone would’ve never been broken in the first place.
We are kings.
Even when sleeping in garbage
we are still garnished.
This world is our dying dynasty,
and too many of you have discarded your crowns
but I’m here to give them back to you.
Only if you want them,
we were bred this way so accept it.
King,
your thrown…
is waiting.

Walk

He said
“Ay Yo Shay…Why you walk like that?”
and I paused…..
Back straight,
shoulders lowered and back.
I walk like…..
I walk like I can’t be broken though my cracks are clearly visible
to anyone who dares to look close enough.
Intertwining to weave my history into my skin…
Run your fingers down my forearms,
see if you can feel my sacrifices.
Linger at my wrist and you’ll find scares that resemble those of He
who was nailed and hung from parallel trees.
I’ve been crucified
multiple times,
just in different formations…
Age 18,
arms cuffed behind back.
Faced pushed against hood.
Penalized because the melanin in my skin made me fit the description of guilty.
My skin tone mimics molasses,
which must mean my fingers are sticky.
Age 15,
body pressed against his living room wall.
Right arm locked behind my back.
Left arm pinned to my side by wall,
and his body weight.
Hair gripped tight in fingers.
Head yanked back,
he said that he’d be damned if I left him…
and then he told me he loved me.
Age 8,
body sprawled on concrete.
Arms bound at wrist and held over my head.
Legs spread wide like an upside down crucifix
to unwillingly welcome snakes into my garden of Eden.
And then after he was done,
I was left behind.
Discarded as carelessly as the rag he used to wipe himself off with.
I can still picture it clearly on the floor…
tattered and bloody,
worn and covered in his viscid explosion.
The mirror reflection of my hymen.
“Ay yo Shay, why you stand like that?”
A pillar of defiance,
I stand so I can be knocked down.
Broken,
and rebuilt
so mold me.
Transform me into everything they told me I could never equal up to.
But please,
leave Me pieces of yester Self so I be reminded
that She was always beautiful.
I was worthy…
once.
Before,
I use to walk like I held God’s envy in my womb.
Before,
I use to love Me
who was in love with Self.
But Self broke Me’s heart too many times,
and I couldn’t pick up the pieces
so now I’m choking on pieces of potential self acceptance.
He asked me,
“Ay yo Shay, Why you walk like that?
Always gotta stand off to the side like that,
like you to good to look at people?”
But looking at people makes cracks visible,
and the thing about cracks is…
they have a tendency to be contagious.
So I try to keep mine to myself,
‘cause under pressure,
they stretch,
then they might reach yours,
and the pain gets transferred.
Then your cracks grow longer and branch out,
then those branches spread like trees,
and then everybody ends up broken…
like me.
Looking at people,
usually leads to eye contact,
and eyes are the windows to the soul,
and souls tend to be reflective,
and it should be clear by now…
I don’t really like looking at myself.
So I walk like my feet are tectonic plates.
Slow…but with purpose.
Feet sometimes brushing against each other,
that’s why I stand like mountains.
He kept asking,
and I finally answered.
I walk,
back straight.
Shoulders lowered,
with the bible tattooed on my spine,
and Lucifer’s sin sitting in the dip where my ass meets my back
so that with every step I take,
Hell quakes under me.
An angel walking through a fire pit with scorched wings.
I pulled my own feathers out my back burning
just so I could write the sky a lullaby in the form of lightning…
thunder mimicking my heartbeat.
I walk to set an example.
I walk,
because my grandmother
and mother had to.
I walk,
simply to remind myself…
I still know how to.