[Black] Privilege

Knows to call someone before hand, know someone before hand, or someone who knows someone before embarking on anything required by the government. [Why stand in line when you can afford to pay the necessary bribes to get the documentations you need?] Convinces me to pull out my English when asking for a service so…

If My Heart

If my heart could grow You could have seen its seed Augmenting Pushing through the light Ready to produce fruits.   If my heart could talk You could have felt the unfelt; The love, the fear, the insecurities, the hope, the anguish, the frustrations.   If my heart could show You could have seen the…

Micropoems

Beauty There is beauty in stubbornness. in falling down, and picking yourself up Is it not the rising and falling of the waves that keeps the Ocean alive? ****** Find Yourself I provide you with water in a bowl, kneeling with love, Waiting for you to sip it all. Something about the way you Sip…

Looking Forward

Hanging on small dreams the year folds itself in the tired sunset like a mimosa leaf It murmurs and screams new names old promises lies retold at the same place where songs are set on the loose in unplumbed laughter and tears We lay wreaths of frustration with no other option but to see hope…

The Broken Mirror: to teach people to hate themselves…

Who are you? I am Angel. No, really, who are you? I am George Stop playing around! I am Hanson, Ferguson, Manson, Johnson, Ellison I am… Zombie Lost in the ways of my people, my identity, my heritage I am the soulless black-white being that haunts the screens of materialism in the face of my…

The Searching Cheats

Whirl of the wind Sing decades of familiar tunes Encroaching voices of old whispering stories untold Cold the breeze our bodies Freeze The Misplaced Birds they say they wail “We have lost our way” We are to show them their way We? We point They screech “Where?!” We point again And again Then we tell…

A Kind Of Architectural Grief

In the place of slaughter blood stains are not an anomaly. Normally,     the stain of love begins with a government’s betrayal,    a sacrilegious feast on the battered dreams of migrant workers    chimurenga wars and forgotten anthems of freedom.             a salary and a salt plea for…

Self-Negotiation

The thought of physical contact has begun to scare you again. 1. One morning, in the middle of breakfast making, your mother’s relative reaches out and grabs at your breast. Your mind trips into your memory and you are seven years old and another woman is playing x and o’s with your privates. 2. Maybe…

Let me

Should I use my pen or lips to talk about the things that trigger me? And if I talk will you be able to listen and discern? But why is that my gender intentionally creeps and mocks at me? Maybe I should be silent like a dead bell but How am I going to change…

Tied and Untied

I wrestle with my-self, With a battle of the mind which never ends, A race of thoughts which never Fades, I wrestle with the spirits in me Which feeds me doubts, Spitting darkness and unveiling lies, Tearing down hope With strange rhymes, Rhymes with strange rhythms, Rhythms which plucks my peace, Sabotaging my inner strength…