I have experienced, enjoyed, or emulated:

Isolation when the world or my thoughts

Become heavier than any desire to connect,

Loneliness when I crave another.

A piece of my own heart in human form

That in which was not of my own,

And alone, a stage that brings joy or sad

Depending on the sound of its tone.

There is so many ways one can describe

Being to themselves even amongst a world

Filled with life and busy bodies;

Even in a mind filled with busy voices

All of which are of your own.

Guess it just boils down to what

One wishes to feel in the moment.

Appreciating the joy or the sad

And like any matter changing its states,

Or for this case its stages. It depends.

On the situation whether you can say

It is good or bad, but to feel is the gift:

And it can be easier if you learn just how

To be glad.

I have looked into the mirror many times

And only have I picked out what I thought

Were the worst of my qualities…

Who am I to judge myself?

What right do I have to judge me?

From my looks, down to my abilities

Why should my body have to share a mind

With someone who wishes to only see an

Enemy? It’s unfair, the way compassion

Pours from the very veins of my existence

Then I turn around and offer myself poison.

No longer do I desire to share a body,

A mind, or even a soul.

With someone who wishes to see nothing

Other than an enemy. So, I sit

And remind myself that this is all of me.

Everything, even the things I have deemed

To be the very worst of my qualities.

Offering myself the opportunity,

To show myself what our love can be.

Treating improvement as a journey

And not proof that I am lacking

Because not every thought I’ve created

Will become proof of my identity.

It is okay to be my friend and not an enemy

To the same person that is all of me.

But sometimes I still crave for the people

Who caused the need for that growth,

To turn around and see how far I’ve come.

And when they don’t.

I am stuck feeling both empty and stupid,

Questioning myself,

“Have I actually grown at all?”

Made from it completely

By a creator, by design.

I am love.

Yes, I claim it. It’s mine.

Many times have I tried convincing myself

That I was anything but love.

I’ve deceived myself,

toyed with my own heart.

I once convinced me that I was fear,

That I was shame, disappointment, anger

And anxious regrets.

But no more.

I am love, even on the worst of my days.

When I feel helpless or lost, I can recall

That I am love of Andrew and Tanya

Love of a grandson and a nephew

Love of myself on the many occasions,

Where giving up felt like a solution.

Love was and has always been the answer.

Because I already possess it—

Inside & out.

So, you thought I invited you over so we can do something freaky, but I actually turn on “Bones and All…”

⬇️

But never be; you see:

Growing up in my community,

It was okay to play gay,

To joke gay, but to be Gay?

No, no, no that was not okay.

It was okay to sing gay,

To dance gay, but to be Gay?

There is just no way, I’m afraid.

Gay can sing in the choir of our churches.

Gay can design the clothes on our backs.

Gay can even be our bestie that doubles

As everyone’s favorite social accessory,

But Gay, we must never be.

Let the suga in your tank become poison in your veins

As you are taught to love everything about Gay

Except for the people who claim it.

Growing up in my community

It was okay to play gay,

To joke gay, but to be Gay?

No, no, no that was not okay.

And when you finally end it, due to all the poison

From hiding that suga in yo tank;

Know that they will be happy and celebrate Because they’d rather you be dead than

Gay

Quick morning write to start the new week!

By: Kenan Clark

A poem I wrote after accepting that my depression and autism maybe a lifelong struggle for me, but learning that happiness is still achievable through it all!

Whether it was architecture of the many tribes of Africa, the spiritual practices, their food, their customs, or anything that white colonists failed to understand. Or chose not to understand, lacked the patience or the time and effort to understand; it always result in the demonization, the destruction, or racial sabotage we now bury under the lukewarm definition of equality that they “granted us.”

The two images above references two different African Settlements, and the architectural design of their buildings. Normally made from material mixtures of mud, clay, dirt, or even grass. Demonstrating both an understanding and appreciation of the land’s resources and what it can do for them best. Not only the materials but the shape in which they built their homes. The geometric/sociological understanding of designs that led to higher quality of community involvement, sharing of traditions, and resource management. As they took time to understand their resources, practice math for the shaping of their villages, Europeans instantly labelled it as “primitive,” “unclean,” and “poor.” What game them such a right to label and judge? Was it because of they had access to money and violence before groups of people that didn’t place such values their yet? Without taking a moment to recognize how during the cold months the mud of the walls of these homes release the warm air stored during the day or how during the burning hot days the inside of these homes remained cool thanks to the materials used to build the walls.

Without taking a moment to recognize the geometric shape and mathematic arithmetic these people were practicing, they toured down their homes and replaced them with the neighborhoods we so love today, where neighbors can harm you from next door without ever even knowing your name or favorite color. Communities designed to be loving and caring first, stripped and isolated into the back of ships and overseas to be placed in project compounds, racist neighborhoods, too small apartments, food desert areas, and more. Because of their fear of the unknown they chose to destroy and erase, and using that same fear they convinced others that looked like them (their women too) that such practices were old and nasty, then they worked on convincing more and more about so much more than just architecture and home design.

They convinced us to demonize our ancestral practices. The movie Sinners by Ryan Coolger does a great job of highlighting the self inflicted wounds we deal towards our own ancestors and their practices and very work our community has done to build great things. How we will rather label their music as the fruits of evilness, the same music that inspired them to praise the plants for growth and the land for its food, the same music that kept some sane as they crossed treacherous waters, the same music the helped slaves work long enough until they were freed. We were taught to hate that part of our history but praise the moment the White Man’s Fear allowed us the chance to read from their bible, to sit like their churches, and dress in their white clothes to praise their God for the forgiveness of our ancestors sins.

Is it not ironic, how almost every black American child grows up knowing the stories of Zeus and the Greek gods, of their heroics and symbolism for morals. We are taught to appreciate such, but if you were to asked me how much of African mythology and traditions, how their people’s Gods have been portrayed to me and others. I can only speak for myself and say how it was never highlighted as good, how people didn’t thrive to find the stories of their heroes like they did for Zeus or Poseidon. No, they take the time to find the stories, practices, or the Gods that can justified the racial hierarchy they were designing by fear. This is not a dig at God but at the institution known as Christianity that has been a byproduct of the White Man’s Fear, one of their favorite tools that reminds other of their hierarchal status in our society. Many enslaved individuals saw consuming such a religion as a safe way out of the horrors they used it (religion) to justify.

Why must we treat our ancestors and their lives as evil, while our children are taught the improper histories of Christopher Columbuses or George Washingtons of the world that have slaughtered and raped multiple groups of people that they deemed to be less than themselves due to skin color. Now in modern society we watch as their descendants continue to reshape reality through the lens of fear.

How the poor and middle white class are willing to sell themselves to the fears produced by 1%, out of their own idiotic desires to not fall out of the White Man’s Fear designed social hierarchy. We watch how Charlie Kirks and Donald Trumps can change the definition of racism and the teachings of Martin Luther King to fit their belief that guns are great in schools and that immigrants are the reason our government is shutdown and somehow not the president and his administration.

The White Man’s Fear is interesting, it takes one scream from a white woman for a black boy’s joy to be lynched and brutalize. It takes just one white male News Reporter to get online and label black children as super predators, yns, thugs, or gangbangers, for the rest of society to start viewing our children as their danger and our blackness as proof of violence. When in reality a genocide of almost every other race and continent has been conducted by the hands of their own and their descendants remain stained by the blood still on their hands as they refused to acknowledge the active role in which that violence has had on the modern world. All it takes is false history, a couple racist portrayals, negative connotations, misinformation wrapped in impartial truths for the rest of society to go, “yea we understand why they fear those black people!”

We as a society can recognize the White Man’s Fear, the Hispanic community can recognize the White Man’s Fear, the Asian community can recognize the White Man’s Fear; so can us, the Black community, we can recognize the White Man’s Fear and so we all do the work and walk on eggshells and do the steps to not fall outside of the Fear-designed hierarchy. Yet, when a Black Person’s Fear is one not built on the refusal to understand the moment, but yet built on the deep understanding of the moment, our fear is ignored. Black Person’s Fear has atleast 60 million individual lives lost at the hands of this institution during just slavery, Black Person’s Fear has bodies of ancestors laying in the oceans, Black Person’s Fear has had their Harlems burned down and their churches where they pray to the same God the White Man’s Fear claims he does, bombed and massacred.

As we have factual evidence that all it takes is a lie inside of a white woman’s scream to end a black boy’s life, that a newspaper labeling of the Central Park 5 as “Superpredators” can guarantee our black children a stay in jail for crimes they did not commit. As Black Person’s Fear has evidence that you can & will come into our homes whether they are across the sea or in the backyards of the lands you all forced us to, that sadly the White Man’s Fear doesn’t even allow us to be from outside his sight while he trembles at very thought of too many of us in front of his eyes. It is sad how our fears cannot even be protected by the White Man’s Fear own wishes to segregate. Our fear is built on truth, and yet time after time it is questioned, the same goes for our judgments.

So now as others get online and can relish in the luxury of “regretting their vote,” after casting their ballots to ensure that the White Man’s Fear of becoming the minority doesn’t come true. Now thanks for your ability to understand the White Man’s Fear but demonize and ignore the Black Person’s Fear, children shall starve, families shall be torn apart, gay marriages maybe overturned. Children won’t be able to afford the medical bills of their parents, parents won’t be able to afford the medical bills of their children. We are watching how the White Man’s Fear has stopped our government for longest in history and how that Fear can blame everyone but itself for being so fearful that it somehow makes logic seems like magic. As we approach the holiday season and Christmas remember the greatest gift that America has given its people is division crafted by the White Man’s Fear with a cute bow on top.

Thank You for taking the time to read and remember we all have biases of our own that we should be thriving to break daily racial but not just racial. Lead with love in your hearts.

Roll the spliff and we can get high.

Let us inhale & bathe in our infused air.

Let our eyes meet just this once—

a stare, amongst the green-filled air.

Roll down the windows & let the smoke clear

I lost the flame, and yet, still lies a spark.

The blunt went down a while ago and yet

it is your words, your garden eyes

that keeps my high afloat inside this box.

Amongst the green-filled air,

I have been lost the flame.

I have been put the blunt down.

My high has been lost,

But for this I would pretend, for this

I would roll another, cop another

just so we can sit for one more song.

But I’ve rolled my windows down,

& the green-filled air has already cleared.

And I remember that I was high—

and you were never truly here.

Or something to come and save me

Craving a miracle to eliminate the dark

I’ve been learning that such a light,

Exist within me & that the light itself,

Is me. I have trouble with drowning out

The noise of my own mind. Especially as

Anxiety tiptoes its way along my spine.

It’s kind of beautiful the way I have survived.

How I trotting through darkness despite

Nothing more than to be consumed by it.

I try not to think of my journey as hard

For I know someone has it harder,

I try not to think of my journey as far

For I know someone else’s if farther.

Forgive myself for my wrongdoings

Understand that I am fighting

and some days the battles feel like war

As I reach for the white flag, I remember

Who and what I’m fighting for, I think

Of becoming the change I wish to see

And that suddenly gives me the strength to

To fight another day. My light may flicker.

But I don’t think I’ll ever actually let it go out.

Being alone, distant, or on my own.

Wait that is indeed scary:

This idea of being alone? But, why?

I have cried alone,

I have smiled alone,

I have giggled at my own jokes, alone.

Discovered the deepest corners of my mind, Learned to acknowledge my own beauty,

Created art that rivals both body and soul,

All these things I have done alone.

I’ve fought feelings of loneliness, alone.

I’ve convinced myself to keep going, alone.

I’ve witness some of my greatest successes,

Some of my most humbling experiences, &

Even confronted the ugliest things about

Myself, alone.

No, no, no I don’t fear being alone.

Not more than the idea of watching

The trees and the flowers grow, or how

The sun shine on spots that were once dark,

And still choosing to feel alone.

I do not want look up at the sun & only feel the moon.

and I lack the willpower to tell it to stop.

I no longer wish to spoil my crushes

With the sour desire, the bitter need

For feelings of reciprocation.

I will let my mind run rampant

Because I know it’s as far as my love will ever reach.

Trapped in a realm voided of reality

Amongst the sandy beaches of imagination

in here, you are my everything.

The person who smile that I crave,

The one who produces mine the same,

my all, & my nothing.

In my imagination we are both naked

and your body is not even the best part.

I do not limit my daydreams of love

to the physical aspects of desire & lust.

No, I imagine our lakeside estate with

Painted walls, whose colors we chose together,

the garden we water and nurture,

whose beauty is symbolic of the way

we adore one another and

the reading nook in the corner you built me

for you know I love my space.

I love my space, my realm of creativity:

My endless imagination that can turn

eye contact into an elaborate love story.

I am not delusional for creating love from places I know love will never come.

I am not foolish enough to taste the eye candy,

I do not wish to spoil my appetite

Or this masterpiece of love that I created.

In hopes of finding an other.

I do not want to erase the steps of my path

Just to clear the way for another.

I love love, but I do not want to love love

More than I love me.

In my heart lies a hole, a space that

I am constantly trying to fill with the love

From others, from failed friendships

And situations that never turn relations;

Pleasure that never becomes love.

The void is there, but I’ve reached a point,

Where I do not care if another fills its

Or it lies empty, unfilled and unsatisfied.

I may crave or desire:

The burning sensation of what it means to

Be loved.

In the strings of a guitar,

Through the bows of violins,

And the whistles of flutes.

The beat echoes your laugh

And harmonizes with your smile.

I hum our memories to the tone.

Why do the songs I love

Capture my deepest thoughts of you?

Why do we shed tears for the melodies

We once thought were so beautiful?

The lyrics haven’t changed.

The things you have said or did?

They never changed.

So, why when I listen to songs

The feelings I’m reminded of are the same?

How come my ears have grown tired of you

And yet it is your voice I still sing them in.

I was naive for thinking

We have crafted this whole discography,

When honestly, I was just the latest single:

A catchy song to help you kick your feet.

The entire time, it was clearly you

Who has been singing me.

To wander the vast desert that I’ve mistaken

For the summer evenings in the grasslands.

Tears falling from my eyes,

Filling the same rivers that I try to use

To navigate through this dense rainforest.

My thoughts roar like animals in a jungle.

I am a lost explorer,

Who doesn’t even wish to explore.

Life is my wilderness and as I hack my way

Through the tall grasses of the Savannah.

I find myself smiling in some moments,

But in others

I am viciously afraid.

I do not know the lands in which I track,

I stumble and sometimes crave to lay

In the very dirt beneath me.

Others clear paths ahead of them that

My mind registers as proof of their certainty.

Of an answer of how life is suppose to be,

But for me, I am lost and

The road I walk I call my twenties.

Peeling away at the biomes of my existence

Will I ever come to understand this journey?

The person, place, or environment

Which is meant for me?

oh how I wish to see you fly.

I know how life has plucked your feathers;

Clipped your wings before you opened them.

Sweet, little bird

oh how I know you’re at the cliff’s edge;

Ready to fly, ready to say your goodbyes.

Sweet, little bird please heed my call:

One shouldn’t jump without the wings that will carry them.

I know no one talks about the exhaustion

that comes from wanting to fly,

from watching others’ wings spread open

and float amongst the sky.

This world says you shall have your turn

and sadly that is not something I can confirm,

but flying isn’t easy,

it’s something we all must learn.

Sweet, little boy you will fly one day

In your own way you shall reach the sky

Spread your wings and soar high

How am I supposed to be pro American?

When my ancestors’ blood and tears built your White House, sewn your star spangled banner, and shaped your economy?

When my people’s teeth sat in the mouth of your first President,

as he sat beside the “founding fathers,” and created laws without my people in mind

Or those who actually owned this land?

Tell me how I am supposed to be pro American,

If you still put “African,” in front of American

On every paperwork, every questionnaire, and every job application?

A constant reminder that you do not want us here!

The goal was never to allow us to assimilate:

To sit amongst the table that your founding fathers crafted.

The goal was never to view us as anything other than property or machines made to produce you more currency.

Which is why when the rest of world told America, “You can no longer steal people from their native land and force them into labor,”

The south decided how beautiful of an idea it was to breed us and sale us like baked goods.

When we fought your wars, bled our blood on foreign soils just to return home to be sprayed by water in your streets,

Chained and thrown behind bars

Into squad cars by your police.

Please tell me America, when has you America ever included me?

“I pledge the allegiance to the flag,”

Bullshit because that flag never represented me, because you never wanted it to.

I’m a descendant of a stolen man on stolen land

and you, United States, will forever use liberty and equality to taunt me.