Gray Promise

My mind can't make sense of this
So I gotta write what's on my heart
Call my world a snow globe
Because you took it in your hands and shook
Who knew how far a smile, a voice, some words could go?
I don't whether I could hug you or shake you
Can't choose between yelling and staying angrily silent
Out of distrust of my words
I'm the kinda girl
Who always dreamed of love
But hated how it felt
Awkward to the core
Just like me
I'm on an emotional overload
Feeling are waves on the shore
As I stand on the beach
Hoping a riptide won't pull me under
And never let me go
Somehow I must learn to trust you
To trust me
But I make it hard
I tend to be guard-ed
Because the sensitive don't live
And the vulnerable always die
But I
Have to be stronger than my emotions
And smarter than my fears
Whether a beautiful promise
Or a gilded nightmare
Either way I have lived

Bare (4/30b)

It’s hard for me

To pretend

I have no poker face

To see me

Is to know my thoughts

My feelings

Reeling

From the masks that we all wear

I have no patience for facade

Blame the only child life

It’s not right

TO waste time pretend

Or to conform

The norm is passé

I’m blasé to what path I’m not follow

The only thing that I have to prove

To the world

Is that I’m special

Whether crazy special or unique special

Is irrelevant

I have suffered many blows

In multicultural society

For my nonconformity

Maturing to the point

Where I appear

Expecting a fight

It’s all right

That my name is different

That I bring paperbacks to Ugandan functions

That I consider myself a womanist

A Pan African

A thinker

A creator

A poetess

That I create my own limits

I am who I am

And that’s all I have time to be

Sistah, You're Beautiful (4/30a)

I only say this to you

Because I am feeling radical

Although I should not be

I never realized

That being yourself was radical

I never understood

How love has become radicalized

But some things just are

Just are and incapable of being understood

I should

Be working to dismantle a system

But it is much more effective

To dismantle mental barriers

Our own thoughts rule us

Better than The Man ever could

So I build you up

Even when Mister, Miss and Brothaman

Tear you down

Long hair

Short hair

Wavy, curly kinky hair

Brazilian stitch

African braid

Every color

Every shade

Hijabi

Baptist

Questioning

Straight road or rainbow

Know

That

You are beautiful

It is your right

It is your inheritance

It is yours