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

Silk Blindfold

Privilege blinds

When non-melanated voices

Clamor about rioting in Baltimore streets

Prefaced by silence about Freddie Grey

The terrorist attack in Garissa, Kenya

And the kidnapping of the Chibok girls by Boko Haram

Are mere blips on the radar

While Charlie Hebdo gets primetime

I don’t have to wonder

Why #BlackLivesMatter

Because

They only matter most to other Black lives

Black on Black crime is the same as White on White Crime

Yet only one has a term

It’s easier to kill your neighbor next door

Who looks like you

Than to go cross town and shot a stranger

Privilege blinds

Some have the audacity and stupidity

To talk about race

To talk about being colored

To talk about being Black

When they have a choice

Of being English Irish French German Italian Danish

Or just plain ol vanilla white

What else can I be other than Black?

What else can I be other than Ugandan American?

I know as much about being White

As some do about being Black

I know what they say about assumptions

So to avoid making an ass out of you and me

I keep quiet

I observe

I listen

Privilege blinds

Even to the fact that one is blinded

One has the capacity to create what is satisfactory

Eschewing all that goes against the perfect picture

Before the laws, the practices, the regulations

Society holds up White supremacy with our minds

Society supports it with our thoughts

Because when a form of protest

Becomes more problematic

Than issue that is being protested

And no solutions are given

Then what are we seeing?

Where is the clarity?

We are so far gone

In a surreal post racial experience

As some frolic with happiness

They never notice

That they are dancing on graves

Crush

My heart does what it wants

It doesn’t listen to my mind

My mind knows who he is

But my heart refuses to be swayed

I want to be the right one

The One

One of these days

Because he could be that for me

Easily

I could listen to him forever

Accents do something to me

I’m so international

We joke

We laugh

His smile

His whole smile is a thing of beauty

I can admit I’m smitten

I just want to give feeling

Time

To take root

To grow

J’espere

He still cares

When this flower

Is in full bloom

I Wanna Be

Invincible

Stronger than my body

Royal

Respect my divinity

Human

My family should not be shot like animals

Worthy

Why must my life turn into a hashtag

A movement?

Why do I have to assert my significance?

I have always mattered

Loved

Tired of being guarded

He could give me what I need

If only I ask for it

Better

Because I can

I am

Quiet (4/26)

My mama is retired

After thirty odd years

Of working for The Man

He has given her freedom papers

So as she sleeps

I rise

The diligent worker bee I am

Getting things ready

For another workday

For another work week

I think of the future

Which helps me with

The lack of free time

Me time

A few moments

Snatched here & there

I have yet to reach

My full potential

Anyway

Duties are calling me