Forced Living

I’m forcing myself to write about you

Since you’ve been gone

I can’t eat

Can’t sleep

Nothing is right without you

Can’t go on living

I don’t want to HAVE to live without you

I spend most moments in a panic

Life without you is real and I can’t stand it

No one understands it

Can’t weather this storm

Can’t do this no more

How could God close the door

On a life that was needed here more

I won’t ever accept this

As a fact of life

Or something right

Or one of God’s lessons

I’ll spend the rest of my days pretending

That you’re still here

Somewhere

Enjoying what was left

But you left before you experienced the best

I feel guilty

That I didn’t do more before you left me

But life is tricky

We know too little too late

Life is devoured before the taste

And before I know it

You’re not with me

I’m forcing myself to write about you

So here it is…

How am I supposed to tell my kids

…about you?

How can they ever know me without you?

I’m everything I am

Because of everything you were

I hate who I’ve become without you

Who's supposed to remind you of who you are

When everyone who knew the real you is gone?

The gifts you gave are immeasurable

The void you left is impossible

Now I lay hostage to your absence

No time

No rhyme or reason

Can stop this bleeding  

Or the pain from you leaving

Can’t stop the burn

I’ll never learn

To live without you

I don’t want to HAVE to live without you

So…

I’m forcing myself to write about you

Because since you’ve been gone

The nights are too long

The days are a fight

Can’t eat

Can’t sleep

Nothing is right without you

Can’t go on living

I don’t want to HAVE to live without you

This poem won’t have a happy ending

There’s no silver lining

All wounds don’t heal with time and

This is a burden I’ll carry with me

All of your sacrifice to make us happy

We never fully appreciate

What we have til it’s too late

Now that you’re gone

The faint sound of the songs you used to sing me

Live on in your memory

Memories

Please don’t take them
When you erase them
It’s like losing pieces of my existence
Memories get trapped in the prisons of our minds
They escape with time
And since there’s no rewind
No way to go back
We lose them
For life
But not forever
I know memories must exist somewhere
When we forget
They take on wings like birds
And fly high above heads and grave sites
Bodies of the dead
Motionless
But warm thoughts give them movement
Keep them vibrant in our hearts
So that we never lose them

So I value “we will always remember” t-shirts
And “rest in peace” buttons
Of passed parents, friends, babies, spouses, aunt’s uncles and cousins…
Memorials
Posters, pictures and teddy bears tied to street signs
Illuminated by dull street lights
Reminding us to never forget them
And even when the rain has washed them away
We’ll remember
Even after the casket has closed
And the words of poems written on loose sheets have faded
Even after the obituary pages lie dusty on the bottom of keep sake boxes
Or after we’ve finally decided to toss them

Because it becomes harder to hold on
Than to let go
When it’s not as easy to hold tight to memories anymore

So after we’ve ID’ed bodies
Way after sewn up bullet wounds and goodbyes
Replace texts of “I’ll see you soon…”
Road trips, petty arguments and play fights
Nights spent angry over who was wrong or right
We’ll remember which moments to treasure
And which to forget
Which pieces to hold onto
And what we regret
Will hold no significance
Life is a bet
And unless we’re willing to throw all of our chips in
All we’ll have to pass down to our children is fear and lament

But I want for our children to know
That we’ve placed them on fertile soil to grow
You will always be a part of that foundation
Future generations will know you through us
Through the dreams that you’ve passed down to us
Your memory will be bound to us

Through our stories
We’ll give life to you
Like windows to your spirit
Our children will be able to look through to your existence

And I’ll do everything I have to do
Because this is what it means to remember you

And I will ALWAYS remember you

Memories

Her Heart

Her heart is heavy
Some have lost a few
She’s lost plenty

She’s never held more weight than she can carry
Still, she’s lost count of how many she’s buried
So she goes through life
Eyes teary and heart heavy

The load never lessens
A curse with no blessing
Memories of those resting
Taught consequences with no lessons

You can’t see her heavy heart
She’s played her part
She carries the burden
Pretends she’s not hurting

But…

Her heart is heavy
Some have lost a few
She’s lost plenty

There’s no time stamp on pain
So she keeps reliving it over and over again
In the core of her existence
Hurt stays imprisoned

How do you support someone through mourning?
When every morning is a reminder of the loss
This struggle might cost her her life
This time

Constant retraumatization
Nothing is changing
So she strives to live beyond the pain
To be more than the pins she wears
Or her dried out tears
But all the years have taught
Is that it’s impossible not to get caught
In this whirlpool of destruction
And the corruption caused to her heart

So she loses hope in believing
Her heart keeps beating
Despite faith fleeting
Internal bleeding
Allows no rhyme or reason
For the chaos

So she remains lost to this
Passes it onto her kids
A viscous cycle
Pain knows no end
It didn’t start with her
And it won’t end with them
It will get passed down through generations
Past households
Across nations
Before we know it, we’re all hurting
Don’t you know it?
We’re all hurting

This pain can be cured in her heart
But she’ll never know it
Granted the ability to be the change
The ability to live again
Instead she’ll reap consequences
Even though she didn’t sow it
And she’ll go on hurting
But she won’t show it

She IS the generation down the line
Pain doesn’t heal with time
Without intent and work
So she’ll work to be the change
To move past the pain

Until it revisits her again

In her heart…

..Is heavy
Some have lost a few
She’s lost plenty

Every Day I Pray

Every day I pray

Ask God for salvation for the ones left behind
Dusk will never find them
Their life ran out of time

We’ll lay them down
Heaven bound
Still searching for those lost and never found

Death runs this town
It wears the crown
Rules over war filled streets
And seized heart beats

There’s no escape
No rescue
When loss gets the best of you

Pay condolences for the ones close to you
Pour out liquor for the ones you never knew
So pour out juice and gin…
Rock their pins
Attend funerals
And memorials all year round
While gunshots still ring out
We’ll block out the sound
And ignore the root causes
We’re living in a generation that’s lost
To systems that bank on our death for profit
A government that locks our kids up
Then leaves them jobless
Though we perpetuate it
We aren’t the ones that cause it
I wish we could find the self love to stop it

“They’re” dying
Means “we’re” dying
We’ve lost the battle
But we can still win the war
That is what our ancestors died fighting for
So I’ll keep praying
Every day
That tomorrow what I pray for won’t have to be the same as the things I prayed for today...

Untitled

March 2, 2006

If I could float on my dreams like clouds,
I would disappear to a place in the distance, way up there
Where days don’t begin without sunlight and nights don’t end without resolution
If I could, I would fly away and pack all of my problems into one day
Then erase that day off of the calendar
Like the 30th of February
If I could, Id marry destiny and convince him to fly away with me
To that place in the sky
Where dreams exist
And the world would thank me because of this
If I could…

She abandoned me....15 years, 10 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes ago, she abandoned me. I daydream of days where I don’t feel locked away by cages, raping me of my humanity…how could she abandon me? It’s gonna take some time they said. It’s gonna take some time to forget her. But how could I forget the woman who breathed life into my soul, made me whole like knowledge makes the mind? But I allowed myself to believe that in time, she’d come back. If I just kept holding on, like songs that drag on for too long. And the truth is that I’m angry. How could she abandon me?! How could she be witness to eyes that she once prized? Dark skin, small waist, big ass, thick thighs...just like mommy’s. And she lied when she said I was her everything, heard birds sing when she was around me. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t be, couldn’t live without me. Said everything she did would be about me. But then she gave up way too soon and sought another route without me. “Its not your fault,” she said; as she held the shot gun to her head, one shot to her brain, and now mommy is dead. I was only six and saw life flash before me way too quick. She couldn’t cope with nowhere to go. She was a drug addict, addicted to dope. So she died at 22, what a tragedy…and left me here to carry the burden of the world. How could she abandon me?

Fallen Soldiers

I can see your pain
And the way hate breeds through action and stains the ways we treat each other
Planting seeds in our self worth
Becoming the fruit we feed each other

We carry these ideas with pride
Now with hatred in our eyes
We beat each other
Kill each other
Hurt each other

I can feel you hurting
It seeps in through your pores and leaves u wanting more
But u feel deserted

What are we living for when the world has taught us we aint nothing
Aint got nothing
Aint never gonna be nothing
So why bother?

Money can’t buy life and so we barter
An eye for an eye
So now we’re invisible
Too many thugs, drug dealers, murderers and criminals
We don’t have names
First we were numbers
then we were niggers
now we’re tomb stones on graves

And I know it aint right
Cuz our babies are dying!

I can’t fit another RIP pin on this life vest
We were all born soldiers
But we keep losing our best

So I pay my condolences, and say a prayer
Explain to children of children why daddy can’t be here
to watch you grow
Teach you all the things he never got the chance to know

Scared of our own greatness, we lay low
Stop reaching for the stars
Cuz they aren’t ours to own

And this right here aint no poem
It isn’t another sad description of the prison we’re restricted to
It’s a cry for help cuz I’m just like you
And it scares me to know my children might be too
Bound by internalized hatred
God gave us Immaculate Conception and so we raped it
Now impregnated by oppression, we raise it
Fall victim to institutions instead of fighting to change it
Waging war against each other instead of those who create it

We’re worth more but expect less
We were all born soldiers
But we keep losing our best

STOP THE VIOLENCE!!!