Poetic Intellect

A burning casket
fleeting memory, fading to ashes
from dust to dust. Lusting
to become the culinary delight
of terrestrial worms.

Floating at sea, with a
candle light vigil.
Obituary ink, sealed with a kiss.
Bliss lining the tears,
transparent.

Transcendent, the invisible woman.
Metaphysical being, appearing in
A dream.
In memory cognitive reason explains,
In vain.

Alive.
Dead–
to me.

Dear Aubrey Graham:
Stop crying.

You’re giving me a soundtrack to silent nights,
when I’m alone at home, waiting patiently
for a lover that may never come and an
ex-lover I will never see again.

That’s a punk ass move.

Cause no woman wants to take a shot for me,
no liquor, no bullets, no nothing.
What happened to the city being yours?
And now you’re sharing it, saying, OVOXO,
and other folks from Toronto couldn’t
hold a candle to the flames that you used to spit.
But ever since, you united with your step-father
and you’re new grandpa,
you’ve been more hurt than Adele.
Was the breakup really that bad?

You’ve fallen in love with more strippers than T-Pain
and I admit that Maliah is thick but,
no grown man should say that they’re on fire,
unless they’re coming back from the clinic.
So–
if that’s what you meant then you get a pass.

Speaking of grown men, what kind of grown man
calls himself Baby anyway?
I digress.

How do you go from a shoutout to every Replacement Girl,
to just wanting to be successful,
to sitting by a candle all alone,
with a glass of wine like someone took your heart
and held it for Ransom.
And apparently you’re not successful enough
because you didn’t have the funds to get it back.
So you’re caught in a whirlwind and submerged under water,
crying.
Singing sad songs and telling the world that you
want to wife a barbie doll.
I didn’t know guys played with those.

So, Drake, is anything I’m saying brand new,
have you heard the reviews, telling you
you’re getting soft. They say they want the old Drake,
and I hope the girls tempt you.
I didn’t write you this letter to hate, I want to say
Thank you as well.
For breaking down the barrier that says a man
can’t have feelings. The gender normative
stereotypes that keep us locked in a box
that you broke out of with one black baseball glove,
That I still have trouble explaining.
You took masculinity and pushed it two steps forward
because you started not to give a fuck
and stopped fearing the consequence.
but I do find issue with the promiscuity in love songs.
If you hate sleeping alone find a body pillow.

So Drake, I hope you hear what I’m saying.
Thank you for the emotion.
Fuck you for the emotion.
Cause even though she might fuck you for the emotion,
that shouldn’t be the reason why you’re rapping.
Young money changed you, or
the old money Young Money’s slave to.
So this letter, is to let you know the thrill is gone.
And every girl in the world will only love you so long.
Music is timeless,
I hope yours holds on.

Flat and undeveloped–
the life it shared,
carries me to sleep.

I could have run
miles. On the strength
of it’s horizon.

How I long for the ocean.

I was raised on a diet of neckbones and sweet tea,
Collard greens, mac and cheese
Assembled by hands that touched death and eyes
that had seen some shit.
On the backroads of rural Alabama
where the feet of little black kids running from master,
left an imprint on that cement-like dirt,
there was history there.
It’s in my genes,
that residue that doesn’t come out in the washer
and it didn’t show up in Elementary school classes
when I’d look out the windows, through my glasses
into the whippoorwills,
each vine looking like a nameless black body,
swaying on a postcard with people in hoods pointing.
That’s the history I’m used too.
I have relatives who believe that washing machines are the devil.
I have aunties who sing sad songs with hope in their heart
because God is coming back.
Uncles, who shut themselves up in a house
with rifles, because they made comments about Abraham Lincoln on the radio.
And no nigger boy should be running around talking like that,
fucking coons.
Mumbled under his voice, I heard fucking coons.

But why couldn’t I say anything?
It’s like I got an icebox where my heart used to be
and a head that’s knocking, at my temple
The cops beating down the door to blast me,
with a message. That the man I claim to be
got an eviction notice from his spirit.
It’s gentrification.
Harlem. Post-Renaissance.
Why couldn’t I speak for them?
I was a pawn, on a chess board
who made it to the other side and turned into a noble.
Something like a Knight,
But little did I know how different I was.
Making every attempt at truth, a lighter
with no butane.
That would spark but couldn’t feel the flame because I was empty,
Broken, like that machine at the arcade
and you used your last token, Hoping
for some tickets, but you got nothing.
I couldn’t show that I was mad, cause that’s not cool
but why did I look like a chameleon?

Why did faith look like waiting?
Patiently,
For God to come alive and speak,
saying this was only a test.
a hard test, arithmetic
and the glass ceiling America placed in front of young brothers was a parabola.
I knew the formula to solve it but I had to find it in myself,
I had to find it in myself,
I had to find it in myself,
I had to find myself.

So this is me, America.
Thick skin from working in the field,
with God’s wind in my mouth, ready for a conversation.
When you ask me why I’ve called you here,
I say I’ve had a revelation
and I can’t let the history I know repeat itself anymore.
I can’t let these black kids look like the asphalt anymore,
their bodies laying there more often than their own beds.
There’s a hurricane in my heart
Cause your citizens realized that you think we’re disposable,
And we can’t even walk the streets for a bite to eat.
Now, America.
We have had good times, and it would be a crime to say that it hasn’t been fun–
but–
do you see what I did there?
It would be a crime.
So let me begin with this line,
Why are black people dying?
Why, everytime I turn on the news it’s eyewitnesses,
Blacks dead, killers victimless.
If the roles were reversed would we see life sentences?
See this is the dream of America,
that’s a reality for its mudsills.
Oh, did you forget James Henry Hammond?
Yeah, he called my folks mudsills, because it was the foundation of the country,
Slavery was the foundation of this country,
Slaves were the foundation of this country,
But why can’t their kids call this nation their country?
Why, I gotta be a refugee.
Why is Emmett Till, so real
still, waiting
with faith.
I’m just a pawn.
Waiting
For God’s wind to change you.

Why does peace look like death
for the other?
Hoodie covered this slave body,
but you saw through my mask..
Bullets aren’t nameless, they bleed black.

I’m broke as shit.
On a ramen noodle and water diet
Praising God when I find a penny on the ground,
Cause master FAFSA told me I didn’t qualify for work study,
Just loans.
I found a job flipping burger patties for 7.25 an hour
And the shower water that I stood under for just that long
Scrubbing my pores to erase the disgrace,
When a customer said I didn’t deserve that wage,
Cause I got his order wrong.
“I said I wanted a large fry, idiot.”
Meanwhile, I go home at night and read Aristotle
Cause he said reason is the throttle,
that lights the ignition so that I could live well.
So that I could be happy.
My best guess is that he never knew what debt was.

College students are broke.
It’s a time when sisters strip,
and wait tables for a .10 cent tip, and
a note that reads, “call me.”
When you do so to say “fuck you” he calls you a bitch,
because you didn’t want to let him inside your temple.
And you don’t care, because
he probably couldn’t pronounce the name of your thesis anyway.
If you told him that Shuddadvaita is propounded by Vallabhacharya
he would try to have you sent to Guantanamo Bay,
You’d have to be a terrorist
The way you blew his mind with the meditations
of your thought, so out of this world
that your brain was another galaxy,
that humans hadn’t reached and you obliterated his
comeback with your feminist rhetoric
from Patricia Hill-Collins and bell hooks.
He thought that bell hooks was a landmark in Philadelphia.

We’re funny people,
cause we chose to learn instead of labor,
That sheet of paper,
We sacrifice half of our lives, while
children in our old neighborhoods die,
and lose everything.

I’m broke as shit.
But I wouldn’t change this debt for the world.
So fuck and thank you at the same time Sallie Mae,
You saved me.