Refugee in My Own Life

 Author's Note:

In a time when history is being rewritten, books are being banned, and voices silenced—I wrote this poem to push back. I don’t write for comfort. I write to remember, to call out, to testify. This piece is my reckoning—with the world, with injustice, and with myself.

Refugee in My Own Life

I’m a walking poem,
navigate the world with flair & intensity.
Combine it with swirled empathy,
mix in some fantasy, mind high density.
Lost in the immensity of sensitivity.

Creativity – diversity ignored,
difficult to withstand or understand animosity.
Lack of deniability or accountability.
Pray for solidarity in a world so complex.

Like a refugee in my own life,
can’t contain all the strife,
seek a perfect bite of life.

Equality is viewed as culpability.
Equanimity—a forgotten skill.
World a difficult pill to swallow.

The time is nigh to get up on high—
diversity now outlawed,
due to racism and fraud.

Maya Angelou, political activists, philosophers—excommunicated.
Passed 60 years outdated – filled with hatred.
Mein Kampf cultivated.

History teachings decimated, destroyed.
Banned books strive to erase what happened.
So many frustrated.
An imbalance of justice prevails.

This administration pales.
Live in a world where peace curtails.
Mind alive and rich, full of detail.
O’ ne’er will I fail or derail.

Must struggle forward to face
immortality ‘fore I turn to dust.

Woman is not less than man, yet treated so.
We are only human, not good and evil.

Rapacity controls men—
wonder how long before we’re all banned
from the grandstand,
live in a wasteland,
given the backhand
in a game we’re unfamiliar with.

Our great nation,
like an ablation of my mind—
need a vacation
from the aggravation of blaxploitation.

Not worth the energy I expend
as I extend myself.
Feel a stranger to myself
in a strange land.

Please Lord,
I need time to heal.

Comments: If this poem moved you, made you think, or stirred something inside—I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to share your reflections or how it resonates with your own experiences in the comments below.

 

 

 

I FEEL

Like a light bulb in a dark room, about to burn out,
Burn out in a fizz, or explosive moment puff of smoke,
Like a campfire built at sunset burns out at sunrise
Eastern sunlight rays appear;
Horizon alive with color’s flow
My heart skips a city girl beat
Nature grasps at my heart with special sounds she creates
Heartbreak hotel still a go to
Every day, survive a new threat
Today it’s the pandemic
Next day worldwide protests
Proclaim Black Lives Matter
when we see George Floyd murdered
because he had a fake twenty-dollar bill
culminate four centuries of wrongs
In the 90's shop owners slipped me fake twenties too
So if I were black I'd be dead
MD prescribes Miralax to cure my ills
Miralax made of plastic, don’t care to use
It about $, who can digest plastic
Plastic imagined good for intestines.
Prefer milk of magnesia to cure my ills
Holding all that shit in there really ain’t healthy
I’m surgeon of my own body and I know what suits my body’s needs
I’ve been living longer with my self than anybody else
So I think I know this body better n’most
Zonked out on fresh brewed coffee
Another poem births inside me
Feel another me emerging again
Anxiety spreads like a bloodstain
Who am I, am I who I want to be,
Reveling in who I am as opposed to who
I could be, hold me back or don’t, I won’t go,
I refuse to be who I am
Swallowed in a gumball,
Society beats reverberate in my head
A new manuscript divides me
Like a light bulb in a dark room, about to burn out
My heart skips a city girl beat

Is it worth it? You decide

My love for you is deeper than the deepest sea

Softer than the softest breeze

Higher than the tallest tree

Don’t ask me why this prize was yours

Not mine to decide

Not what’s said but dread of unsaid

Written words make me become undone

Much more than spoken do

You don’t need this shit called love any more than I do

Move to the beat, broken souls reject

Healing, sift through broken bones

As though the answer lies in our wishes

We become lies we live

Buried in solitude, create a fortress

Make us prisoners

Of our own demise

Hearts like silver need polish

Troubled and cautious, need to demolish

Striving to forget unpunished deeds

Our souls create a fort for faith

Hide away, survive wounds, lost battles, day after day

Feel like I’m a rash or allergy, out of control

Think before you speak or

Forever hold your peace

Like shame from tarnished childhood

Secluded from the sun

There’s nothing won in fighting

Tell me give up

I’ll stop hoping

My love for you, stronger than a hurricane

More powerful than an angry storm at sea

Baby don’t make me explain

Feelings I have for you

My heart stuck on you like glue

Love like morning dew

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

If one was well enough to do everything one needed to do, to get relief one sought,

then one wouldn’t need the help he needs in the first place, would he?

Life is Catch 22 of the universe

He said, “I don’t understand why you insist on helping him,”

“I want to,” I said, “It’s a feeling I have and want to.

What difference does it make to you?”

While we waste time on bullshit,

Epiphany strikes suddenly, a new sight, an oversight

The answer to the question to make evil disappear

warnings served years ago come into play with global warming

Ignoring criticism about forefathers back in the day of humanity

Helps me glimpse the truth that we’ll never get away

Now technology makes it impossible to hide away

Know our religion, know when we pray

Tracked by GPS, our cell phones, credit cards tracked, petition signing

Usage tallied and compiled daily

Threats to control humanity

Spread the word today

Trickle down abuse flourishes

Foster peace in a world of abuse

Propagate hope, knowledge widens the scope,

Many see trickle down abuse encompassing earth

Come see, you know whom I mean!

They ~ the big they, you know who they are,

They will not give us back this glorious great land.

They fight for coin and silver.

Slowly we go to slaughter, 

Like pigs, goats and cows,

We kill ourselves in their sham.

Forced to pay more than our share of taxes

It’s only paper you know, 

No more gold in Fort Knox.

All the gold owned privately

Who's in charge of our government?

Symbols lurk every place you see

Small, insidious, devious concerns surround us, 

Controlled by society, daily news, 

TV, our jobs families, forget our conscience

Our desires prevent our seeing

Facebook and twitter rule you can’t see

Enough to spin your head, dizzy,

Can’t comprehend why Facebook

Warns you not to add more friends,

You can only add so many each night

Isn’t adding friends a boon to Facebook?

Every day it becomes more difficult

to understand the world I’m living in

They are not going to give our land back

If we don’t fight for our rights,

if we don’t take earth back from the usurpers

who have stolen our planet,

We can’t inherit the earth by common assent,

agree our land is not sold for gold,

this land is god’s gift,

is not ours to give or buy,

but to love and care for 

like we do our children …

This land is your land,

This land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE

You’re right, a moments’ delayed action

It could happen just like you said,

We could be dead in a split second

To end your life in an accident

Your best friend holds last sacrament

Inadequate to explain what’s evident

Not playing devil’s advocate,

There’s a precedent

Proving your point,

Religious is as religious does

Feel like I’m stuck in a sound wave

or a science fiction film

Even if you do what you’re supposed to
You can still end up dead or alive

Desires Proliferate

Live in the closet of my love.

Live together in love

Live alone in society

Live in the lap of luxury.

Live on the dark side of time

Live in reality and live in a fantasy world

Create regions of legions in my mind

Dream conversations that never occur

My mind is a blur

Anticipate reversal, life’s controversial

June frost instead of blooms

A foreboding sense of doom looms

Casts a spell and dispels the gloom,

Sweep the room of yesterdays away
Use a brand new red broom to chase away my blues

Freedom Rings Righteously

Make your own reality

Make it more than fealty

Give you your guarantee

You have my loyality

It’s ok, we’re not royality

Anyone can be an appointee for all it’s value

Be absentee for all its worth

Stand there and set yourself free

We all want to be free too

See the world

How many feel free, are free because we want to be free

How can we be free?

Do we leave society …

Follow the whoremongers, degenerates and warmongers running society

If you set yourself free and I can be me and you can be who you want to be as long as it’s safe

Don’t want to go up against the law, stay within the law, be free inside of me ~

free to be the best me I can be

I want world’s reality to be better than ever

This song is a prayer to make our world better

May the lord above and spirits guide us to heal, be righteous with ourselves and others, order ourselves never to presuppose – truth is different to each of us

I hear if I want to be free I can be but is it reality

Do we each make our reality as advertised

Life makes reality daily

Is reality chance or choice?

Who has the answer? …

Thoughts in my head run rampant with fever.

We’re featured on life’s marquis

Worried I won’t get to see the Ganges

I’m the new queen bee of poetry

Every day create new reality

Live to create

Leave the Dead Sea behind

Live each day a new day to create carefree whims

If you want to live free, live free

Free yourself be yourself we’ll live together free in a new land we create in the valley of our dreams

I’VE GOT TROUBLE IN THIS LIFE

Life’s rife with strife,

got my share of strife

impossible to ignore life’s blights

nightlife trying to hide jive,

strife despite gripes to deny

life on test drive, clamoring to survive

outlive the overdrive,

contrive to connive to stay alive

don’t attempt to outlive the clouds into which we dive

only to insist our offspring live the lives we try to give them

nine to five aint all life’s meant

work all day & strive to survive

day after day, fill our lives with what we must do to survive

Our lives are not always such  

a pleasure drive

I’d much rather do what I love

Instead of what I have to do
I’ve got double trouble in this life

No Looking Back

No sorrow or regrets

Get with the flow

Get where u got to go

Get where you want to be

Sounds pretty hip-hop to me

Battery operated society

Words fade into the past

Meanings and connections lost

Let the world know, it’s time to grow

Leap forward into a world we don’t know

Time to plough through the garbage

Quid pro quo, it’s our planet here

My words like music, fill your ears

My lips, soft like rose petals touch your lips

Words fill you with sounds I don’t hear

Rhymes I spout fill your heart

Be political, keep making art!