Buy Me Books (poem, 2015)

I don't like people

Buy me books

Or 

I only like people who write books,

People whose life books,

Whose struggle look like art,

Who tear apart notepads,

Rip through beats.

Only pay attention 

To pens, pencils, and sheets

Only care

For mics, stages, and fleek,

People I need front row tickets to see,

People like me:

With no home just a binding.

All the scriptures wrapped up

To bind me

To humans who don't like me

But who write me love,

Write me beautiful,

Write me always here for ya.

Write me

Tryna find me

SUNGLASSES SO THE B.S. DON'T BLIND ME.

Tryna give me,

So you can get you,

Become one of those people

I don't like,

Don't like me.

Don't mind me.

Just use me

As a path to the cross,

A laugh for the lost,

A cast for broken hearts.

So you know,

So you grow,

So you can live

Through whatever techno lens 

Is the biz 

when you know who you is

Before you're too old 

to impress the critics.

Sold Separately

They say "the dream is free, but the hustle is sold separately."

I've got bad news: the hustle is still cheap, and fulfillment is sold separately.

And to be honest, fulfillment - while not cheap - is affordable, but balance is sold separately.

Balance is expensive but attainable. Loyalty is sold separately.

Frozen Heart (poem, 2015

(Inspired by someone who's been hurt 

And by the movie Frozen)

He hates people thinking he’s crazy

Such a relative term

When you don’t know why.

When his hand is bleeding but he can’t feel it.

When his girlfriend is crying and he didn’t mean it.

Unmelting snowflake 

Floating in a pot of black coffee.

We expect him to cool off our heat,

Play the role of cream,

Make everything sweeter.

They don’t know he’s frozen.

Doesn’t like the word “broken,”

Because ice is “stronger than one,

Stronger than ten, 

Stronger than a hundred men.”

One moment he was driving,

Pushing back the line. 

Then the sky went black at noon

And he was sliding down a mountain

Towards a tomb glimpsed way too soon.

Now he’s clutching at redemption

From the tailspin hell-bent on killing him too.

Brakes won’t grip.

Knowledge of right and wrong won’t stick.

Can’t slow his descent into the abyss.

I fling him an ice pick

Beg him to “strike for fear”

Hard enough to anchor the spirit.

“Strike for love”

What’s left behind is enough.

He’d never frighten innocence if he could help it.

Would cradle beauty in his palm if he could feel.

I watch from my tower of isolation

Praying he’ll find the strength in his arm

To split the ice apart.

Muscles bunched

To destroy or save.

All we can do is wait.

Either way,

We know he’ll break the frozen heart.

Are We Lying To Ourselves? (Note)

A note from a teacher: (about this)

Dear Outraged Black Community, 

I teach a state-required core subject at an all-Black school. 

We have no support from the state, no money for things like toner and copy paper. We have administrators who are doing every thing in their power to help our students. 

We have some teachers who are doing everything they can. We have some teachers who are doing what they are contractually required to and doing that well.  We have a very very few number of teachers who either don't care or don't know how wrong they are. 

On my bad days, I lose battles to defiant kids who refuse to follow simple rules to put away their phones or stop talking so a fellow student can understand assignment instructions.  

My best friend is white and she teaches an elective at an all-Black school. 

She has gone home crying for days in a row this year - her fourth - because students bully her and call her a b*tch with no repercussions from the administrators. 

The people who love and want to help our Black kids are working against a system that doesn't care about them, and parents who are too distracted or young or busy or sick to give them all the time, attention, homework help, behavioral intervention, and love that teenagers need.

Yes, cops kill Black people and no one punishes them.  Yes, that is cause for outrage.  
Yes, the officer who forcibly removed the student by upturning her desk and dragging her out used excessive force.  
But Black kids defy and bully teachers, defy and disrespect administrators every single hour of every single school day.  You would be appalled to hear how students talk to me, and to other teachers, and to each other.  That child is not hurt.  She has no broken bones, no open wounds, nothing that will scar.  When you lump her in with Eric Garner who is DEAD, and Trayvon Martin who is DEAD, and Mike Brown who is DEAD, and Oscar Grant who is DEAD, you tell her that she is a victim.  You tell her that her defiance is acceptable. You tell her that she has a right to treat adults, teachers, and administrators like dogs.  
The officer should be fired. He seems to have a history of abusing students. 
But this child is more than likely not a victim. 
When students yell at me and give me attitude and refuse to follow my rules, I tell them these things that I wish I didn't have to say: 

You are lucky that you are here disrespecting me who loves you and wants you to live a long successful life.  If I were to harm you in any way, if I were to speak to you the way students speak to me daily, I would lose my job and perhaps my license.  But if you were to speak to a police officer the way you just spoke to me, he could shoot and kill you and America would not punish him.  Better for you to learn to comply here, where we love you and want the best for you, than to never learn it and end up dead. 

Let this be a teachable moment for defiant students: you never know where disrespect will land you. 

P.S. The resource officers at my school and at my best friend's school are Black. In terms of Black outrage, what percentage of people would be much more understanding of a Black resource officer dragging a Black child? 10% less outrage? 30%? Half?
Does no one care that the teacher and the principal both initially said the force was reasonable?
I personally don't think that's true, but I don't work there. I don't know that girl. But I do know some pretty hateful students. 

#BlackLivesMatter
They always have and always will. There has been no loss of life here and no injury. What are you mad about?

--------
Based on that teacher's note, are we lying to ourselves about the what we expect from teachers?
From students?
How do you administer punishment to a defiant student?
How did Jesus treat people who behaved in a way they should have known was unacceptable (cf. Matthew 21)?
Does that make us hate Jesus?
Does that make God wrong?

Comments are appreciated and encouraged.  The writer of the above note specifically wishes to remain anonymous.

Want me to post your response? Or link to your response in your blog? Let me know. I would love to have a parent note or an administrator note.

About Me

My faith dictates that love be my highest calling. Dr. Cornel West says “Justice is what love looks like in public.” So because we are refugees on this earth, I make it my business to fight for justice and to do so in love.

I am a writer. Back in the 1800s they called what I do “living by the pen.” I write articles and poems, essays and analyses, PowerPoint presentations and sermons, tweets and notes notes notes. I also text a lot and I play around with song-writing.  I received my alternative teacher certification along with my bachelor's in English from a local state school. I teach tenth grade English, Creative Writing, and the AVID Elective.

“I am here to help you find, take back, and keep your righteous mind.” - The Great Debaters

Much of what I live and believe can be summed up in these Lupe Fiasco quotes:

1. “God over everything” (from “I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now”, Lasers) 
2. “You gotta give ‘em something real…something [that] they can recognize, something they can feel…something [my mama] could be proud of, something she could feel” (from “Real”, Food & Liquor)
3. “You see, I hood a lot and, yeah, I nerd some. Hood’s where the heart is; nerd’s where the words from” (from “I’m Beamin’”, Lasers)
4. “1 in the air for the people ain’t here, 2 in the air for the father that’s there, 3 in the air for the kids in the ghetto, 4 for the kids that don’t wanna be there, none for the n*ggas tryna hold them back, 5 in the air for the teacher’s not scared to tell those kids that’s livin’ in the ghetto that the n*ggas hold them back, that the world is theirs” (from “The Show Goes On”, Lasers)
5. “Freedom ain’t free, 'specially 'round my way” (from “Around My Way”, Food & Liquor II)

The fact that they are Lupe Fiasco lyrics is significant. I love hip hop and he is my favorite rapper, despite his extremism and his politics.

My humanistic belief in art and literature means that I post a lot about things that are simply beautiful. I value everyone’s creativity.  I love to see what we do with what we have. 

“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful…we have done so much with so little for so long we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” - Mother Theresa via Doug E. Fresh and WeTheWilling.org

BUT, my social-reconstructionist view of education and politics requires me to go beyond the simply beautiful. I believe that art and rhetoric’s highest calling is to paint a picture and sing a melody for the powers that be and the children who are our future. Like Russell Simmons said, “spit truth to power”; take a stance and make it known. So the artists and writers that I prefer are those whose content I agree with. I have learned by being a lover of poetry and hip hop that form is very important, and so every now and again I relax and give people their props for being technically good. Lil Wayne’s flow was killing the rap game even though he takes no stances (unless you call drugs and womanizing stances).  Amber Rose is beautiful even if she’s not a good role model. Etc. The interdisciplinary study of art and literature has made me value people’s cultural identities as well as learn to embrace mine.

“I didn’t know that by demanding excellence I would be challenging…the roles you were born to fill.” - Mona Lisa Smile

I live in Oklahoma City, OklaHOMEa. I root for the Thunder, and I only like football if I know someone on the field (although I try to pretend to be interested because everyone around me is).

I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t spent three years as a very active member of a national fraternity of amazing women.

“Not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image.” - Mona Lisa Smile

I read a lot. I sometimes post my poetry.

“…live by example and compell us all to see the world through new eyes.” - Mona Lisa Smile