Rain

Drip…drip…drip dropping
down the walls of my
entrapment, a place supposed to be
where Dorothy longed for, no
place for the space inside my mind’s
eye cause I see the storm coming,
feel the moisture of the downpour
through the leak in the ceiling,
opening my eyes to the sky
to look to the future, but for now…
Now I see flying cows and
low riding clouds that want
A piece of me, tugging from
the west and east and the
line that divides the sides of my body
is weakening. Let go, why stitch
and sew this divided and conquered soul,
maybe I am reaping what I sow or
just taking this external beating while
the thing up in my chest internally
keeps beating and my cuts
keep bleeding, and my mind
is seething and the haters
keep scheming and the rain
keeps sheeting. Or maybe this
downpour is a blessing, packed with
little mini lessons to prevent me
from stressing and rely on
the message that hits me in
my face as the sky
sounds its breaks; a loud call
from on high as
I try to
touch the sky.

Educated

You have dark brown hair that is cornrowed to the tee, save some zig-zagged parts and overlapping weaves of dead fibers that make you look like a thug. Your eyes squint constantly at the light of day, because you are a creature of the dark, feel at home in the streets only by the dull, blinking glow of artificial city light where it is harder to be seen and easier to move. Your skin was beautiful, mocha caramel, now café con sprinkles of color and blotches of tribal art, unnatural images of percieved toughness, only the strong survive but the stupid die young, and the body grafitti looks like a bullseye for stray bullets to penetrate and destroy. Laced up wheat Timbs in the summer, confining hot feet of the cool, dark denim meant to cover your ass and chill your legs now cools your ass and warms your ankles, image more important than comfort in this day you wish was night.
Your language is beautiful and yours, and flows from that mocha mouth like an endless stream of street knowledge, this place where you are king of the corner, ruler of this intersection of lost souls and devoted dark angels. Your words entrap them, wise to the unknowing, and when you enter another domain, you speak the native tongue, blend in with the vernacular of the rulers of bigger grids, only your mocha skin makes you noticed. Or is it those zig-zagged weaves of dead fibers, cornrowed to the tee. Or is it the sprinkles of color and blotches of art on your mocha skin. Or should that even matter as long as you can act like them. But the grid is set up to never blend in.