I'm old, I tell them,
Older than you.
I tell them I'm old,
I'm full-grown.

I've seen many days,
Lived many years.
I've been many places,
I'm full-grown.

One Word
Can make the difference.
Guilty? or Not?

It doesn’t matter what I think.
It only matters what the jury believes.
I am nothing but a name in a story.

And that terrifies me.
I have no control.
Will the rest of my life be like this?

I wish more things were black.
Watch the depression stack
Bury the emotion in a deep sack
Take all the hate and give it back
The whip of remorse has a thundering crack
I wish more things were black.

Look at her,
I look at myself.
I see him,
I see myself.
I find what I want...
It’s not an option.

Mother is marrying Big Joe.
Why she decided to, I do not know.
Doesn’t she know,
She is betraying Father?
Doesn’t she know I don’t want to be a daughter,
To anyone but Father?

Hey! You see that
girl? Yeah right over
there. Yes the                                pretty

one. Yea she’s pretty
as a peach on a large
peach tree. But she                        isn't

Music Will Play
People Will Cry

But Big Joe
Didn’t Die

When I give, I don’t think of me
But still I’m known for my generosity
I just gotta give.
One gift for your apartment’s rent
One gift for the woman whose cash is spent
One gift, this I believe,
One gift is all you need.

What makes me me,
Is the way I see things.
The happiness it brings,
That tells others what I see.

The way I see things,
Brings out the colors around us,
That helps me see clearer,
It also brings me nearer to my dear, dear friends.

The coffin wood grabs at my clothes
The wood chokes me
The darkness attacks me
The weariness crawls around me
When it opens the sun grabs me
I am back

This man is rueful,
This man was done,
This man let go, temptation had won.
This man was punished, for things of great crime,
This man left a sod to eat on a dime.
This man, crushed and torn,
This man was tired and worn.
This man, turned to a book.

A gun’s cause’s harm
To the innocent
And gives fairness to the verdict
It’s not really the gun but,
The soul behind the gun

Reading. Books. Even if the two are generally frowned
upon in our day and age, they shouldn’t be. Books are
the things that raised our nation. John Adams, Thomas
Jefferson, John Hancock, and countless others used books, or

My eyes have seen,
My ears have heard,
The special beauty,
Of a kind world.

Those who do,
And those who do not,
They have shaped,
What it is I have got.

So much stress is on my mind,
she’s your daughter just as much as she is mine.
I brush her hair and iron her sweater,
when the winter brings such unfriendly weather.
You might say your work is rough,
well so is every day making our daughter’s lunch.

I met a woman
Old as dirt
Yet nice as the morning sun,
Living where some considered
The worst part of town
Yet somehow
She finds time
To knit me a sweater
Of dark green string
Straight from the soul
With kindness from the heart

My job is so exhausting,
I don’t have time for parenting!
Maybe my wife should try fighting crime,
and I can stay home all day wasting time.
All she does is cook and shop and clean,
I don’t understand how it’s difficult to do those things.

Walking up and down every street,
Every day – thump, thump, thump
Go my boots.

Walking past the park
Every day – thump, thump, thump
Goes the wino’s stereo.

Walking past Mother Fletcher’s house
Every day – thump, thump, thump
Goes my heart.

I messed up with my life
Now I get held with a knife
I am out here trying to survive
I’m glad I’m still alive
I sit in JDC
Thinking how my life is going to be
My dad told me I would be aborted
To my mom I was important

They say they help,
They ain’t no good.
Ask for food,
Barely get kelp.
I wish I could just be
F r e e

They don’t believe me
When I say, “I ain’t guilty!”
They think I am filthy.
I wish I could just be
F r e e

Eating my thoughts,
Twisting my mind,
Her shadow passes through,
My words I can’t find.

She looks to me, waiting,
Her eyes pierce my heart,
I know what is coming,
I can’t let it start.

The days are piling up,
But I can’t move,
So little motivation,
Yet so much to prove.
I don’t want to be here,
But don’t know how to get away,
My only escape,
Is the game that I play.

Screams thickened the air,
A scene taken from a nightmare,
Flames licked through the dry grass,
Tribe members pounded the ground, fleeing,
Rifles blasting, the sound deafening,
I hid in my hut,
Peering through the window,

Though once you might have thought
To cast away conformity,
“We must go along with the majority.”
Are the words you’ve just wrought
And now I finally realize
The clanging bells of hypocrisy
Have been tolling with the fluency

I used to rely on compliments
But now I strive off them
I used to keep my chin up
But now I cry non-stop
I used to follow my sister
But now I lead us deeper in the dark
I used to try to be myself
But now it’s no use trying

words fill the pages
the pages fill the void
void an existence
and her head is filled with these words
not knowing their meaning
she writes but the words lose reason
she writes and the words are empty
she lives without understanding

How could reading be an option?
It definitely could not.
I think of all the books I've read
that will not easily be forgot.

Books
everywhere,
open one
and hear the sounds of
a market in Cairo.
Open one
and smell the crisp air
of the mountains.
Open one
and see the torrential rain in London.
Open one
and feel the passion of two lovers.

Pencil joins with paper.
At once, a
pattern of words
begins to flow
and spread
about the page
stories of another world
of creatures
unknown to man
of sports played
on the moon alone
fairytales,
fiction,
novels,

Crack the spine loudly.
Savor the pages fragrance
Consume the content.

Turn the pages slowly.
Continue reading aloud.
Voice calls me away.

Return to the book.
Curling up to read again
The page comes to life.