I think this comes close to reflecting my current state of writing

I want to make it through the mazes in my heart w/o hitting a wall

Graffiti my insecurities in the pavement

It should be a crime to not feel beautiful

Like Enough

To doubt

I keep trying to write something perfect

Perfection hides the truth

Suppresses the depression

Living a divided life

I hate it when my feelings don’t reflect my actions

I want to say something without meaning something different

10 things I want to say to a Black woman

Cornel West and Al Sharpton

I agree with Cornel West when he addresses the hesitantion many are hold in terms of challenging Obama because he is Black; however I also agree with Al Sharpton that there is a fear inside many of those people. I see both issues of fear and race as interconnected themes.

The silence in me

There is a stammering silence inside of me
Repeating to itself mistakes with deep breaths of exhaustion
[puh]
There is a separation in my throat and the words are stifling itself
Is the life I have been living my own
Is it one that covers my indiscretions and disappointments

The silence tells me who I am so I choose to speak
I choose to block that heart that beats
The nervous feeling that takes me on a path to freedom
[puh]
I am living through my frustrations
I am forced to confront things
If there are no problems where does my purpose lie

I am often faced with this silence in increments
While I'm running through the woods
[Not for fun]
Rolling my neck in the shower
And the awkward moment that I try saying my prayers and then the worries of the world begin to invade my mind
I think the the light sometimes enters my body

I am silent
The silence is speaking
I am silent

Turtle Doves

If tonight is my last I would ask if you wanted to sneak into the auditorium of 390
Where the the piano keys are waiting for your fingerprints to touch it again
Where the seat I sat in is waiting to absorb the sweat from my buttocks
I sweat when I get nervous
[But you already know that]
When the cocoons in my chest burst unfold butterflies in my stomach

I would watch you play the same song you played that day
We were the only two that knew that Stevie was dreaming of a love like ours when he hummed that melody
When the liberty bell in his heart shattered when he saw us letting go
We are closer than a mother and a fetus
Than a autistic artist that can paint every detail of a city after flying over it one
We are unexplainable

I know that I have always loved you
And you will always love me
When I decide it is time to tear my soul apart from my limbs
I know that you will let me
Not because misery loves company
But because you will be here to catch me

I would pretend to be sexy while laying on the piano
You'll laugh and tell me that I looked sexier and more beautiful while trying to stop my ass bone from catching a splinter from the wooden auditorium chair
I would resort to that night I cried for over eight hours and you can still remember what every tear sounded like
What every word felt like
And I can remember how I tried so hard for you to see the cracks I saw in me

You couldn't

I would tell you that there are a few secrets that I have left locked in a pouch waiting for you to hold on to in remembrance of me
I want you know everything about me
I know that you would tell me that you know everything
Not what you need to know

Madea Goes to Jail

Her body laid broken on the wrinkled twin sheets
Her tears reflected the empty stained picture frames that laid hallow on her father's vanity
He was too selfish to see her cries for help
How bad she wanted to fit in
Separate from the material items, money, and straight hair she only wanted him to be her friend
The hood had been standing silent for years
There was still a spirit the Black on their skin shared

"I needed you and you weren't there [...]"

Where was the dark face she cried for when the sweat from their bodies mixed like a Black sunset with her's
When they thrust something ugly and molded inside her sculpted and beautiful vagina
Her body stood scattered and dismantled on the twin bed
She glanced at her lingering ghost hanging on the sheets
He cried alone and spoke apologies in his head
They say she had problems before the rape ever occurred
She was called a victim before she ever knew it
Before the system labeled her

She's a woman Black and folded into stories of Black womanhood
Four virtues left non existent
We stain easily but seize to break even when every bone has been broken more than once
Spine a painted collage illustrating Black women's history
Our hands still remain beautiful when cradling the blood dripping from our middle passage
Holding the Black boys face
Embracing the dust and smell from printed pages
And in the way we raise our fist

There are still pieces of you lingering in the air
The trickle of your sweat still degrading in the grass
Your fingerprints digging deeper impressions into the walls
There is still that shade of Black roaming in the gym and your words are still thriving in my bones
There will always be a moment I shed a tear for you [for myself]

I wear the V-neck you left behind sometimes
As my sweat stains the armpits and pushes the cotton fibers further away from my curves

I hope that you are moving simultaneously with it
I want to forget you but I want you to remember me
Not my name or who I ever was but the way you felt my spirit holding you over the edge
The way I took air from your lungs and gave you life
I want to tell you that there is still friendship in my heart for you
I want to capture your smile in a song
The way a song captures the pain of our darkness no matter how distant the words may be

Write by Kahlia Roberts

Why am I told,
Write poetry, Write poetry,
Write something?

Why am I commanded to Write?
It is so much more sacred than that.
Poetry must flow.
It cannot be induced,
But must be felt,
Must be born,

As of all writing,
And all things.

Write, write, write!
It is a process, unstructured,
And is based on living, not
Doing.

We the scribes and writers,
We must deflect or words
To our hearts,
And our souls must fly and
float, simultaneously –
For any true literature to be Born.

Write, write, write!
It is a process, unstructured,
And one cannot rush birth –
It must be loved,
And cultivated gently,
And then, like a flower, like a soul,
It blooms.

Write, write, write.
In the calm, in the
pulse,

Write.

I feel like this sometimes when something is blocking my mind and heart and there feels like there is no time to sit and write because it is being forced out of me.

Skinny girls also want to be thin

I hate when people make remark about how thin I am
And when I complain about eating ice creme they tell me how they once had a few more years on them
These love handles can just as easily illustrate pictures of the playground you cried on
Fog your bathroom mirror like get thin cigarettes draining the color left inside you
I sometimes wish I were thinner
A size 4 isn't good enough when everyone assumes your a size 1
Sometimes I'm afraid to capture a portrait of myself
Afraid that the imperfections I have invested mile runs and sprints into will move to my neck
Beauty is defined by our bodies
I even run to feel beautiful

My Sahara toned skin will never be perfect
I'm a Black woman with a limited amount of shorts
Shaped out by my measurements
A Black woman isn't suppose to be this thin
My rear end is suppose to be the first thing you see
Its hard to distinguish the times we have faced forward
Many are still bowling with our chest
The box springs of the ring are pushing us back and forth like windshield wipers

My black isn't thin enough
My Black isn't curvy enough
My Black isn't fat enough
My Black isn't woman
I don't know what shape I'm suppose to be
There are no geometric symbols to identify my swaying branches
The whole in my trunk
And the names carved into my age
There are only mainstream hip hop lyrics
Music videos
And reality t.v

I liked it better when our breast hung forward like treasure chest
Cradling pain and pleasure
When we laid backwards on grass to follow the sun
When we were sculpted with natural materials
Not steel instruments
Our margins are so thin brothers can't leave their stories with their thumbs