Dear 2017

Dear 2017

At times, you were my greatest enemy and my best love.

I fell in love with you at the very beginning.

All I wanted was to be with you.

You gave me so many experiences.

You let me see some of my idols this year.

 

Over time you give me some of the worst pain of my life.

To make me a better man, you gave me some of the hardest life lessons I had to learn.

You made me sit back and analyze my relationships with myself and my friends.

Even though you through me in the cave and threw away the key…

You let me drown in my sorrows…

Left me in Penrose walking until my feet bleed.

Trapped me in the prison of my own thoughts because you knew that was the worst sentence I could get

Then you released me back into society into a new place as a second chance at redemption.

At first, I didn’t think I deserve redemption.

 

Then you gave me new light.

Showed me that I do deserve happiness.

That I don’t need to be my worst enemy.

Helped me build new relationships.

Reevaluate old ones.

Best thing of all you showed me that through it all

There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Pleasure and Pain

The Drugs and Alcohol numb me so
I don’t have to feel the pain.

They keep me from having to deal with this harsh reality.
To inception where my body is here but my mind is elsewhere

A place where I still feel your skin on mine.
They remind me of your aura that brings peace to my life.
Where I can grab you, and smell your hair.
Where we are sitting down talking life plans
Texting each other each day
Talking weddings and life goals.

The drugs got me feeling immortal.
Feeling like I can stop bullets
Feeling like superman nothing can phase me
They bring me back to a world where black people aren’t getting killed by police.
Barack is still president.
A world where my grandmother is still here and we are watching SVU.

When it run out feels like a smack to the face with reality
Feel the pain and despair creep back into my mind.

The thoughts of what you are doing creep in
The pain of missing you
Thinking if you are thinking of me…
If you miss me like I miss you…

I pray to GOD to forgive me for my sins of now and the future.
I ask him that he show me a path and gets me off the journey,
Bring me to be the man that I know I can be

Until I hear from him…
I pour another cup
get as loud as I want
Because I love the smell of the noise…

an ode to thick thighs.

when i was younger, my mother used to tell me i was all skin and bones.

it was a wild thing to wrap my mind around because, you see,

i was never just skin and bones.

i was warmth and love and light and magic.

 

as I grew older, she started to see what I meant in

the swell of my hips and the curve of my thighs.

she worried that the eyes that followed me down the street would be

preceded by cat calls and wolf whistles.

evidently, there is nothing humane about the way this society degrades its women,

there is nothing humane about the way this society shames its women,

there is nothing humane about the way this society fails its women.

 

on the days that the sun kisses my skin with a little more passion,

I am warned not to wear anything too…much.

I wanted to smile

and scream at my mother that the day I give two fucks

about who I am too much for, I will have become too little for myself.

I have come to learn that the power in my walk shakes the earth beneath me

but the only ones who are afraid are those with unsteady feet.

I was raised with the notion that I must look to others for validation

when in truth, I have held the universe inside of me

since the moment I took my first breath.

 

I am a woman.

and for far too long, I have worn this title like an oversized sweater,

trying to shrink both the word and myself to fit what society tells me I should be.

I should be seen and not heard,

I should speak when spoken to,

I should swallow my individuality to protect the fragile ego of the patriarchal dictatorship,

I mean “democracy”,

we live in.

 

instead, what I will do is roll up the sleeves of this behemoth sweater,

pick up my bull horn and let anyone who gets in my way know

that the only way I will be silenced is if my body is laid down in the same earth that it came from

but until then, I would wear the word woman over my shoulders

with the same pride a warrior would wear their armor.

 

BY Kaniz

Time

Time has been our enemy

It has set limitations on how long I can hold you

How long I can kiss you

How long I can stare into your soul through your beautiful bold eyes

I guess we are all slaves to time

It is a prison whose bars and walls cannot be seen but its presence can be felt

I wish I could kill time.

Bury it in another dimension so it can no longer dictate how long I can be with you

Once time is dead we will be together for eternity.

Our kisses will last forever

Your warm embrace will know no end

I understand why God sacrificed His Son so we may have eternal life

God hates time too

Heaven is a place where we are eternal inundated with God’s love

I want us to go there

Until that time that God calls us we must put up with our great foe

We must enjoy every moment that time allows us

We must patiently wait until time’s time is up and we can share a love with God

Where our souls will be together and forever literally means forever

By Temidayo Agunloye

A letter to first Generation Children