Nothing Stays The Same.
Everything changes.
As I sit in the car with the engine running,
Burning imperceptible increments of gas,
The kind where you go from half a tank to low fuel warning
In just a few tire rotations…
Poetry n' prose
Bando, Change!
An abandoned building.
A vacant, dilapidated home.
Often inhabited by drug dealers or the unhoused.
I stare at the structure, unsound.
It’s weary materials ready to crumble
At the slightest gust of wind.
Succumbing to years of neglect and unwantedness.
…
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Climate and Heat: Change
It’s 50 degrees in February.
The weather is changing.
Not a four perfectly delineated seasons
kind of change.
Where you know it's safe to put away
the heavy winter coat
and bring the summer clothes
front and center closet.
It’s…
Change on Change
One day, while parked in the parent pick up line, waiting for the kids to be dismissed from school, the divine writing spirit struck me. What better way to pass the time than to put pen to paper. I grabbed…
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100% (minus Jermaine)
100% Acceptance Rate
All of us will go to college
The school promised it
If we do our part
All 150 of us
Smart
Ready to embark
Day one:
First period.
Jermaine literally jumped for joy
Bounding high over the…
Disco in the Dark
God
If I’m to be confined
To this dark room
With a single beam of sunlight
Slicing through the black
Illuminating my shadowy corner
Then let me be a disco ball
Made of fragmented mirrors
And shards of glass
Scattering…
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Catfish: The Story of Junebug
Excuse me sir...?
Salamalayka. I see ya headwrap. You a Muslim?
I heard dat. Say brotha, I don't mean ta bother you, but can you spare a lil change?
I'm just tryna buy me sum'm ta eat.
Man yeah I…
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The Mourning News
The sunrise is the best morning news.
Before the report about rush hour traffic
An outbound accident adding another hour to your commute.
Before the report about the fire in an abandoned warehouse that raged overnight and claimed no lives…
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Hi, Voltage
Their Sign:
"Danger: High Voltage"
Me
I am voltage
Pure, unbridled energy
I am
Innately plugged in
To an infinite power source
A force conducting flow
I am Raiden
Radiating
Raising vibrations
Their response:
"You: dangerous"
Shocking.
What Happens Now?
This is probably the closest
I’ve ever been
To a crime scene
The irony
Of watching blood and gore
Horror
On the tv screen
Jump scare
Startled as 20 shots ring
The iron
Definitely woke up the kids
Who run…
i hate you.
i hate you.
The words plain
But mommy said
The outburst was said
With vitriol
I scratch
Deep into the reservoirs of my brain
For a definition
Processing
Bitterly harsh or caustic language
Stated with
No, flung with
Like mud
…
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The Cameras, In Our House
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM
WHO
IN
THE
FUCK
Is bangin' on the door
at 9:30 pm?!?
I check the gate camera monitor
only showing a white suv
glowing under the streelights
Police?
I forgot to lock the gate
so the banger was…
performance palettes
overachievement
is built on
a fear
of failure
petrified
i'll never reach
the atmospheric bars I’ve set for myself
saddled in a cycle of A for effort
and a B for product
but still not good enough,
C comments
revise
…
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To Whom It May Concern,
The painful thing about job searching isn't the rejection email.
"After careful consideration and review, we've decided to move forward
with other candidates who more closely align...." No, the hard part is spending countless interview hours carefully constructing responses to…
Am I Running Out of Time?: The Mid-Crisis Life
Yes…you read that correctly. How I realized the dreaded mid-life crisis isn’t a singular moment, but rather the build up of a crisis-expectant life
(Author's note: This was originally written three years ago. I'm 43 now. I guess I still…
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You already won the lottery!
If I told you, “Hey, the Powerball is hitting for several, several millions of dollars, you should go by a ticket!” your first question might be, “Okay. What are the odds of winning?” A recent Powerball carried 1 in 305…
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Who Are You?
and does this loaded question even matter anymore?
Knowledge of self. The first time I heard this phrase was on the classic Hip Hop album Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Blackstar. I was 15 when it was released…
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The System Doesn't Need You!
On November 9, 2022, Meta laid off 13% of its workforce. Just a couple of days before that, Noble Charter School Network made the decision to terminate me. These events underscored a valuable lesson for me....
Run, Rat! Run! The…Read more
"Exodus": On Becoming Holy
“Even Jesus, if that was his real name, more on that later
Had his lost years and nobody knows from whence he tarried.
Buddha was able to reach enlightenment only after leaving the palace
And seeing suffering, he must’ve been…
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Moving Through as The Eye of the Storm
A friend of mine listened to “Exodus” recently and shared his gratitude for the truth in the music. He specifically mentioned the part of the song where I talk about how society is increasingly "glued to the screen," whether it…
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I'm a rapper, yes...but I'm a writer FIRST!
"I think, therefore I am"....therefore I write!
French philosopher Rene Descartes was known for this famous quote, but I've extended it a bit. His original quote in Latin was "Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum" meaning "I doubt, therefore I think,…
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The Absurdity of "Good Vibes Only"
"We only want the good things in life
We want to forward fast through the rough patch
Or even skip the ringer altogether
Cause ain’t nobody got time for bad weather.
It’s elitist to only want the sunshine.
It’s unrealistic…
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everything is not real
Other than the lost five-dollar bill
tucked away in a lint-filled savings account
a hoodie
hiding in the back of my closet
I rarely handle physical money these days
I use my phone
To click, click
Face scan
Wallet activated …
While in undergrad at Stanford, I became increasingly familiar with an analogy regarding our student body that aimed to distinguish us from scholars at other institutions, particularly the Ivies. As opposed to being overworked, stressed out, cutthroat students who did whatever they had to do to get ahead, we were described as ducks. On the surface, we appear calm and cool, floating serenely in the pond of life. However, beneath the water our legs are paddling furiously to stay afloat. Cool on the surface. Paddling like hell underneath.
Yes, I’m a very much still that duck. My cool countenance and easy-going demeanor belie the fact that I think too much, so I’ve been told. My mind is always aswirl. “Your head is going to explode!” my mother would always tell me.
So, I write…not because I feel like “I have something to say,” but to empty space for more thoughts. Crowd control, if you will. And of course, once I think I've got it all figured out, there’s more to unravel. Alas, the wise man knows he knows nothing.
So, this blog space is an outlet, a bit of prose, exegeses on whatever topics are striking me at the moment. Other times, “poetry.” This is my existence, and I welcome you to share in my process of unpacking and making sense of it.