(poems go here)
Striving To Walk Harder

1. A 15 year old black teenager was
2. Arrested for the death of a
3. 26 year old teacher

5. A 30 year old black man
6. Was arrested for being in the possession of
7. A 32 caliber hand gun

13. 2010
14. America’s first in history 12 year old murder
15. And sentence to prison

17. And I’m scared, mama
18. Its’ hard to walk with expectations
19. When America expect for you walk with ignorance
20. Strap to your Achilles heel

21. And we looked at as if
22. Education is our last priority
23. And me, Oh I’m going to be another lazy black man
24. Abandon his child
25. And leave them clinked to question marks like mother clinked to babies
26. Wondering what was their mistake

27. Mama
28. Do you remember telling me that just because
29. I was dyslexic
30. I am more than what people label me as

34. So I will rip off diagnostic labels
35. That try to box me in about not being the poet I am
36. I get on this stage with the oppression of a proud black boy
37. I’m bending backwards
38. So that God can hear me loud and clear
39. Because I’m like a acrobat somersaulting,
40. Flipping flash backs of my mother
41. Tight rope walking on the grace of God,
42. So I need you to have a seat, and
43. Hear here
44. Because this is the only form of praying I can do
45. For my mother on this stage

55. In her eyes, she’ll never understand
56. That being on a slam team is only souls sharing their stories
57. I’m not that Gang bangger hiding bullets under his garments in fear of cops

61. But mama
62. I only use my tongue to alert ears that this is what
63. We Black males are looked at as
64. Because this stage is my neighborhood
65. Being out there is where I could be arrested for being another statistic
66. One out for four teenagers to graduate high schools
67. So that means the person to your left is
68. Less likely to graduate high school

70. And in the zip code 10456 is highest rated in the Bronx
71. To have STD’s sexually transmitted destructions
72. Dieses that make human bodies
73. Look like walking coffins

74. But here I’m not scored to be another statistic,
75. But for loving to slam this poem
76. Remember this poem
77. As the award winning poem in the best selling book
78. And the author your son.

68. Mama
69. I don’t want to be another black boy to die
70. Wrapped in a cocoon where the crowd isn’t rioting for me anymore
71. But sobbing soliloquies
72. In the remembrance of who I was
73. And I don’t want you to be another black mother
74. Regretting that she didn’t let your baby boy go
75. To write us pass that slavery terms America has us labeled as
76. Because I could have been
77. That lost child strung out on drugs
78. Trying to steal love from the pockets of your purse
79. Or you visiting me through a window
80. Talking to what could have been the next black brotha to die
81. But instead im here
82. Interceding in my secret Just like you taught me to
83. God,
84. Help her understand that this stage is a
85. Sanctuary