I wrote these in different seasons.
Some of the words were mine once and no longer;
Some are true still.
How beautiful.
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I share the words for each below, along with a little context about what I was experiencing at the time.
On the Red Line
I wrote this poem 167 days after moving to Washington, DC, somewhere along the Red Line between the life I had left and the life I thought I wanted. In those few months, I had endured an accident and surgery, stepped into a new job whose demands were rapidly changing, watched relationships end, and grieved the familiarity of a life that no longer existed. I was trying desperately to make meaning of it all, reminding myself to pray, go to therapy, release what I could not control, and trust that God was still near. There is hope in this poem, but when I read it now, I can hear how hard I was working to hold onto it. My faith was speaking even as depression was quietly becoming louder, and the encouragement I offered myself was as much plea as proclamation. The poem ends with the question I could no longer outrun: I had arrived at the life I once prayed for, so why did I feel so empty?
We spend so long becoming
·
We miss who we've become
·
We spend so long becoming · We miss who we've become ·
We spend so long becoming that we miss who we’ve become.
Sometimes you gotta clear house if you’re tryna make it
home.
And it’s ok to let go, but hold on tightly to your hope;
Things might change slightly even small waves rock the boat
That shit is inevitable, a constant God bespoke.
He said that danger would be present, but I’d never go alone.
Give gratitude to your circumstance, find value in the low,
perspective gives shit purpose, if it’s off it stunt your growth.
So I let go of my nervousness and release what was supposed
to be what I thought life would be like, ain’t no secret code.
The beauty in the now is fleeting, so I take it nice and slow.
Go to therapy my nigga, baggage ain’t no cheap cargo.
If it’s costing you your peace well then you gotta let it go;
it ain’t worth ain’t no purpose get some healing for your soul.
I pray forreal now, write psalms, angels ask me for encore
But, the closer I get to God, the more, weapons satan throw
The closer I get to God, the more, weapons satan throw
Sometimes I see em comin, sometimes he duckin’ low
The closer I get to God, the more, weapons satan throw
in my direction but protection, wrapped around me like a
coat.
Grace descending on descendants - Wilma prayed on the
floor.
I worry my conviction ain’t enough, that I’m losin on low
although, it’s hard to win the game of life when You not keepin score.
Pray for favor like I’m asking for a favor, Lord knows
that I’ve been favored but sometimes my mind betrays me,
friend to foe.
I fight daily these thoughts, don’t trust what my mind show;
Too good at showing that I’m fine cuz I’m afraid to get
exposed
Ain’t no strength in that my nigga, nothin bout it apropos
Embracing authenticity, if you don’t love me you can go
I got everything I prayed for, yea I once had a dream
That’d I’d be right here where I’m at,
so why it don’t feel like what it seemed?
Track 00
This poem was not written as metaphor; it was written as a goodbye. By then, depression had hollowed out my sense of a future, I was self-medicating heavily, and what had once been fragile hope had become almost impossible for me to find. I made a plan to end my life, acted on it, and survived. What followed was not some immediate revelation that everything would be okay; it was collapse, desperation, and eventually the smallest willingness to try something different. Survival began with letting myself be seen: telling people I loved how bad things had become, allowing them to hold me close, and taking the first uncertain steps toward sustained help. I did not know it then, but the farewell I intended to leave behind would become evidence that the story continued beyond the place where I believed it had ended.
Maybe on the other side
·
I'll finally find my hope
·
Maybe on the other side · I'll finally find my hope ·
Last night took out my pen and wrote the illest line -
not ill like it’s sick, but sick like in my mind.
Ran all out of hope, so I felt like it was time
to bid farewell, to this life, this little life of mine.
Grandma said my light was something that I must shine;
But now grandma is sick so it weakened my prayer line.
Not sure if God can save me, at least not on this side
Maybe things would be better for me if I just died.
I think about the future search around and see no purpose.
No longer look ahead cuz I feel so left behind.
Got me questioning if all this suffering is worth it -
is all the effort really gon be worth the sacrifice?
Thinkin I should leave behind a letter penned in verses
say the truths that I struggled to say aloud all this time.
Honestly I think it’s hard to look beneath my surface;
prolly wouldn’t be ready for all that you might find.
What happens when the rose can’t find the roots to stay alive?
When a person makes their peace, with the thought of suicide?
When the fire grows and suffocates a person from inside?
I feel like I am fighting for the will to want to fight.
I feel like to try is no longer worth the try, turn my face to the sky pray for permission to let go.
Give me wings to fly escape the trap of my mind -
maybe on the other side I’ll finally find my hope.
Feelings
Healing asked something of me that survival had not: to stop running from what hurt and finally look at it. Therapy helped me excavate what I had buried, but my spiritual life had to become honest too; I stopped performing faith and started bringing God my anger, resentment, fear, disappointment, and questions without cleaning them up first. I prayed ugly prayers and discovered that God was not frightened by my honesty. Slowly, I began to approach my feelings with curiosity instead of judgment; to study the monsters rather than spend my life hiding from them. Somewhere in that practice, desperation became surrender, and surrender created room for something new to take root. I began to understand that feeling deeply was not evidence that I was failing; sometimes, it was evidence that I was finally healing.
Patience is a virtue
·
Apply it to your vice
·
Patience is a virtue · Apply it to your vice ·
You gotta feel your feelings to not fear em.
Why monsters hide if they not afraid to be found?
Sometimes my feelings let me know that I’m healin -
sometimes they magnify and try to take me out.
I bury pain like I hope that it dies.
Parts of my mind I ignore altogether.
I glorify highs, but sunshine is fair weather -
rejecting pain like I assume it’s for the better
Cuz of trauma I don’t know how to express or what safe space is.
I haven’t had that many spaces that was gracious.
Lookin outward for validation is outrageous
Out of patience - nigga sick like a patient
No literally - lost my mind, remember it vividly
Twice actually.
Tried to free myself to be gone like Antigone -
was beat like a drum, like a palm, like a timpani.
Drown out the noise like headphones at a symphony.
Life gives me lemons I’m just tryna find simplicity.
All these similes, help to keep the mystery
cuz I can’t let you see -
sitting here wishin though that you would come and take a peak,
but I can’t let you see.
Look in the mirror to see who would come and rescue me,
cuz I can’t let you see.
There’s truth in what’s plain,
exposure in pain,
when you say some shit out loud
you can’t ignore that shit again.
Coded even to myself cuz I gotta maintain,
but that shit make me sink, have a nigga feelin drained.
But there’s so much to be gained
in introspection and time.
Patience is a virtue - apply it to your vice.
Be graceful with yourself cuz progress ain’t no straight line.
I fell a hundred times;
I cried a hundred times;
I sold a hundred lies each time I said that I was fine afraid that weakness
would somehow lead me straight to my demise
as if, courage ever counts if you not actually terrified -
It’s wisdom in the struggle; revelation in the climb.
I learned a few lessons:
destinations are deceiving,
pain can be a blessing,
watch what you believe in,
life’s always progressing
check what you’re perceiving,
therapy ain’t easy but it could be just what you needin.
Prayed some ugly prayers and bet that God still receive em.
I encourage myself to feel these feelings when I feel em.
Let me know, I’m still breathing, let me know, that I’m healin.
Victory
This poem is a declaration, but not one of perfection. By the time I wrote it, I had seen what could happen when faith, therapy, love, honesty, and the decision to keep living were allowed to work together. God had met me in places I once believed were beyond redemption, and the life I had been prepared to leave had begun to feel like a life I was called to live. My hope returned differently this time, not as something dependent on circumstances, but as something with roots. I still have to tend to it, and there are still days when peace requires practice, but I now have evidence that darkness does not get the final word. I’d asked God to save me from myself; what I could not have imagined was that salvation would also introduce me to a version of myself I had never known. Victory is not that I neverstruggle - it is that I am here, I am rooted, and I believe again in what is possible.
God gave me strength
·
Science gave me strategy
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God gave me strength · Science gave me strategy ·
I’m tasting victory,
like it was meant for me,
got lost, on the way,
but now I found my peace.
Went from losing sleep -
I’m still losing sleep – but,
this time I’m restless bout the plans God has for me.
I fucked around lost my balance.
Didn’t wanna live no more –
that was my challenge.
And then, I gave up all my hope - traded in all my talent.
But then, in depths of all my pain that’s where I dropped my
baggage.
God gave me strength, and
Science gave me strategy.
What did he mean when He had said this life was meant for me?
This road, rounded away almost ended in casualty.
Is it here in all of this that I’m supposed to find my meaning?
Meaning,
this right here is my testimony:
Not in my own strength do I find my saving grace.
Shoutout to my family and my people that was on me.
If not for the love of them, I would not see today.
I’m grateful for the journey though I wasn’t always for it.
There were many times I prayed that day would be the day.
Jesus said drop the nets again so that He could restore it.
If not for the fire, I’m not sure I’d have my faith.
My head above the waters finally!
I catch a breath of freedom, got up from the grave.
I got a story, and I know that it’s not just for me;
I finally became more than that broken chain.
Not bullshit - not perfect tryna dig my roots.
I’m planted - uncomfortable cuz its new truth.
But I choose new paths because I new route.
I’m waiting patiently to sow me a new fruit.
I’m tasting victory,
like it was meant for me.
God must have sent for me,
like He had meant for me.
