For as long as she could remember, she always wanted to be better.

And, sitting at a lone table in the cafeteria like she always did, she thought about what it meant to be good enough.

How she never was.

Pressure assaulted, stress crushed, and tension snapped her day after day.

But she was better than them, the kids who always had fun.

Made Cs.

Had friends.

Relationships.

Parents.

Birthday parties.

How hard she tried never seemed to matter.

She wanted to be like them, but they rejected her like they knew what she was.

Trash.

Memories flooded her mind in a wash of red embarrassment and rage, and she remembered.

When her parents didn't want her and abandoned her to the system when she was born, and given to foster parents who demanded perfection.

And how she was better, and gave it to them.

When she didn't make honor roll in elementary, they called her stupid.

And how she was better, and made it every year after that.

When she was thirteen and the first boy she wrote a note to threw it away, she asked him why and he told her she was fat.

And how she was better, and stopped eating every day.

When kids went to parties, she never got an invitation and found out it was because she wasn't cool.

And how she was better, and made money so they'd like her.

When she was seventeen and raped after given drugs put in her drink on her first date, she found out that she'd been used.

And how she was better, and realized that she would never be accepted the way she wanted.

Her rejection never changed.

No matter how much she did.

So she stood up, sighted, and showed everyone just how much better she was.

What she sees when she closes her eyes

Is a way for her to escape time

She goes into this fantasy world

Of beauty, love, sometimes horror

Anything is better than her reality

Some people would define her methods as insanity

Every time he touches her

She escapes to a different world

She dreams of being captain of the sea

It is a miraculous dream

A pirate who steals the gold

She is always the hero

The waves crash and rumble

He whispers in her ear "oh that was fun"

Back to reality she drops

To the dirty room and smell of rum

When the state took her away

In the back seat her mind would play

Tears streaming down her face

Closing her eyes to escape 

Into the wind she flew

Finding somewhere new

The mountains below looked so small

Being here she could never fall

She smiles over at peter pan

And he asks her whats her plan

Back to reality she drops

Whats your plans asks her new mom

A home that is in it for the money

A girl who is done caring

A rugged cruel home

No one should ever know

When pain and despair take over

It's all over in a single moment

Before she knows it she's in Japan

She kicks ass beside Jackie Chan

Saving the world from Godzilla

Oh she always ends up a hero

When saves the whole country

The crown applauds and throws her money

Back to reality she drops

The men in the crowd touch their cocks

They throw her money for her dance

Oh becoming this was not her plan

Trying to survive another day

Every night is different escape

It's like her own sick game

Soon the sex and bruises arent enough

It's like her mind is stuck

A needle to escape

She's chasing the pain

Chasing pain to find a dream

Chasing a dragon to set her free

With every vein blown

She finds herself a new place to go

One day she wont drop back to reality

One day her existence will be all but a dream

I'm dark. I'm BLACK. I may be violent, cantankerous, periodically complacent, but

I am NOT afraid!

A BLACK girl is presumably “so serious and angry all the time” and goes to a predominately white school because the predominantly black school could care less about another Afro’s education. Where has history left us? In social settings where I am encouraged to share my different experiences and communicate with my black associates, I don't because they are incognizant of their minority status or better yet they are just ignorant GHETTO blacks that can't name one AFRICAN slave. Or vice versa, in classroom settings where I am exposed to a pool of whiteness, I don't share my experiences because they are inherently misconceived and desensitized.

So these idiosyncrasies haughtily reveals itself

As I digest these incurable fallacies

The reality authenticates

After I hear my dad call my mother a “Nigga”

The reality authenticates

After my granddad extols my straight, flat-ironed hair

And degrades my natural kinky curls

The reality authenticates

After I reflect on my past ordeals

In which I disgraced and dismissed my own fragile culture

Yet

After my reflections metamorphoses to dreams

My future effaced these realities

My life reflects the sun's brilliance

When I have deep, intriguing conversations about cultural diversity and inclusiveness

My life reflects the sun's brilliance

When I disapprove the unsound criticisms against my darkness

My life reflects the sun's brilliance

When I edify a non-black culture of AFROCENTRIC feminism

My life reflects the sun's brilliance

When I watch intellectual film crafted by an African woman

That reconceptualized the stigma between Africans and African Americans

My life reflects the sun's brilliance

When I declare my own prosperity

Through all of the humanities

That binds the inscriptions

Of Ingenious Cognitions

So I am NOT the ordained setback

Even though history

Continually brings me down

My resilient culture

Brings me back up

The BLACK FIST

I raise proudly in the air

Not only evinces my solidarity

But revitalizes my ethnicity

Hence

I am not a racist

Nor am I an extremist

I am a dedicated activist

That my ancestors had predetermined

Love and hate,

They're all the same.

Extreme feelings that can change from one to another,

They are so different,

yet feel so similar.

One can feel both,

but not know either.

One can feel neither, yet thinks both.

Many ask if they love or if they hate...

Still, what should be asked, what are they?

What is love truly?

What is hate really?

One might never know the answer,

unless they look deep inside them.

The radiant ball of fire in the sky hit my face as I paced to class. The more I stood under it, the more my worries festered. The only thing I cared about now was whether I was worth living another day on this half-dead planet. My life was deteriorating and I could no longer hold on.

Today was the day that I decided to end it all.

My headphones are glued into my ears and I stared at the floor. I did not want to listen to the happiness that surrounded me. At this point, I had no motivation to continue. 

For a strange reason, my brain told me to look up.

I did as I was told.

A man, who appeared to be my age, slowly walked towards me. Our gazes met and I was instantly lost in his eyes. They soothed the depths of my troubled soul and his smile tingled my heart. I saw his lips form words, but I couldn’t make out what they were.

Our shoulders brushed past each other and our spark disappear. 

I immediately turned, but he was not there.

I don't know what he told me, but I had to find out, even if I had to keep living.   

I remember all that I could be, 

The memories and the cotton candy

Wishes piled up on dreams

The whole being of me. 

I wonder at my limited sanity

At my internal stream of profanity

The multiplication of anxiety

I'm stuck onstage, alone with me

I remember all that I could see

My imagination controlled me

I created things that couldn't be

Alone in my insanity.