SILVER LININGS /// BY TRUE POET

I’m not trying to say my life is perfect

Cause a crystal figurine glued back together can never be perfect

But baby I’m standing

And I’m shining

I’m opening up my eyes and finding more things in my life that are ok

I’m happy

I’m writing love poems so sappy

I’m lapping up all the fine wine

I’m finally dining at the table of life

And I’m grubbing

See before I was Cinderella scrubbing

But now I’m bumping shoulders

With box seat ticket holders

Like the clock is never going to strike 12

Like sweet chocolate doesn’t melt

But that’s okay cause I fast good

Just like Black educated men can still come out of the hood

Once they find their balance

When they remember where they came from

And what happens to surround them

The world is trying to drown them

In a puddle of blood

From not knowing love

But they’ve surpassed that

And i’ve learned that

The silver linings are not hiding

Like many I did not know

That they were found floating around

the heaviest of clouds

A glow

Celestial and angelic

Severely magnetic

Holding so much kinetic energy

Just waiting to blow

. . .

But it just goes to show

That it’s always going to rain

Just like you and I

Are always gonna feel pain

Just like nothing ever really stays the same

I’m sure a thunderstorm will definitely change the terrain

But the soil, probably just needed water for plants to sprout

Don’t doubt the power of struggle

Don’t expect your bubble not to pop

Stop worrying about your future and live in the now

What’s around us

Street parks that ground us

Dreams that hound us

Beats that meet the sound of our ancestors

The ones who knew hope and faith

On a first name basis

Getting discriminated by bigoted racists

They found their silver linings

Never once going skydiving

So you just kinda gotta look up

At a cloudy sky

Find the light peering

Through the darkness is ok.

The sun can still RISE on the next day

You can still RISE

You just gotta find your silver linings..

Mean it like Malcolm 

March like Martin 

Be real like Booker T 

Write like Ida, poem like Phillis 

Rise up like Maria Stewart Mary Ann Shadd Cary Mary Church Terrell 

Teach like W E B 

Film like Henry Louis Gates, Jr — Direct like Spike 

Preach it like Dorothy Height 

Lead like Dorothy Cotton, like Andrew Young, like Barbara Lee, like Shirley Chisholm Teach like Septima Clark March like Fannie Lou Hamer and Amelia Boynton in Selma 

Free each other like Harriet, like Sojourner 

Rise like Coretta 

“Royalty”

I am royalty 

Nappy hair, coiled,

Beady beads 

Rasta locs 

Sewn down to perfection 

Baby hair laid like butter

skin is as deep as the Nile 

As smooth as shea

Black as hematite or 

as yellow as a sunflower 

I am royalty.

A queen to say the least 

A goddess if I’m being 

Modest I was made in 

God’s reflection 

so I gotta be the hottest

The sun speaks to me

Because he loves my

Melanated skin 

My glow within 

Is reflected in my walk 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

And the way that I talk?

I will not be silent 

You will hear when I come 

You will know when I leave 

And if my presence isn’t missed 

Then my absence is a necessity 

You don’t have to like me 

But you will respect me

This world can not hold me

I am a warrior - the epitome 

Of unstoppable

Queen of the jungle 

Lioness of her tribe 

They will write about me

in history books 

my power they will describe 

as boundless.

I am royalty 

I’m not your Property so 

Approach me properly 

Like I pass life through my womb 

I am changing

I’m freed 

I’m freed 

from my cocoon.

In this world of much confinement  

I'm reliant on the far horizon to strike my stars into alignment between these silver linings. 

We are infinite in our sentiments. 

We grow taller even through gray cement,

until our heights reach those of heaven and all of our times well-spent. 

Because we are infinite. 

We are brothers and sisters 

Daughters and sons of a generation

Who wanted to give up on love years ago

But we do our best to uncover it

We are a constellation 

Beautifully illuminated by our imperfections

But we wear our indifferences like armor

Because we fear what we’ll see if we’re allowed

One second of individuality

To understand emotions and display vulnerability

We are brothers and sisters

Who inhale criticism and exhale cynicism

Because the men before us did not acknowledge a cruel world

So, we can only embrace it

Drape ourselves in abject misery

Try to stitch and mend the problems of our history

We are the brothers and sisters

A mass of degenerates in despair 

Who crave a sweet, numbing  feeling

For the lack of love that knew

Because no one told us that we would be born in such a place

I wonder when unhappiness became so impossible to replace

But all throughout 

The energy

The passion

The optimism

The pride

We are here  together

With a fulfillment of desire to do something better

For the next generation