An Intrinsic Sense of Entitlement 

Walking through the gate

I read the engraved message
"Leave all self behind"
Never mind your silly notions
Of you, of being true
To that figment of your imagination
And without contemplation
Forget your name, you're a number
A bar-code
Here you will be scanned
To determine your worth
Just another cookie-cutter piece of the puzzle
Trying to get a piece of the pie
You are a sum of parts
So start measuring up
Intoxicated with the obligation libation
I took a sip from the Ivy cup
Poison
No choice in the matter at hand
This wasn't the plan
I don't understand
Why don't I fit Harvard?
No fancy legacy in my back pocket
No master key to unlock it
No money to fall back on
Or expensive tastes to snack on
No security that if you don't succeed
The world will still heed your requests
And all this suggests
I don't belong here
So I left

I returned

Walking back through the gate
The message has changed
Letters rearranged
To reveal a new deal
Don't forget yourself
Feel free to ask for help
Inner truth and internal strength
Are your sword and shield
Don't yield to becoming a digit
You are unique
Non need for the institution to decree
Instead of expensive desires, you have dreams
Instead of money, charm
Instead of a key, you have a pen
And you are where your legacy begins
Forget fitting Harvard, make Harvard fit you
You have already achieved
Failure is an obstacle that poses no threat
And never forget
You and your colleagues share one major factor
An intrinsic sense of entitlement
I deserve it, reserve it, conserve it and will serve it
As a side dish to Tiana

Greatness

I'm applying to the university of greatness

Rolling admissions

I guess I'm on a wait list

I'm destined to shake this

World by storm in multiple forms

But fate is

A tease

And I'm like please, recognize me

For the sake of humanity or my sanity

And every time I get a little taste its

Like I'm in a relay race its

Like fate says take this baton

I'll let u know when I'm ready to put u on

And then I'm out, I'm gone

like a mouse running in circles

Trying to get the cheese

And I'm like please, recognize me

For the sake of humanity or my sanity

No stranger to hard work or a challenge

I'm thrown off balance

When I realize that good luck is a contender

So I surrender

Dear lady luck,

I need your assistance against this resistance

To my persistence but in this instance

She doesn't agree

And I'm like please recognize me

For the sake of humanity or my sanity

I had an epiphany

I'm crazy

For better or worse, both blessing and curse

I don't need coins of pity from destiny's change purse

I'll burst out on the scene for living my American dream

I'll scream, "Hahahahaha, you couldn't stop me!"

U may not be ready, but I am so I'll take it

Can't fake it so guess I'll just make it

And when I get there recognize me

Because I just changed the face of greatness with my insanity

Novel Ideas

My mind is like a book that's still pending

A cyclical series of events that are never-ending
I try to rip out pages i don't like, despite
the knowledge that the edges of those moments
will never not be there, tattered
The fact of the matter
is the words written no longer fit into
my idea of myself

I change the plots, characters and settings

without letting myself get to know my own story
Every new page appears over-rated, out-dated, anticipated
Uninteresting and too complicated

I change the lesson of each chapter

so that when all is said and done
There's a happily ever after
Distracted by my own laughter,
I dogear a page I will never get back to
Because I've already lost my place

I used to love her

I woke up this morning, asleep

Living, breathing, consciously existing

In a dream

Chasing another dream

And you

You were there

But you always are

Are the Amazon woman

Residing in my unconscious mind

Resounding the victory cry

Trying to find

The natural, every woman

That is born out of knowledge

Not the universal man conception

Deception

Know everything about nothing

And nothing about anything

But inner truth

Internal proof of strength and freedom

The intrinsic importance of

The depth of meaning in

The necessity for

Woman

This woman

Are this connection

The protection from other, from self, from self-doubt

The example of God in all creatures

In your features

The eyes

Fingertips

Lips

Nose

And I suppose

Toes

Treading softly upon heavily burdened reality

The reflection of

Woman

This woman

Are beauty that is sacred

Ancient goddess

Unyielding to time and space

Existing not to reassure the human race

But to assert herself from the rest

Suckling from your own breast

The balance of all that is good and evil

Power is yours by nature

Woman

This woman

Are this friendship

The birth-child of real

Both mother and daughter of the sun

The inner light

The forever plight

To find time to find time

To glow together

Exchange pieces of our souls together

Grow together

To take the fragments of being to build an empire

To frolic

To hold each other up

If heaven shall fall

Use these hands

The hands of

Woman

This woman

I am Poetry

I scribble
To calm my mind
To keep myself
Try to find myself
Lost in the incomprehensible swirls
Of cursive letters
To my brain, insane, inane
I can't stand the pain
I drain myself
Let my fingers do the walking
To quiet the talking inside myself
Self-defined in definitions
Recognition of divisions within visions
Of myself
Soft but strong
Bouncing back and forth like left to right
Right to wrong
I hum a song
To distract myself
Retract myself
From within to without
Fractions, dissatisfactions, interactions
With myself
I distaste myself
Try to escape myself
Disgust myself
Distrust myself
Discuss this with myself
Blank
A page without ink
My brain with a thought I couldn't think
I blink
To change the picture show outside myself
Beside myself
Can't hide within myself
If I doubt myself
I live without myself
Self-revised through revisions
Decisions to reduce incisions
My mission
To provide myself
The ability to overcome adversity through creativity
I bleed myself
Need myself
To complete myself
Compose myself
I
Am
Poetry

I’m not a poet

I’m not a poet

I leave it to the prose
What happens when my pen dances across a paper?

I really don’t know

For that instant my heart and hand are

In sync

I don’t think, I feel

It happens without my consent, permission or otherwise

It is simply will

When I sit to write, it’s right

When I cry, my pen cries

Bleeding a thousand tears in stream-like sequence

My frequency, my energy

Streamline the graceful yet abrasive movements of

Sullen ink

In that moment I am a goddess on high

I reign

Thoughts and emotions rain

Words

Words are what they are and mean what they mean

But that’s just semantics

I’m crazy

For that molecule of time

My mind, without boundaries, flies

Honesty