No Man's Land

See…I’ve been a poet since like…year four?

…Yeahh I remember, I started stringing syllables like lifelines.

Learnt to link my language tighter 

YKnow, articulate it more

But then I felt the walls closing in

And so I let a verse slip out the door

Lil nigga, BIG world 

I felt like I had to even the score

And life?

That’s unfamiliar terrain 

And I was washing up on a new shore, literally.

Plus! I had no voice when I was younger

Like everyday I live under

A sky that knew nothing but pressure

And pressure turns into thunder

My fight or flight made me roar

Raw

Loud

Unapologetic 

Thi-This shit like war nigga

The kind where bullets were my consonants

Cased into heavy rhythm 

Where trauma turns into opposites

Man I’ve got ammunition

and I don’t even need to scope in!

Every line ricochets 

And now shrapnel’s hitting showbiz

…But now they duck when I speak.

Now they whisper, like I’m an omen.

Why is everybody superstitious?!

Wait - Is it cuz I couldn’t save private Ryan?

I was too busy dragging myself out of the trenches of silence

You know what made me purple hearted?

All the damage I shelved

All the pain that stayed quiet while I smiled and excelled

Now I’ve got dog tags in my notebook

PROOF I was here

PROOF that I fought

PROOF I wrote through it all 

And maybe,

this line right here might be the last look

So I yell

ATTENTION

I’m crossing no mans land.

No map.

No backup.

Just me,

My breath

And a pen that don’t jam.