(CLICK HERE to watch the video for this poem)
It’s not about going where it’s safe… but where you’re needed.

Safe

Cops stay away – fearing for their lives
While families in urban cities face anxiety everyday…
Call for help and you’ll realize
Response time is like the government’s to Katrina…
While bullets fly in rapid succession
No chance for reflection as select corner blocks are ruled by thugs and drug lords
It’s Hell on earth for some.
In a System that devalues a family’s worth.

Come 96th street separation begins…
Segregation exists – you see it on subway trains
And in neighborhood schools where Color rules the terrain
Caucasian students are the minority.
The worst schools in the nation are a majority in ghetto plantations
Kids stand for hours to get through metal confiscation
Like at the school, in the news, where students protested and said:
We’re kids – not convicts!

The Grand Experiment

She was born into this room – 12 by 14 – this closet filled with only a broom, a toilet and a sink. She didn’t know what to think as she aged, but the room was all she ever knew – so she accepted it.

No windows to look through – just 4 walls, a ceiling and a floor – oh and then there was that door – which never opened – the opportunity to explore never given… and she never missed it.

Each time she awoke from sleep a meal would be waiting by that door. It smelled good, so by instinct she’d eat – never thinking to ask for more. Was it day or was it night? She had no concept of time. When it wasn’t dark – it was light – when the tungsten filament was set ablaze by electricity and the bulb came on. Even then she had nowhere to go in the small room with a ceiling and a floor. So she made up an imaginary friend out of the broom to explore the small expanse.