IMAGINE AGAIN
there’s a dark room
with no windows
and no doors
where lies a black box
that remains locked
with no key
where I keep my deepest fears.
Fears that exist in the forms of nightmares
that wake me from my dreams
only to hear the screams
of dying children.
Children with winged backs
broken hands and bruised feet
who step backwards into the future
with hopes of catching up to their past,
born to African women
that keep visions of black men
hanging high from trees
clenched between their teeth,
holding on to memories
of fathers and sons as they sway in the wind.
Children whose lives will end
before they’ve had a chance to begin
after biting away at umbilical cords
in order to free themselves of the burden
brought on by birth—
traveling backward through canals
to escape the death sentences given by life,
screaming fire
and crying blood
with nightmares dangling from their eyelids
and unanswered prayers dying on their lips
while fate burry’s itself
under the nails that blacken over their fingertips.
Children who inhale life through their noses
and exhale death from their mouths
while chanting songs that built railroads near plantations
where our forefathers pounded away their lives on train tracks
just so we could have a trail to follow back home.
Thus I have returned to save the children.
I have come to save the children
drenched in the blood of slaves
with shackles dangling from my tongue:
speaking in whips that crack the back of Eternity’s sins.
with winged feet and feathered hands
soaring into the winds of time
to change hours into countless minutes
and minutes into seconds soaked in the blood of freedom.
with my eyes buried in my palms
and knuckles wrapped around my wrist
like magic beads,
dressed in dreams that never end,
wearing nightmares on the soles of my shoes to crush fear.
with hope pierced in my ears
and faith tattooed on my tongue
smelling like the scent of forever,
head wrapped in cloths made by destiny.
A warrior of peace
with fire burning under my fingernails,
clenching smoke in my fists
only opening to release clouded signals
that tell of victory and truth.
I have come to save our youth,
the children who breathe their future
and taste Eternity with the tips of their tongues
the lawyers
the doctors
the educators
the wise men
the father’s
the sons
the songwriters
the poets
the dreamers
the leaders—
these are the children
who’s souls I have come to save
so that I may free my fears
forever.