What Is This?!

I guess since big pharma will be losing money because marijuana legalization
they gonna be forcing immunization.

Death or decriminalization?

Either way we’re gonna have a battle.
Our babies held down while doc pierces their flesh with a needle
Life gone before they can even hold a rattle.

Opiods or seizures?
Seizures take fathers away. Away to the House of the Rising Sun.
Sons left to be men before it is their time.
Time consumed as we count the days to when we
will
be
free
Give us us Free!

Free for a price
They’ll accept your life
Or a bail
If you’re in jail
Jail, the place for incarceration
Concentration or incarceration?
Focus on the dollar over the education
They got hungry mouths to feed
And a family or dream vacation
Vacation from the ones who stay on the reservation
The project
Projects that lead to the loss of identification so we don’t recognize
Mass
Incarceration

Incarceration or a watered down education?
Community schools and waisted dedication
Teachers frustrated
I guess they were miseducated
Miseducated some forget where they come from
Forgot what they needed
Before they succeeded and tried their best not to be that bum

That bum that sat in class and smoked weed or got drunk
Or that little girl that was scared of the dark so pisses the bed and her clothes stunk

His or her story repeating its self
Repeating its self
Repeating
Its
Self

Self discipline or corporal punishment?

Police officers become street judges
False accusation misidentification
Repeat offenders or victims of grudges?

Grudges or prey?
Prey to the delusional patient misdiagnosed and suffers Fregoli Delusion
Look it up and draw your own conclusion
Gunshots interfere with due process
Shall I digress

Digression has gotten us nowhere but oppressed
Overworked
Miseducated
And over stressed

Locks or keys?
When will it be time to shake the rusty golden scarab from your thoughts and your deeds?
Let me create a locksmith and we’ll forge you some new keys

Keys to the cells that hold our god molecule
The ones in our mind’s vestibule

Just beyond the doors that are shut in the faces of the determined
Turned down so much that now they turn up the burboun
Feeding the Beast that’s held within
Trampling new ideas with diamond encrusted cages drawn by the four horsemen

Death’s at the door knocking with it’s boney hand
And the stench is coming from the witness stand

Stand as a silent witness to the demise of our brothers and sisters
As they create new brothers and new sisters

Selective breeding or trans dis-figuration?
Hidden uh genders born in corpses forming a lost generation

Found in the institutions that resemble the mental asylums
General education merged with the IEP
Inclusion of those with bad behavior with those having natural disability

Classrooms become cells and rubber rooms
While little kids fill the family tombs
Grandmas and grandpas living longer than their whole family
This is what mass incarceration looks like to me

Prison planet, prison state how’d you get that meal on your plate
You don’t deserve any praise
You’ll never be great, anyways

As we stumble through the food deserts and smoke pipes in their dreams
We still stand strong cause it ain’t over till the fat lady sings

Starvation or revolution?

The negro, the slave, the savage, the patty, the jew,
Their racial slurs that look like me and look like you

Gated communities or infirmaries?

Concentrated housing providing shelter
One on top of the other creating helter skelter

Crammed in like they said it was on the slave ship
Well I never was a slave and I’m not trying to hear that shit
Ghost ships guided by the flying Dutchman
Packed with the lies of a false identification

Boys and girls missing
They in the hallway
Where the addicted are pissing

Freedom or death?

Eyes wide shut to the truth of the golden rule
Fight the power with your pen is what they taught us in school
Lessons missed as we scratch for survival
It is only when we elevate that we’ll have our revival

I crawled out of my shell and stood boldly before the crowd as they threw roses and stones. Bruised and bleeding I sunk back under my rock. The calluses formed and my shell grew thick. My voice is now a shrill alarm.

I arose from the grave that was once my berth and stand here again dripping with sin.
I go against your norm and stand up for reform.
I will not be tweaked into a zombie for death. My being wreaks life so much that it destroys like a invasive vine, choking the ideas of the madmen and women.

Like a Unicorn, I am rare. Incapable of capture. My dragons are summoned to serve as reminders, to keep me focused.
Cries of the babe fall upon my ears as music to my march.

My strength is gathered from the pools of the tears of the victims of the miseducated. I drink deeply from their wells. Energizing my spirit to beckon to their will.

Cry sweet freedom, justice, and tranquility. Your tears are salted with the dust of the innocent. Bodies slain before life is given as those that were given a chance stand behind their murderers.

Martyrs are you as the arguments continue on floors walked by those that listen with their eyes, and all they see are dollars signs.

Poverty stricken across lands where you would have grown. Your parents taught to believe that you should not live because they do not desrve you because they do not have material wealth, So they disregard their creator’s decree to be fruitful and multiply.

The birth of a nation, a nation of fear. Fear of life and expectations of the end before the middle is even dreamed.

Foster the people,they believe not in your life. The walking dead stagger on their way to mental institutes disguised as school houses through the angel dust clouds that boarder the food deserts.
Empty bellies, empty minds fill them with remnants of the hope left behind by the leaders that left this planet in the same manner some believe should have been their fate before they were even conceived.

Mutilation, an after affect of mental anguish endured by those that are sent here by a force greater than any of us, by the ones who hunt all life on all levels. The scorned taking charge of the decisions of the scorned. Vision lost as life is degraded amongst animals and mankind alike.

How far will we go? Can we begin to implement your outlook on life beginning with you?

Mother

You gave me life so that I may continue the extension of my father’s lineage. Yet father flees when he gets the news and leaves you on your knees

On your knees begging for a way to survive a way to keep me alive so that I may thrive and be more

More than what he is. More than what you think you are and more of what society needs

Society needs me to be strong and carry the weight of my mom so she can be safe from harm so she can be safe from harm so that she can be safe.from. harm.

Safe from the harm that she may cause herself, safe from the harm that others may cause as they seek to take her wealth, safe from the food that might poison her health, safe from the men that may poison her. health

Health is the root of all our survival. Mother knew that upon my arrival. Her struggle to keep me safe. To keep me in a healthy space.

Space between mother and father has brought me to my knees. I’m begging and pleading so I can create that same safe my mother created for me.

For me she gave her life.
She gave her life to her job.
She gave her life to her friends.
She gave her life to her men
She gave her life to her end

Her end was with me. With me was her end. Not a friend, not a boss, not even one of those men. I was with her in the end.

My Petroleum Experience

For many years I’ve used hair grease on my daughters’, and my own, hair; and even on our bodies as a form of moisturizer.  I actually like the results of using petroleum jelly, it makes my skin clear and smooth, plus my skin looks radiant in the sun.

The whole purpose of me putting the grease or petroleum jelly on our hair and scalp was to moisturize and keep flakes of dandruff from forming.

Boy was I wrong.

One of my daughters always has had really bad dandruff and seasonal eczema. This past winter my daughter went through her yearly eczema episode of scaly dry skin that needs extra care during those cold dry months.  I usually use a hydrocortisone cream from her doctor, along with shea or cocoa butter, which clears it up no problem. But this year I decided I wanted to try something new.

What did I use? Aquaphor. No, this is not about bashing this particular company or brand, at all, but to bring awareness to an ingredient in their product. Petroleum.

So, I put the ointment on the areas that were inflamed and scaly. Days go by and I notice no improvement and the areas started to become bumpy and oozed clear liquid. I brought her to the doctor, and she was prescribed her usual hydrocortisone cream and immediately, next day, her skin was on the road to recovery. I have now learned to use the term ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

I’m not done, there’s more.

Remember the dandruff I mentioned earlier? Well, its always been really bad. I mean to the point that the flakes would be seen in her hair and her scalp would , at times, look white and dry, and it would itch like crazy especially if she got nervous or tired. I would try to remedy her itchy flaky scalp by applying hair grease. The more it itched the more I put. I have ruined many pillow cases trying to relieve my little girl’s scalp. My favorite was Blue Magic; I used every variety trying to find which would work best. I even tried their Indian Hemp, but her hair still would be flaky and itchy.

After our Aquaphor experience, I put two and two together.

My daughter is allergic to petroleum.

I immediately stopped using the grease and the dandruff subsided. No itching, no flaking, and it stayed this way for three days.

***Update: since June 1, 2015 when I originally started to compose this blog, my daughter’s dandruff and itching has not returned. I have been using virgin or organic coconut oil which works very well on her hair and scalp.***

These two incidents prompted me share this story, just in case there are other African American women,and men, who use petroleum based products and may experience the same symptoms.

Although petroleum allergies are not specific to any one race, I think, African Americans (like myself), because of the use of hair grease, may be experiencing symptoms on a larger scale than most people.

I always thought I was doing myself some good by slathering petroleum all over my body. What I was actually doing was coating my skin and not allowing my skin to breathe. I think my skin was soft because of the trapped sweat that would never make it through the petroleum. So, I think, the petroleum was like plastic wrap, leaving a nice soft skin after it’s washed away.

I think that’s a benefit, however, long term use of petroleum, or continuing to use petroleum not knowing one may have an allergy can be hazardous to one’s health.

Petroleum is in almost everything we use. From our hair care products to the containers that hold our foods. Although this may be hard to avoid, it is better to know the potential hazards and symptoms to be able to recognize why one may be experiencing discomfort from certain products, to be able to avoid them.

Knowledge is power.