Black Book

I was looking in the mirror…

Opening and closing my eyes. Flipping my palms. Opening my mouth lifting my tongue, checking my mostly white teeth. I turned from side to side, then around. I checked my armpits. Flexed by biceps, chest, imaginary abs, then grabbed my dick.

Don’t fuck yourself.

Go make love to the world.

Grass is Greener

I’m a Lover. I’m a Fighter.

A provider and healer of myself and others.

I’m a hypocrite so I can show you how to recover and shake off my hurt.

I listen, I direct, protect, and show you how to neglect. Powers of a mental prison. I escape to lure you in. If out is what you seek, close your eyes for the best view.

I say my truth is my spirit, you call me delirious. But you should want my crazy to last. It shows my loves will.

I sought the wisdom of the stars. Standing barefoot in the grass, absorbing blessings to keep my head straight, and plant my seed in soil I know will keep me safe.

The grass is greener where my wife and kids lay. But it needs to be maintained.

Keep Fighting?

Art by Leroy Campbell

When you're the rock, you tumble when the kids struggle. Tears break you slowly. Causing trouble as you crumble. Wife shaking, holding hands in prayer so the relationship doesn’t turn to rubble.

A broken man is a weapon with bad intentions. Tearing others apart because he doesn’t know how to help—a lie used to escape problems because he won’t battle himself.

I know what’s next. But I won’t say. I won’t lure the pain. Not even to stop hurting you, Hurt brings revenge. And I don’t want to be the excuse for more suffering. I want to be the healing, helpful end.

I try not to start again, but I saw you struggle and suffer. I’m what you needed to cut loose. You refused. But you cut your eye at me, and it hurt more than hate. You can no longer pretend to love—so my rage never ends.

And I continue to hurt us, end love, and start again.

Daddy’s Nursery Rhyme. (Part 1)

New day. New you. The blues create life changing tunes.

New day. New you. If your blue, create a happy tune.

New day New you. You might feel stuck, but life is moving.

New day. New you. You can make it come true.

New day. New you. Don’t believe me. Go and get the old you. I bet you can’t. You have to force yourself to remain what you were.

New Day. New you. You were born to reach and go far, and I don't mean for buggers.

New day. New you. Never roll on yourself or your friends.

New day. New you. It's easy to be salty. bitter and sour. But it's like I said...

New day. New you. Clean your mess. Make room to be your best.

New day. Newy you. You are amazing. Now tell yourself.

Peace My Brother.

Art from www.freepik.com

Have you found your peace? So many experts, still no exact meaning. Sometimes my insides scream violence—that’s when I find it. When I hold myself back—I feel under attack.

When I let go—I feel in control. It’s the only feeling that has escaped that I want to hold onto. I can handle my war—can you?

My brother— let’s conquer our own peace before tears fuel fire.

Muggin

Art by Stevens Smith

People used to tell me I looked so mean. Then say,

"what's there to be so mad about?"

"You're too young and handsome to be that serious"

"You should smile."

First, I would think to myself “I was smiling in my head until you started talking to me.”

Maybe I was thinking about revenge. Maybe I was reminiscing about exchanging those exotic ugly f!!k faces.

Maybe I'm mad because people won't mind their business. When they see my face, as handsome as it is, they dissect it, want to change me, and if I don't smile, they say I... Have a problem?

That's what I ask before I give them one. Sometimes through force, but when you ask, and I explain, you are offering to take my pain.

7 Days

Seven days

A new deed every one. I do them on my own, so you can't purchase my soul.

I preach and I pay. My alter brings pain. But I talk you into staying.

Give me one more...

It was a struggle but being young and in love is convicting. I don't need proof, just plenty of spirit you feel deep. Sometimes it’s sickening.

Give me one more...

Your looking different. Pretending to be the same, avoiding attention. Looks bring heat, melting the weight. You're losing daily.

Give me one more...

You wanna see the best side. You wonder, is it when your eyes are open? Or closed, where no-one worries, or cares, and mindlessly blurt heartless-meaningless sayings like" at-least they're not suffering."

Give me one more...

Up and out. Your bed, your coffin, you're coughing. You're heaving your love, struggling to find where, how, why you lost, and found yourself high risk for hurt.

You need the pulpit— a torch, a bed, an ashtray, somewhere to block out the world. You spark, you fall and spread like pieces blown without care.

Give me one more...

Sore from the beating. Inspired from surviving. Sad from thriving in defeat and not seeing the win. You feel too many are gone.

Give yourself one more...

Limp forward, I’ll catch you or soften the fall.

Just one more!

Who's Your Dealer?

Art from www.poshmark.com (art by bri_tan)

My dope dealer was my doctor, Prescriptions Kept me running back, Until I just laid and couldn’t feel the attack.  With no way to escape, now I’m always under.

My dope dealer was my teacher. Messages stuck with me until I couldn’t think for myself. What I passed put me in a class I couldn’t drop, so I graduated to rehab, where the black boards were security guards. Dressed in chalk white. Resembling sheets that covered and were never peeked from under. Big smiles-some missing teeth- made me think of pills. Hard and bitter, which messed me up on the inside.

My dope dealer was my parent. What I learned and carried put me through situations I never imagined. I loved and judged. for the right and wrong reasons. My attitude and weight changed with the seasons. Cold, hot, gloomy, breezy, sunny, dark, and I always left my mark.

My dope dealer is myself. I AM, what I believe and tell... Sometimes it’s detrimental, disgusting, and hurtful. But I follow those up with loving, positive, sayings I feel in my spirit.

What I hear makes me wanna kick the habit. Running back and forth, stuck undecided. I never knew anyone who truly quit something bad before their life ended.

I was raised to NOT-BE -A-QUITTER.AND I want to be a winner. I know the only way for me to fail is stopping myself from healing.

What I’m dealing has to please me, more than family or women. And I feel I always need to please them, or I’m a bad product. My environment right now is a mess-needs cleaning-they say it’s close to godliness. That’s how potent my dope needs to be.

Everyone’s Problem

You are not your problems-unless you refuse to solve them.

I heard Jordan Peterson say something similar.

These types of statements always make me wonder “how we make simple things difficult.”

Reminds me of staying where you don’t want to be, because you came with someone who doesn’t want to leave.

Sure, they are strong and independent, but they also rely on you for strength.

Huh, I said rely—like really lie, because they could’ve gotten here on their own. They used you so they could stay new, whole, lose themselves and be kept together by a chaperone.

When chaperones lose the one, their caring for—it’s disgusting, like hurting a newborn.

Stranger Danger

Listen to me.

I know you're asking WHY?

I’m about to tell you.

I've been deaf for a- lot of years. And since were being honest it’s only been during everyone who's loved me's lifetime.

YES.. It’s possible, Because I didn't want to hear the truth. If you loved me, you had to take my faults. And if you left then f!!k you. But don't think for one second, I'm putting up with your aggravation.

My Nana used to say " The older they get the dumber they act" She kept it real about men and women.

I was smart enough to know being alone after you screwed love makes you desperate. Searching and begging, thinking all that pleasing will keep me. And it did. Kept me using you. The same escape that keeps addicts on the move.

Are you hearing me now?

No? You feel me tho. Heart kicking, from your mind flipping, muscles spazzing, remembering when… A stranger got their revenge.

Strange because you loved how the two of you were the ones who would be forever.

But all that lasted were scars and trauma. You were lied to and betrayed, trapped in hurt even after you realized you got what you deserved.

You want to know how they knew how to hurt you. They learned it from you. Friends become strangers forced to teach familiar lessons. All because you refused to listen.

EMO-Rap

Sulking and being an expert in that stupidity makes you believe your family would be better off without you instead of everyone benefitting if you improve.

Child Support (Part 2)

Fathers’

We’re supposed to help and support without court mandates or too late death bed gatherings and prayers. The best way to do that is to be honest about the times we didn’t figure it out— which for a-lot of us is our entire lives.

We need to listen without interrupting, judging, or injecting our own sob stories using our child as a therapist. Dumping our shit in their lap for relief. Catching them off guard for approval and acceptance.

Allow your child to come to you— without sinking them deeper into the life their asking for help avoiding.

If fathers treated their children like a ball game, dice game, the blame game, or the pimp game, every child would be well rounded and never feel love was missing in action.

Nahhh, Fuck that tho. That’s the problem. Dead-beats don’t take providing serious, so they cheat on responsibility like at their point in life, it’s ok to be curious. And in all fairness, it is—just not at the expense of… Ahh who am I kidding. Grown up’s always find an excuse and swear it’s a valid reason they ain’t shit.

FATHERHOOD AIN’T NOTHING TO PLAY WITH.  Absent parents lead to dropped futures. Fuck boy, you can’t build or heal, sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing. Plus, I always thought you was the real deal. That’s what you always bragged about. With your friends, whom now that I think about it, had an eerie resemblance, ya’ll were twins, from fathers who must’ve screwed over the same type. Bragging, chasing, flirting with other women—who never seemed to mind a child.

“What’s that saying? —, women don’t want men who aren’t wanted or taken.” I read that somewhere in the pussy scriptures-or one of the books written by pimps--great fucking literature.

Running through excuses is not a hustle. Teaching youth to play through falls, scrapes, and bruises YOU inflicted—is a healthy neglect—encouraging babies to grow up and pass the same test.

A Better Man’s World (how conflict resolution made me a better man and father)

Today I realized,

I am great. Because I wasn't resolving my mistakes.

So, I stopped despising my kids for theirs. That feeling may not last all day. But I know why I had it. Because I want the best for them, and they are making some of the same bad moves I made. Some are new and some of them are also good.

But when anyone doesn't listen to a man, we (men) feel like we are being threatened. We think this person must not respect me, so they must be plotting an attack and, will be a problem in the future.

But if you to pay attention, you'll realize you're not listening to them either. You’re too occupied with getting your way to see that your way isn’t working for them, and didn’t work perfectly for you either. You had to adjust and still do.

Everybody wants something different and that doesn't make them wrong. or a threat.

The goal to conflict resolution is to leave with peace- not- more- conflict. That can be hard because we fight ourselves to resolve everything. Men always want to be viewed as strong. And we believe anything other than conquering makes look weak.

I had to resolve that emotion because I don’t want to conquer my kids.

Today I realized

I am a lover

I am a fighter

I am a coward (I avoid and hide from what I don't wanna do)

I am brave (I just admitted all these things to myself)

I am angry

I am peaceful

I just wanna f!!k

I just wanna be left alone

I want it all.

I submit to understanding myself and only resolving weaknesses that conquer my strength. Everything else is a waste of my time.

Kingpin's Diary

Art by Jeffrey Huet

I’m gonna re-live my hood dream of becoming a kingpin. Like celebrities, rappers and scientists, promoting drugs benefits.

Encourage youth to become addicts-to gain new experiences, speed up aging and overdose on the wasted talent parents never recovered from.

That’s the wave. Too high for help. Too low to get away. Crime pays if you have the money to make it legal. The business is global, the world wants more zombies, roaming streets, stuck behind screens, filling prisons, and experimental rehab facilities.

It brings attention. Gives me a name and popularity for something other than modeling for anxiety and depression.

Oh' stop being weak. Society created me. I am reincarnated for every generation.

But here's the secret, stop me now or your kids will pay later.

Please. I need you. To try me.

BLACK-LIST

Nenikas Art

Currently, I Am in the process of acquiring the income of the one percent. I have the mental capacity and clarity to see my past, present and future based on my behavior. So, I can reach and live in their dimension. Thats how I see myself. Don’t talk to me if you don’t see my vision.

Deep Thoughts.

Can a man’s deepest gifts be something other than seeds of life? Let’s fuckin’ find out.

Brotherly Love

I can make a body turn cold. Brother love is cruel. You understand, I didn't want the same as you. I don't stand for ignorance. It makes us look foolish. 

Get close for control. Hugs set up alignment of coffins. Handshakes nail it tight. Finger snaps and hand claps sound like discipline and warning shots.

The signal people are onto you. Flesh hollers, but you couldn't be bothered. Deaf to the noise because getting off is calling. You Stay on point to be what you claim not to want.

Pressure

What type of pressure do you like? And where?

Throat or down below.

Hold up or press the throttle? When family looks at you like there’s no tomorrow. Do you dig the next mans or find your own bottom.

Lessons spew, like a parent’s tongue and food battling to stick. They pray it’s not crime lurking.

Murdering innocence has the world leaking like a hydrant. Sending it downstream only passes on the shit.

Press her. Pres-sir. Written on sheets, the ones that crumble, burn covering others or wash clean, when you bleed a lie, it stains, occupying its hold. When you stress the truth, it creates a terror—people run for cover.

Press and surely lose. Don’t take what bothers another.

Know-ledge

Do you know your ledge?

I know mine.

I accept my vanity without judging others for who they are. But ugliness that’s not physically attached to me is a burning image that blinds.

I don’t pretend I’m entitled to war because we disagree. But the title I hold in my mind says you need to provide my peace.

Making others happy doesn’t guarantee my own because sometimes I just don’t feel anyone deserves it. And the time I don’t want to be bothered is when people need the most.

Silently judging and holding a grudge makes me feel safe enough to move forward.

What I love now may take life tomorrow. But that’s not permission for you to ruin it for me with momentary sorrow.

Kill it.

Fuck it.

Love it.

Feel it.

Laughing is the body preparing to cry. All the same emotions we feel at the beginning and end of life.

The Happy Fool

I never had the mindset to find happiness in lack. I might dig up some motivation to get out, but comfort calls me back.

The hustle for survival? Lonely strength, encouraging submission of men and women, IF, I can help them, but don’t need theirs.

When you’re disciplined to take, you don’t notice it all escape.

Find happiness before tragedy hits.