BY THE TIME YOU HEAR THE THUNDER....

Pour the Water, SIP the Wine

Pour the water to wash away the weight of yesterday’s dust.

Sip the wine to honor the fire still burning in my chest.

I am learning that healing is a rhythm

a rinse, a rise, a taste of sweetness after the bitter has passed.

Stand Down

Stand down.

Not because I am fragile, but because I am finished shrinking to make room for someone else’s thunder.

I’ve held my tongue, folded my fire, softened my edges for far too long.

But today, I rise unarmored and unafraid.

Stand down— for your own peace, not mine.

Slow-Burning

I lay beside the anger like a fire that won’t die down, embers whispering what the flames were too loud to say.

It warms and wounds in the same breath, curling around my ribs like smoke that refuses to rise.

But morning always comes, soft as a hand on my back, and I decide again whether to feed the fire or finally let it cool.

Brick by Brick

Brick by brick,

the wall I built

to survive what hurt me.

Every piece I lift away

lets in one more breath,

one more truth,

one more version of myself

that isn’t hiding anymore.

Brick by brick,

I tear down the fortress

I once mistook for safety.

My hands are dusty,

my heart is loud,

and every crumble

is a victory.

I’m not afraid

of what stands behind the wall—

I’m afraid of staying trapped

inside it.

Removing brick by brick was

the weight I carried

for far too long.

Some walls fall loudly,

mine falls in whispers—

a gentle undoing,

a quiet return,

to who I was before the heaviness.

Turn Your Back

Turn your back— not in anger, but in arrival. Some roads don’t deserve your footsteps anymore, and walking away is the loudest truth you’ll ever speak.

Bending Not to Break

Like a branch shaped by seasons, I curve with the weather of my life— sun?warmed, storm?tested, softened at the edges by time.

I don’t stand rigid against the world; I move with it, letting each challenge carve a gentler strength.

This is how I endure— not by resisting, but by bending just enough.

If Brothers Could Sing the Blues

If brothers could sing the blues,

their voices would rise like smoke at dawn—

soft at first, then aching, curling around the truth they never learned to name.

   They’d hum the weight of promises broken,

the echo of footsteps leaving, the quiet battles 

fought behind steady eyes.

And in that song,

you’d hear the strength it takes

to carry a world that never learned

how to carry them.

If brothers could sing the blues,

the sound would be river?deep—

a slow current of memory,

a tide of grit and grace.

Their notes would fall like worn stones,

polished by years of holding too much.

A harmony carved from struggle,

but warm as a hand on your shoulder

when the night gets long.

A song, rooted, raw, the beat would hit hard—

bass like a heartbeat, ly...

Air in My Blues

I felt the weight lifting, a shift in the air,

Like color returning where shadows once lived.

A fracture of brightness, a fearless debut —

Hope stepping forward in a shade I once hid.

 Call it a comeback, a spark, or a truce —

But something inside me

Put Air in my blues.

The Elimination

The systematic elimination of a Race through modern day lynching’s:

Again done from behind the badge, perpetrated through and by the legal system without repercussion:

White sheets replaced by suits and ties and blue uniforms; Grand juries replace burnings, police revolvers replace the noose …

Without hesitation;  they’re killing the bearers and planters of our next generation:

Death is instantaneous, increasingly questionable circumstances, unarmed black men and women continue deadly encounters with police that is a sure death sentence without a conviction.

A threat, inequality, death follows as history repeats itself: lynching’s of African Americans became increasingly common. no one  is ever prosecuted ; Legalization of routine police killings, practices now normal features of American life –

The Elimination

The systematic elimination of a Race through modern day lynching’s:

Again done from behind the badge, perpetrated through and by the legal system without repercussion:

White sheets replaced by suits and ties and blue uniforms; Grand juries replace burnings, police revolvers replace the noose that choked the life out of our men…

Without hesitation;  They’re Killing the bearers of our next generation:

Death is instantaneous, increasingly questionable circumstances, unarmed black men and women continue deadly encounters with police that is a sure death sentence without a conviction.

A threat, inequality, death follows as history repeats itself: lynching’s of African Americans ...