The wheels keep spinning on a brand new thought

Lay down at night and say without shame
Today I was a man, tomorrow I'll be the same
Be a bonfire when others are just a flame
Be a memory when others are just a name

I often find myself consumed with thoughts that overburden my brain. I've always been an inner "what-if" person. I need peace and serenity to maintain my sanity. But as calm, carefree, and nonchalant as I try to be on the outside, my heart is in cardiac arrest any given second as i constantly evaluate life itself. From the urban terrorism that plagues our cities, to personal issues, to family ties; it all makes for an tiring life of wonder, worry, woe, and whoa. Over time, I have learned to make decisions based on fact-based analysis. Just do a quick assessment and bang out an answer or solution. Yet, there are those instances when emotion and/or adrenaline takes over and usurps all authoritative power you may have previously had over your actions.

We all go through the motions. My peoples in Texas are growing through the motions right now. And I'm hurting because they are. My peoples in NYC are hurting right now. And I'm hurting right along. My peoples in Charleston are hurting. It's all the same game. I'm hurting too. My head is thumping. My brain is scattered. My body is weary. I haven't really had a good night's rest in nearly a month. We all take our lumps. Everyone takes one for the team now and then. No amount of ibuprofen can withstand that pain it inflicts.

I performed three pieces the other night and felt really good about the result. It was a cathartic experience. I am a very private person. Always have been and always will be. But there's one caveat. I literally put my life's times in between the paper's lines like Prodigy. I guess I used to visit Queens too much as a child. When I write I find my myself purging all of my emotion onto a blank canvas and then channeling that energy into something else, something new, something different. And that something is never preplanned, structured, or fantasized. But it is always organic, definitive, and from the heart. As much as I seem to be a loud ass to some, others know me as a extreme recluse. I can't call it. I am what am.

I think back to Erykah Badu when she exclaimed how sensitive she was about her shT. I sometimes feel the same way, not in a protective parental way, but in a way that is risk averse to the humiliation, embarrassment, and public critique that could potentially ensue as a result of what was shared. I prefaced my first two pieces by nervously asking the crowd to shut the fuq up. In retrospect, it was not the high road I probably should have taken, but I took it and I do not regret it. Just chalk it up as one of those gut decisions. I heard somebody booing the previous poet and I didn't like that shT. nahmean.

That's why I can't do the shit I used to do no mo'
This world'll try to break you with lies and fables
Make you not even believe in you no mo'
-Little Brother, "When Everything Is New"

But those gut decisions can really do a number on you though, yo. Regrets, second guesses, poor choices, bad data; that shT'll drive you nuts, yo. Gotta take the fractured and tattered shards of manhood I saw as a boy and weld those into a glass masterpiece. A mirror I can look at in the morning without shame. Without pain. Without even a slight strain in my brow. I want to have presence and not merely be an echo in life. I'm still trying to find my way as I continue to grow and evolve. I try to rationalize and make the best decisions I can based on all known factors, but sometimes those irrational formulas that never seem to add up always get in the mix and throw your balanced equations off.

But I'm going to keep writing. I'm going to keep walking tall. Embrace the man I have become, the one I used to be, the one I vowed never to become, and the one I know I can graduate up to. I can only continue to pray and ask for favor in being led the right way. I'll play my position. I guess I'm just not ready to coach yet. Check ball, yo.