Roots & Hope
Soulful Reflections on Faith, Healing, and Young Adulting
Category: Poetry
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I miss breathing inside Detroit coffee shops, warm and Black-owned, unworried ’bout cops being called on us, for our being is not a crime. * I miss Detroit Sip on McNichols: affirming words topping tables like cloth, beverages named after neighborhoods like sons and daughters. I miss sharing silence there, making pages and verses with…
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I am a writer, and my first published piece was a love note to a boy named Antoine*. I saw him and instantly knew that he was the one. I mean he was cute, and that was enough. I never had a class with him or spoke a word to him. He had no idea…
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Life is not passing me by. I am neither solely existing nor a mistake. Rather, I am soulful and irreplaceable. I don’t need every 1st of January and birthday to validate that life is a celebration, that I can still dream. Every day, I get to experience newness and continuity. If only I can perceive…
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I’m sitting alone inside my car. Just outside of Kroger (a grocery store), a dude plays Christmas music with a woodwind instrument. Ain’t nobody paying him no mind, just grabbing baskets and Purell wipes, likely praying the cranberry sauce is still in stock and the checkout lines ain’t too long. He looks content though, just…
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Almost every night, I dream of you. Sometimes, you’re larger than you were in life, like a hundred pounds more, yet finally light. … I’m absorbing new mornings, but grief is a slow teach of grace. Forgiving myself for unused words and everything I didn’t know is a dying to perfection. I’m sorry I never…
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I see you holding that fear. You’re afraid to log off of every site and every app, because maybe, you’ll miss out on the modern things of life, and maybe you’ll have to release the steady noise of headlines, speculations, and global worries, but please, do not live in shame. You are not alone if…
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Yesterday, my friend reminded me of this poem. I wrote it in 2017, for my hometown: Arkansas cotton fields to Detroit landscapes, My family’s southern roots blossomed into maple trees and dandelions decorating yards On the city’s west side, Summer scents of blackened charcoal watered my mouth in hunger for hot dogs perfectly grilled,…
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When I feel like a failure, I shall live. When I feel alone, I shall live. When tragedies touch my life, I shall live. When my story feels insufficient, I shall live. When worries trouble me, I shall live. When I feel like giving up, I will keep going because I shall live.
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I used to fear that you were disgusted with these holes across my heart. I used to worry that my memories of feeling alone, forgotten and rejected dug so much out of me that I was empty. But how amazing you are: you see me based on the wholeness of your love, offering me forgiveness,…
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Impressed with himself, he announces his worth with a loud recitation of awards and accomplishments and important people he knows. Satisfied, he finishes his speech, and asks me, “So what do you do?”, almost as if he is genuine, almost like he does not know that it is obvious he is testing my value. Up…
Roots & Hope 