Lightbringer

by Qwantu Amaru

  the dead rising into heaven

  the heavens rising into space

  space rising into wholeness of thought

  the truth

  is not the beginning or ending

  just bending with the wind

  like feathers floating through out of body experiences

  experience

  is gained from floating and never knowing

  where and when we’ll land next

  on the truth

  expect nothing

  in order to gain everything

  you’ve ever desired is only a breath away

  stay aware of your surroundings

  keep your heart pounding

  and one day you will find

  your truth

  hateration

  they wanna keep me from speaking to you

  cuz if you knew me, then it would make it that much harder to hate me

  the government created niggers of all colors, sizes and shapes see

  to separate the masses and part the classes like the red sea

  the fucked up part was that it was easy to confuse the issue

  they just found some ignorant mu’fuckas with influence to say it’s true

  if i just had rocket

  for every time i heard some dumb shit

  drip from the lips of some slander slangin neandrothal

  i could blow up every television set in the country

  but i’m nothing more than a jungle monkey in their eyes

  still this monkey has more than a few tricks in his skin

  let me take you on a trip so you can feel where i’ve been

  and where our people our going

  as the economy keeps slowing, resentment keeps growing

  into a burning bush that’s out of control

  chew on this

  it’s ludicrous to see people still killin one another in race wars

  because our time here is short and we’ve got so much to live for

  i can’t afford to waste life in this way besides i don’t get paid enough

  ain’t life already tough without wasting time and energy hating on the next man

  don’t you claim to be a believer in the Bible, Quran, or Torah’s text man?

  but it ain’t easy to remain peaceful

  what with corrupt cops killing more and more defenseless people

  it gets harder and harder to choose good over evil

  but that’s exactly what we gotta do

  it’s very easy to hate men because they slaughtered us like animals and never looked back

  it’s very easy to hate men because they snuck crack and guns into the ghettos so we would kill ourselves

  but we gotta put that baggage back on the shelves

  and pick up a book and pen instead

  because the only way to get ahead is to keep your head

  the more we learn to create instead of destroy

  we won’t fall into that ploy that’s had us trapped for the past four hundred years

  and we can finally trade in those baseless fears for our future salvation

  that’s how we squash the hateration

  Start Snitchin

  i shot these 3 kids

  3 years ago

  they gave me 33 years

  i got

  2 tears

  tattooed under my eyelids

  and the faces of my 2 kids

  engraved on my neck

  i don’t got no respect

  for nothing but death

  i don’t got no regrets

  no expectations

  except

  to get out in 10

  and get back to hustlin

  for now these crackers got me foot to foot shuffling

  shucking and jiving

  they think i’m trying

  but i’m surviving

  grinding

  out the seconds, minutes, and days

  just waiting

  for that parole board to say i’ve served my time

  then it’s back to the block

  to knock that snitchin bitch out the box

  for opening her trap and getting me locked

  she never should have talked

  now she’s gonna get chalked

  like pac, i’m one of the last one’s left

  and i’m a be a killer until my last breath

  the depth of my self-hatred knows no bounds

  and everybody round my hood knows what’s good

  something goes down

  nobody says shit

  nobody saw shit

  nobody gets hit

  cause if you get branded as a snitch

  someday you gonna get fixed

  mixed up in some serious mess

  buried with the rest of the wanna be heroes

  so called saviors of the community

  she should know

  ain’t no immunity in the ghetto

  and ain’t nothing lower than ratting out your own

  cuz next time it might be your own

  son or daughter or uncle or brother

  caught up in another crime scheme

  trying to live the african-american dream

  that too often seems to end up in screams

  instead of laughter

  but i’m a get the last laugh

  cuz i know our shared past

  has grafted us together for worse or for worse

  forever cursed to feel each other’s pain

  bear each other’s shame

  and forget each other’s name

  because we’re not to blame

  we’re just trapped in the same game

  we’re not to blame

  so don’t blame me

  for my lack of morality

  look at the society that made millions of criminals just like me

  the society that makes education hard but crime easy

  honestly there is no room for honesty

  just blind loyalty

  can’t you see

  i’m your your brother, your father, your lover, you’re baby

  if you wanna truly save me

  save yourself

  i’m a lost cause

  lost because

  no one ever loved me enough

  to let me go

  to say no

  to stand up

  and do the right thing

  please

  please

  please

  start

  snitching

  don’t worry about ditching me

  and don’t worry about reaching me

  worry about teaching me

  that crime does not pay

  that the community does not play

  that there might be another way

  that tomorrow can be better than today

  that it ain’t society’s fault i got caught

  i

  got

  caught

  and

  it’s

  no

  one’s

  fault

  but

  my

  own

  Part III:

  The Life & Times

  6 Scarlet letters

  when i was in the 6th grade, 1 tuesday morning i awoke with aids. i must have come down with a case of it in my sleep but i didn’t know it. i got out of bed combed my head and brushed my teeth, totally oblivious to the white sores lying beneath my tongue like navy seals on a covert mission. my nightshirt must have camouflaged the leaking lesions on my chest, for the only sign that anything was out the ordinary was that i felt over stressed. i had an exam in 3rd period.

  that was still in the days when mom drove me to school, before i joined the busloads of children, before every waking moment was spent trying to be cool. once there she reminded me every time i walked in public that i carried my family with me like the world’s most peculiar kangaroo. she kissed my prepubescent cheeks in the schoo
l’s driveway and drove away leaving me. to face the longest day of my young life. alone. before that day, everyone said that my future was as bright as a diamond in the desert. walking down the deserted hall. late for 1st period as usual. i didn’t think anything was unusual until i looked at my locker and came face to face with hatred for the 1st time. he sat there naked and screaming. like an abandoned child. plastered on the locker’s aluminum surface. making faces at me. someone had blatantly tried to provoke me. by inscribing 6 scarlet letters. m. o. s. l. e. m. permanently branding me for all to see. the weird thing was i thought you had to be hiv positive before you got aids. just like i thought that it didn’t matter what god you praised. but i guess i was wrong. all along i had believed it’s what’s inside that counts.

  subconsciously i had been counting on that belief all my life. just like i counted to 500 3x as i stood outside the classroom door. suddenly this bright diamond wasn’t refracting the light so well anymore. suddenly i had joined the poor kids, potheads, and short bus riders on the backs of chocolate milk cartons in the cafeteria. i can tell you that it took all the courage i possessed to walk into class. see the day before i’d let my secret slip during a discussion on world religions. less than a day later i learned just how fast bad news travels. it leaps from ear to ear faster than the speed of sound. like some sort of terrible telepathy.

  i learned it doesn’t pay to be unique. it doesn’t pay to speak the truth. in a small southern town. where ignorance leaks from mouthpieces like faucets.

  and you should have seen their faces. those open mouths. gyrating with wasps. buzzing in and out. you should have seen how there was unexpectedly more space around my desk. the kids treated me as if there was an electrified net all around me. they continued to hound me for the rest of the day, month, and school year. even when i was brought to tears by the horrible things they’d say. my parents just thought kids were bullying me and encouraged me to take karate so i could learn to defend myself. but all i learned was how to hurt people just like they’d hurt me. and all the kicking and punching in the world couldn’t remove those 6 scarlet letters. m. o s. l. e. m.

  so i transferred the next year. and lived the next 5 years in fear terrified that someone would find out. thinking back on it now, maybe it would have been better if i actually did have aids. at least then i could have made an early grave my home. instead of scraping that hatred off of my locker and bringing it home. to throw it in my parents face. this was all their fault in the first place. i had no choice in the matter, like a child in the womb of someone with an alcohol or drug addiction. this affliction was passed on to me at birth.

  a disease that made me worship 5 times a day. a disease that forced me to pray in arabic instead of english. a disease that made me wish that i’d been born to different parents. ones that went to church on sunday’s and ate porkchops and pepperoni.

  so at the early age of 14 i disowned my mom and dad and lived a lie trying my hardest to become someone else. i wish i could tell you that i wake up each morning stare at the man in the mirror and love who i see. since triumphing over adversity has made me stronger. but the truth is …i don’t.

  aids can lie dormant for many years before it manifests. it doesn’t matter what the test results say. i’m positive. that i will probably deny those 6 scarlet letters until my dying day. but they’ll always be a vital part of me. a constant reminder that ignorance exists everywhere. a constant reminder to be careful what i say to who and how. a constant reminder that i will always be different. but being different is not a capital offense. and these are the lessons i’ll hold close. so when the day comes that i awake with aids again. i’ll get up take my medicine and move on with my life

  the corporate slave mentality

  don’t speak to me when you see me

  just because you look like me don’t acknowledge our similarities

  we are not the same

  even though we’re both playing in the same corporate game

  remain with your head and eyes away from mine

  don’t give the others any sign that we might be fraternizing behind their backs

  face the facts that even though we’re both black we can’t relate to one another

  don’t refer to me as your brother

  or i’ll treat you like you’re from another planet

  don’t take it for granted that i will help out your career

  just because we appear to have similar backgrounds

  if you come around my office looking for advice i’m going to shut you down

  because it’s my job to keep you down and i’ve accepted this position

  kissing ass might get you passed my secretary

  but i’m the one making the decisions

  it’s a given that you want to be where i am in a few years

  but don’t mistake me for one of your peers

  because we are not the same

  on your first day you came up to me and introduced yourself

  asked me to schedule a lunch with you and i wanted to help

  but don’t you understand that we can’t be seen at the same table in the cafeteria

  if two blacks sit together it could cause mass hysteria

  and don’t mention the fact that whites sit together all the time

  their skin isn’t dark like yours and mine

  and we don’t play by the same rules

  when you see me don’t start talking cool like we’re back in the hood

  i’m only telling you these things for your own good

  we’ve got to cherish the token positions that they give us

  because they only let us bust through that glass ceiling one person at a time

  and since i had to struggle and climb, you do to

  but hey you’re new, you didn’t know how it would be

  you thought you were worthy just because you got a master’s degree?

  well to them you’re just a monkey that climbed out of a tree

  started walking upright and put on a suit

  you think you’re working

  but they see it as dancing and doing tricks for fruit

  because they believe that’s all we know

  so swallow your pride and throw your cultural heritage out the window

  there’s no room for african antics inside these skyscrapers

  my only motivation is the paper and i’m not talking about the newspaper either

  so you tell me that neither one of us would even be here

  if it wasn’t for civil rights or affirmative action

  does it give you some kind of satisfaction to know that you’re only filling a quota

  may i suggest that you go grow a scrotum and some balls

  because that’s the only thing that’s going to help you succeed inside of these walls

  not all of us are here because we satisfy some governmental mandate

  i really hate to see people like you coming up to me

  acting like we’re familiar

  please remember the pillar of this whole conversation

  that we are not the same

  because i’ve been tamed

  and you’re still wild like some animal in the bush

  stop trying to frame me or push me into caring about your cause

  remember that the laws are changing and the only thing that will guarantee your job

  is to step and fetch it as fast as you can

  if you wanted to be the man you should have opened up your own company

  why don’t you go rap, or pick up a basketball and get the hell away from me

  can’t you see that i only got here by cutting off the claws of crabs like you

  trying to pull me back into the barrel but i’ve remained true to my principals

  and it’s actually quite simple, see we’re just black pimples on the white man’s ass

  the difference between me and you is that i stay isol
ated while you’re just like a rash

  trying to infect other areas with your black empowerment slang

  we’re not all in the same gang

  we don’t all drink kool-aid and tang

  we don’t all hang out by the liquor store talking about how great we could have been

  some of us really have become great

  so i would appreciate it if you didn’t ever talk to me again

  we’re not friends

  i’m just giving you the advice i was never given

  that living the white man’s dream is the only way to beat him at his own game

  so when you become ceo of this company

  you can promote your kind of diversity

  and when people ask you to explain

  do so by simply saying

  because

  we are not the same

  work shit

  my brains fried

  tired of this computer screen

  this working waking dream makes me want to scream

  who will be my screen saver

  my screen savior

  white collar labor is my excuse for bad behavior

  can’t see the forest for the trees

  i have no clue why the caged bird sings

  maybe he just likes his job

  but i don’t like mine

  will this day ever end

  i can’t even fake a grin when these silly ass corporate cretins

  come knocking on my office door

  they probably think i’m a bore

  but to me there’s just so much more to live for

  than working forty or ninety hours a week

  putting money down some white man’s jeans

  i sometimes daydream that one day

  i’ll be like that white man

  driving a white luxury sedan

  to a beach with white sands

  demanding to speak to the white manager of the resort

  because i need extra white towels

  to wipe my ass with

  i need to lay down on a great white king size bed

  and wear white satin sheets on my head

  while drinking white star champagne

  i forget about my black pain and my black name

  cuz i’m sinking my white fangs

  into this white american pie

  every day we got people tryin and dyin to live like this

  because where i come from

  my people live in slum-like conditions

  and some like the conditions they live in

  because a concrete jungle is still better than living in prison

  isn’t it

  interesting what people will put up with

  things like racism and stereotypes

  they gripe and complain but remain relatively calm

  you’d probably need a bomb to light a fire under their asses

  but then you’d just blow them off

  like we do everyday