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When you die do you get to take your memories with you?

Soul Mates

You remind me of my ex-wife from a past life who I committed suicide to escape from when I made myself wings of feathers and wax, and fell to my death when I flew them into the sun. You just laughed and floated over me as I drowned.

They say birthmarks are entry wounds that show where we died before, and dreams are just memories we carried with us from the other side, which is why you looked so familiar the first time I saw you. Your feet never touched the ground.

My opening line was “you look like my daughter,” you smiled and asked “how old is she?” I said, “well if it all works out, five years from now she’ll be three, but I’m in no rush.” It felt like a third person existed between us.

And I wasn’t sure who we were before, or who are supposed to be, but I knew that on the other side of the world planted deep inside a forest there is a tree with our names carved into its side, and written in a language neither of us speak is inscribed

“forever is a pretty short time looking back on it,” and even though we may not be able to read it, we would instantly recognize our handwriting as evidence that we were part of the same tribe that died out a thousand years ago, and we would brace ourselves for

the earthquake as our souls shake and vibrate higher. We were sent here to repopulate so there was no time to apologize for everything we were about to put each other through. You just grabbed my hand and said “I look forward to getting tired of you.”

God don’t make mistakes, but people do. Souls only know wavelengths, and communicate through music and colors and sound; they don’t always remember to leave the key under the mat, or come home before 3 a.m., or put the toilet seat down, or

make sure to hold your hand whenever we’re out in public, because the flesh doesn’t understand it’s just a vessel full of flaws. Soulmates exist to serve as a reflection of how truly damaged we really are, how hurt, desperate and unexamined we are.

I never asked for a soulmate, just someone who hates all the same things I do, and in you I confronted all of the things I hated in myself, like a mirror that reveals the first time you realize you are no longer beautiful. My ugly is going take some getting used to.

I used to fear going to sleep next to you because I would get tangled in your hair and you would roll over, strangling me, leaving gasping for air in one of those dreams where you can’t quite wake yourself up, until I realized that you only hogged the sheets so you could

expose me to the cold and wake up the other side of me whenever my dreams got off track. My arms would always go numb so I could never fight back. So instead of starting a war with you I would just kiss you on your cheek.

Maybe we’re just meant to walk through life trying to fill each-other-sized holes in ourselves. Feeling like we swapped souls at a crowded train stop like two strangers who picked up the wrong bag and were forced to wear the clothes they found inside.

I have that sweater you’ve been looking for, it’s a little stretched out but it still smells just fine. Find me again so we can make amends, or at least swap bags one last time. Everyone deserves a seventh chance.

I guess I’ll see you next lifetime when you and I are butterflies and during our migration we can gently clip wings and create a vibration that causes the tides to rise off the shores of Hawaii and forms a tsunami that crashes into the coast of Japan

and floods some kind of nuclear reactor that causes the world to spin backwards and we can finally rest our wings on the sand and look back on all we destroyed with a smile, and I’ll know that it was all worth it just to be with you when the world ends.

Before Drew Brees arrived in New Orleans and gentrified the Saints' quarterback position, Aaron Brooks held almost every franchise passing record, including being the only quarterback to bring the Saints a playoff victory. Also, after Katrina he was the only person on the team to speak out against the NFL and Tom Benson for the way they handled the players, and was blackballed by every other team for it (except the Raiders). I'm surprised most fans have let Aaron Brooks fade into Saints obscurity. #2 was the first Saints jersey I owned. I'm not saying he was the best to ever stand under center, but at least he deserves his own mediocre restaurant along with the other New Orleans quarterbacks his jersey hangs next to in the team hall of fame. ⚜️

I finally bought that two story house in the neighborhood you liked just so I could use the return address on the letter I sent you. I drive by and check the mailbox every day waiting on your reply. I've never been inside.

We love the beauty of flowers so much that we rip them from the ground take them out the sun put them in a vase and then watch them die. Such an ostentatious display of decadence and decay for one to think they can plant a garden inside. But whatever it takes to reaffirm us that we possess just a little bit of light to make tulips bloom in a dimly lit living room for just long enough to give us a glimpse of all the wonder the world has to hide. For just a brief moment we kept something alive. Even if we knew that it would eventually fall apart, we tried and we held out hope because for that short amount of time it was beautiful and we thought we had something to do with it. We felt we were the reason why when those petals finally opened up despite all the darkness we provide.

3:00 a.m.

The sky tonight was an electric shade of blue and it reminded me of you, and that’s funny because your eyes are brown, but your personality has that certain kind of hue to it. That’s right before the clouds opened up with noise and thunder, you're so similar. 3:00 am and I wonder if it's possible tonight to get any sleep. This rain fights the same way you do, beautiful, and wont stop until its listened to. #poetry #prose #3am #therainiskeepingmeawake #ADreamForSale

Who shot ya!? Hey, Pac, I’m still on the case because ever since they murdered you none of us have been safe. Was it the police? Was it your homeboys? Was is the KKK? On the Vegas Strip after a fight I’m surprised nobody got it on tape. I remember being nine on the cusp of defiance, rejecting all the heroes I was assigned in my sociology class. I told my teacher they were all murderers or murdered or make-believe, then I played her “Only God Can Judge Me” before she ran to the stereo and threw my cd in the trash. And that’s when I knew you were the hero I’d look up to, somebody not in the history books someone real I could grasp. And then I saw the news you had been shot you had been killed. Then I came back to school and my teacher just laughed. She said I should pick better heroes, somebody not as aggressive, someone on a much better path. Then I had to remind her of Malcolm of Martin of Huey of Fred of Medgar etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and told her it didn't matter, black heroes don't seem to last. Who shot ya! Hey, Pac, what are we gonna do? How are they gonna find who kills us if they can’t find who killed you? I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto, verse three you sounded something like a prophet. You predicted 20 years ago that police would be out here killing us and we couldn't do anything to stop it. You said, “cops give a damn about a negro, pull the trigger, kill a nigga he's a hero” and now, “the streets are death row.” The cops are judge, jury and executioner and apparently every bit of it’s legal. And I don't know if Heaven’s got a ghetto, but I know its got a long line and there’s some people waiting to get in that could use your comforting because we know Tupac cared when nobody else did. I’m sure we keep you busy up there, we’ll make sure you died for something. Who shot ya? Hey, Pac, your killer is still on the loose. I don’t know if you heard, but they got BIG too. They’re killing everybody that we looked up to. And I know there’s people who will hear this that won’t understand “He was a thug” “He got what he deserved” “His music should have been banned” And those are the same people who fear us when we band together in death. They mock us they incite us when we riot or protest. Who shot ya!? Hey, Pac, maybe it’s best we never know. Jokes on them because they will never be immortalized and you will forever be the hero.

“There is nothing more powerful, than an idea whose time has come” - Saul Williams

We're the lucky ones, the ones who love the ones who lost the ones who stay up late the ones still trying the ones in debt the ones who are sorry the ones who create the ones with regrets the ones still changing the ones still looking the ones who die over and over again for their art, we're the lucky ones because we have so much to look forward to.

THE WATER IS RISING 

The winds are picking up and people picking their things.... Here we go again but those who stay are not ready to go wherever her winds blow them I know you cant say nobody told them but you can say nobody showed them the way

It figures.... the rich in this city don’t give a damn about thousands of poor niggas

The winds are picking up but for most there's nowhere to go just get on their knees and hope they don't wind up wherever the winds blow

Left deserted without help with the only comforting words of "you have been warned" but the poor in this city are strong we should make it out of whoever decides to weather the storm

we should be safe now we can see the sky now we can go outside now that the winds have died down... but the waters are rising

and the streets begin to overflow those who find a way out still have nowhere to go

There is a thin line between determination and desperation in times of despair it’s almost as if the waters are purging us but who is to decide whose soul will be spared?

I SHOULD BE THE ONE TO SAVE MY PEOPLE I SHOULD HAVE PLAYED MY PART! I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED WHEN GOD TOLD ME TO BUILD THAT ARC but i didn't now i know for certain its hopeless I watch my people flee in a mass exodus with no sign of Moses WHO WILL SPLIT THE SEA? WHO WILL DECIDE WHO WILL BE CHOSEN? don't leave it up to me my words are mere echoes LET MY PEOPLE GO! but nobody is listening

It figures the rich in this city don't give a dam ABOUT THOUSANDS OF SCREAMING NIGGAS

THE WATERS ARE RISING and so are the number of victims we cant call on God because he is the one who did this along with tampered-with levee systems GRANDMA SAY GOT DON’T GIVE YOU MORE THAN YOU CAN TAKE AND DADDY SAY GOD DON’T MAKE NO MISTAKES but i know government officials do and i know what happens when THOUSANDS OF SCREAMING NIGGAS ARENT LISTENED TO

What a sight for sore eyes to witness such a painful changing of the seasons the magic curtain has been pulled away now that the waters are receding

and the crowd gasps as they watch the stranded struggle for purpose how government officials really feel about the black social class has finally surfaced

It figures the rich in this city don't give a damn about thousands of dead niggas

Refugees in the same country we pay taxes to live in

THE WATERS ARE RECEDING the cleansing is fleeting the christening is one genuflection away from being completed.

Do you smell that? smells like thousands of dead niggas a city flooded by the same rivers that were used to carry slave ships and forced to swallow dead niggas

You should have know that overboard thrown slaves would not be digested well now the old man river has taken his revenge and he’s making sure you hear the story he has to tell

The slaves kept turning and turning under the sea due to their restless souls until they picked up enough winds to blow them back on the ones who stole them is how the story was told

The winds that blew off the coast of Africa across the Atlantic followed that same middle passage to remind these southern states of their damage

They blew apart those same ports that were used to auction off families on and blew down those same trees that were used to hang niggas on

And as the waters recede back into the river we see government officials still don't give a damn about thousands of dead niggas.