Cluttered rooms, Book stacked like towers. torn pages peak out from haphazard piles, the scent of age paper hangs in the air. Each spine a loud whisper, bearing the suffocating weight of untold stories. Admits the noise, knowledge pressing down, heavy like stones. Relentless questions gnawing at my temple. Anxiety wrapped tight around my fragile heart. Reading Epictetus. Dim lights bounce off my curiosity. what does it mean to stay a student? I questioned. Each misstep a doorway, each failure leading me deeper into a labyrinth. Shifting through rubble. Buried beneath echoes, lingering in silent thoughts. Sorrow broke through every crack upon the clay flooring. The soul, a canvas smeared with grief, each stroke a challenge, every question an engulfed flame of understanding. Burning my guilt of propaganda. What will I cultivate in the haunting chaos of my thoughts? A seeker in shadows the rawness of being alone. A clarity nestled into a breath, a compassionate connection. Existence woven in threads of knowledge in a world that I question if it aches for wisdom?

I received death threats
from my subconscious.
Inviting racism into the foreground
of painted images where black fathers are missing.
( A centerpiece to Black cultures downfall /
an essential fabric worn by criminals)
Wanted posters plastered to define
what black culture is and was.

My subconscious reminds me of enslaved
woman drowning children in murky waters
to hide from slavery.
It caused me to question what defines Black fathers.
Are they parables? These quick spurts of nostalgic
temperaments in surrealist dreams.

Are they the attention to hang nooses
around the necks of family codes for a better living?
Are they abandonment that draws the line of division
to multiply family issues and keep these conundrums a
foreshadowing of my future.

I think they are a call to greater
pastures. A pair of shoes that need the soles
of a savior. A message to heal the wounds
of distant ancestors who live in me.
I awoke from my dream as a father to-be
encapsulated within imagery
of my family to be.

You are the run-on sentence
English has taught me not to use.
The Punctuation with red lines of knowledge
as I fail to convey thoughts of expression.
And yet, I recall the Afro-Fusion in your tone,
the fineness in your smile exiled from Black Culture.
The admiration of the necessary things, like catching
each syllable like butterflies in my stomach, when you
reach a unique journey that shifts you into my favorite Icon.

Even now your observations are penned to memory,
ultimately growing to term like my daughter
being born from the love you gave me.
Each lesson is a precise section that supports
and conclude your life’s purpose.

Your thoughts live on through every misspelled
word in my chapter of being as you watch over me, circling
and underlining my faults. Somehow still levitating your
suggestions in marginal explanations of my highest lows and
my deepest concerns of my soul.

You are the warmest period I’ve seen
in the English language. Always about the rules
of storytelling and yet basically used your criteria
for this kind of short story. Your creativity is the reason my
masterpiece for poetry is written like a master manuscript.
Every detailed piece included reading within a hero’s
pilgrimage. This is the message you gave how to approach
my failures and yet never give up on my story.

Mornings are that rough snooze I barely miss. It’s the
huge stretch after knees crack to remind me age is but a
loose sound of movement. It’s a dragging feeling, a
reminder to when my laughter teased Father Time.
It is peaceful, knowing my mental foundation wasn’t a pretty
make over but these years of painful lessons I massage into
my seasons, and when I fall, I’m quick to spring back to my
youthful visage. I mean, winter brings pain, the death of
beauty and the crystallization of movement. Yet summer can
always be seen stretching my soul like it’s uplifted. One
moment I hyperventilate the other I’m free falling to the
bottom of freedoms pool of love. A love for the sensation of
old age being the companion I’ve wanted since my youth.
These astral phases become astral projections of the peace that
I recall seeing. This Growth is the key to my happiness, it’s
the years which times before turned the sun dial and I became
the time father dreamed of.

Dear Unsealed Family,

It would be off-putting if I didn’t stress that I’m not a overly intelligent
person when it comes to relationships with a divine creator. It is of the most
importance to me that I find something, something that was written or
spoken to help me define this world. This world that for most of my
existence I’ve experienced envelopes of deeply rooted detachments to my
own soul. I was lost, expecting the world to bend to the truth that a
melanated child like myself had some special qualities or traits which only I
have to make me aware of the sudden effects of this particular butterfly that
I’am. I found myself being classified as aberrant, corpulent and numerous
other adjectives one as Juvenile as myself would find Detrimental. It broke
my will to live being that my father’s side of the family and classmates
made me feel that I was impotent, a mundane atom of wasted potential.
It wasn’t just with words used but non-verbal cues that emptied my belief in
myself and this world. It felt as if I was a Homicide not to gang wars but
between family and Societal estrangement. The only peace I had was the
way silence had my back. It was in those moments of silence that
volunteered violence creeped into my mind. These thoughts started to
become folklore to my young mind and harmony with harm became my
only friend. A forever companion that I couldn’t forget, and I walked the
streets of depression alone. When going to school the subway became my
way to ensure a quite exit from this world. I would every day press my face
near the edge of deaths door and at a split second pull back to feel a bit of
what death was like. At the time I didn’t know what a suicidal thought was
or that I had for most of my childhood been a threat to myself. I was
fighting the thought of my being and the anxiety of the words of external
pressures, their shadows slowly stalking my mind. But it was one thing that
made me realize a rather strange feeling I been longing for like the love of
Eros to the desire desperately to feel noticed. I was in my 7th grade art class
and we was creating pottery and could etch anything into the sides of our
clay pots. I stumbled upon images that reflected my interest in my culture. I
picked up Egyptian hieroglyphs and in the process something drew me
towards those pieces of paper. It was if I’ve resonated with those images
that they were a part of my soul and have been for quite a long time. So I
used them on my mug and ashtray, but it didn’t stop there. When computer
class started I would research these hieroglyphs in an attempt to further my
understanding of why these things had such a profound impact on my
young mind. This is when my eyes began opening, looking like a full moon
juxtaposed to the dark mood-less sky. I saw melanated individuals who took
the wind from me. I always wondered why I never saw anybody that looked
like me on the television and if I did, they were mostly athletes or
musicians. it wasn’t until the day that I saw the Egyptians that I knew that
there was more to my people and my heritage. I had the biggest smile on
my face, my shoulders relaxed and my soul, my soul felt whole. I always
believed that my history began and ended at slavery, that I was and always
will be just a N-Word to my self, my people and to other cultures that knew
their story, but now I knew mines as well. It was when I learned that piece
of time not explained to us in the history books that I made a decision to
father study my own history. So to this day I reach for further guidance
from my ancestors and look at them to show self pride in myself. I know
that when I’m down or have thoughts to do harm or anything else I can
meditate on the matter with them and they will find an answers. I’am not a
N-word or any other label someone could describe me as,I’am called Negus
now which is Ethiopian royal title that was historically used to refer to the
monarch or ruler of Ethiopia. I’am happy, I’am love, I’am whole and I’am
grateful to be a melanated soul on this earth.

Always grateful,
Rashan Speller

Lips receding to the crease of stilled waters, underneath the bosom of the moon. The tide is forever in quivering forms. Yet there is beauty in the way the figures sit, a calm in the exciting exercise for life’s sake. Time is forever in turning sails and moments constructed for the weathering of space and travel when harsh Squall perceived the deluged. Where are these inexhaustible Dispositions, these sounds to first utter the song of life. I want to hear this Song of Songs and Ballet to the grace of Ouayet caressing hymns. Listen as it wanders into the ears of man and whispers a prayer of Tolerance for the Middangeard yet harshly speak to the soul. Don’t lie in your speech and yet don’t comfort the weak. Be as you are and your voice shall sing in the tune of navigation until the sun reaches the moon. Siyabonga for how I see you full and Siyabonga for how you return from distant stars and a form I can love to learn. I hear the Song of Songs and now I collapse to the weight of its existence, this is the allure of your frequency and the power of your youthful butterfly. May the sail cast shadow of your safe returning to the Enterprise of a slight smile.

Tears grew at the edge of the firmament, and i wiped away the fear of a never again sun. It was the crystalized feeling, the waves acting as middlemen to the light which guided you to my daily turmoils. It was in that moment I realized that eye was just the seer to a placement of watchful effigy. The world is the viewer and we are just the microorganisms, the germ within the bosom of life and the glare within the retina of the retaining layers. When there is a sense of wonder the seas recreate the flood over terrains of debris as we are humans being in the ocean of the sorrow she carried to labor. Is it justifying, the price we pay as veins became each contact we make when feet touch the grounded soil. Can the world still see all the plausible signs of an infection of infestation. The war on the environment is planted for Edible guidance. Yet it’s windows are dressed with bandages of restricted condemnation of Authentic Omnism. Now with the exception of the calm seas I see clearly, we are merely the inner workings of the eye of the world moving as light and reflection Amalgamate in Quietude. On my isle of isolation I touched the floor to another dimension, a plane where I stand before the perception that God is the eyes of the universe.

My soul reflected upon a judgmental society of mirrors. I’m imperfect. Flawed as temptation slept with my mental plane. Each scar, each mark a precious flower gently shining in the dwelling seas, a déjà vu of my sanctuary. My strength cleaved at the depths of beauty, caressing the temple which God has given me. Embracing my Lows, and yet impregnating the highs of self love. Preserved in a vessel of love, kindness fondled my gaze of brittle strength as I strive to deal myself within a life lived fully. It’s a story wrestled with aggression, seduced to its primal adolescence and yet my shadow tries me. It indicates a lack of empathy, a bridge between languages of self doubt and inability. Is it the real me? A person to fill my soul with acceptance. Is the good in me a side with regretful feelings. A half that is faded with disease as my shadow walks underneath my skin. Is he my kin, a friend that completes me in a fullness that is peace. I want this word off my mind, this self love that released things which kept me back. The good was always seeking, searching, yearning for this mistress of acceptance while the shadows kept me in the light. I dated the dark, undercover her abuse and stood by her side. Indulging with her my other half a self where love can truely reside. I am whole, I am enough, I am free in these times of self love, I find my peace. If lost I’ll find you again, I’ll stay focus with a purpose until the days end when I’m up to bat at your love deep within my soul and embrace worth the wait.