Damn I am so tired of being broke.

I am tired of going to that damn welfare office signing paper work with my mom. Scribble your name on the dotted line and make yourself feel like a charity case, even though without this place we would be on our assess in the street.

Looking at our empty hands wishing welfare would take us back in their warm embraces,

asking us to just sign on the dotted line

and assuring us everything will turn out fine.

 

but it’s not fine,

 i feel like my entire family is eating the fruits of a rotten tree, as I look at their rotten teeth.

 they ingest the saggy fruit, as their skin gradually droops from the drug abuse and the alcohol

all to numb the pain that is faced when reality settles in.

 when their high comes down, and they have realized that they have not done one damn thing in their life but have more kids and give them names and hoping that they would make a name for themselves.

 but they fail to realize that the nicknames like “bad ass” and “ lil’ nigga” that they all joke about sets up that child to be a “bad nigga” who robs and goes to jail.

and the girls just get pregnant and do it all again.

you would think that I was some type of self -hating human being the way I speak on my family tree,

 but what you don’t see is that I have decided not to lean in that direction

 but to climb upward looking for recollection of how strong my people were in the past hoping that I could make a future where we didn’t have to sign on a dotted line. so I get pissed at the system for allowing being poor to be so damn comfortable to those who don’t want to work, and yet having an economy  

that  gives this scribble on a piece of paper the power to crush a soul.

 

But wait,

 Before you begin to riot in the streets

Canceling the food stamps that allow children to eat

 Let me present you with another case.

One with a working mother, who struggled from day to day,

 Trying to provide something so profound that even Gandhi would bow down.

Trying to raise two black girls and making sure no grown man could have his way,

 Teaching them the values of self worth while taking jobs that disintegrate

And almost annihilate

Her own self-esteem, but it was all to feed the dreams of her daughters.

Signing on the dotted line but remained faithful to God she gave her daughters hope. Burying her family as they dropped dead from alcohol and cocaine she remained Sane, but unstable in her belief of her own capability.

Holding her head high as she swiped the food stamps card never allowing her Daughters to feel her shame letting them know that education was the key and how Beautiful they were to her.

She was the single black female who’s baby daddy abandoned her

But with no bitterness she raised her children.

One was named Candace and the other was me.

 

So where am I going with this, well I really don’t know.

I just hope you recognize the realness of this poem.

What someone like me has seen and why my ambition is so high.

I am not a poet I am just feed up and yet grateful to have seen all that I have.

To have lived in the darkness so that when I see the light it will be so sweet,

 and I will never have to sign another dotted line …..

PS. I hope this unorganized poem pisses you off so you can feel how I have felt all my life. I hope it is confusing, unpredictable, unstable, and a little jumbled. Then you can say that you did read a testimony of someone who is feed up with being poor and powerless and is determined to make a change.

 

Thank you