The Baldwin Experience

I am 40
Something Malcolm, Martin, & Medgar never got a chance to say
My existence is encapsulated in the unfinished works of their greatest purpose
I am Purpose

I am Light
But I am also Dark
Paralytic dreams of messages I can't decode
In languages I haven't mastered
In a voice I don't recognize
Heavy like Baldwin discovering he was the child that the house despised
I am Black

I am confidently unsure
Peacefully anxious
Indecisively certain
My existence shouldn't burden you

I am the calculated labyrinth to greatness hinged on the prayer of the last Black Cargo
I am the one the ancestors speak to daily

I am a lot of things

A hopeful cynic
A restless meditator
A confused intellect

I am many things

The love absent in your judgement
The security torn from your innocence
The calm perverted by your fears

I am most things

The guilt between the layers of your feminine exclusion
The breaths between your weaponized tear drops

The optimistic pessimist
The spontaneous over-thinker
The abused heroine

I am the silence that speaks through karmic altruism honoring the price for my Freedom

Mother of nature
Nurturer of nations
I am the Progression
the Power
the Promise

I am so many things

But 

I Am Not Your Negro