Poem from last year

Any expert or master has to sacrifice to rise. How seriously do you take your poetry? Is there something else you sacrifice for more consistently? Personally I go through phases with poetry between writing consistently, writing when inspiration comes, and not writing poetry at all but rather writing my other projects and introspection. The one thing I do sacrifice a lot of time and attention for is my spirituality. That's my main identity and priority. Share with us if you're interested, fam.

Hey yall, I love to listen to rap. I love rhyme, and wordplay, and rhythm and how meaning is embedded. Could you help me? I don't know much about the landscape of poetry. Could you recommend some poets? Perhaps that you like? Perhaps that have interesting perspectives? Perhaps poets that act as a kernel and inspire me to search among neighbors? I'm curious!

I didn’t plan it. That’s how I know it was real. Crying had always been something I managed— contained, timed, redirected. A private maintenance ritual. Something done in bathrooms, in cars, with the door locked and the face composed before returning to the world. That day, none of that happened. The tears came without asking permission. Without warning. Without the usual calculation of who might see and what it might cost me. My body moved faster than my habits. Faster than the training that said hold it together, fear makes you less credible, emotion is something you clean up after. I remember thinking, briefly, This is going to change how I’m seen. And then realizing— something in me was already done protecting that version of myself. No one rushed to fix it. No one looked away. The room didn’t collapse. It stayed… ordinary. That surprised me more than the tears. I had always believed exposure was dangerous. That once seen, I’d lose leverage. Authority. Ground. But the opposite happened. Nothing was taken from me. Nothing dissolved. What disappeared was the effort. The effort of holding my breath through life. The effort of making strength visible instead of letting it be felt. I cried without hiding it, and something older than pride settled in my chest. Relief, maybe. Or recognition. “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) Two words. No explanation. No apology. No lesson wrapped around it. Just witness. He didn’t justify the tears. Didn’t spiritualize them. Didn’t wait until He was alone. He let grief be seen— and the world did not end. Neither did I. That was the first time I understood that composure is not the same as strength, and vulnerability isn’t collapse. Sometimes it’s permission. To stop performing survival. To let the body tell the truth the mouth was never taught how to say. I didn’t cry to be understood. I cried because hiding had finally stopped working. And for the first time, I stayed.

I didn’t rise with a roar this morning. I rose in a whisper. Not sure why I woke up before the sun. It wasn’t rest. It was something else, some quiet stirring under the weight. The house was dark, the kind of dark that usually presses against my ribs. Same walls, same stillness, same memories pacing the edges. But today… it all felt a shade lighter. Not much. Just enough for me to notice. I went to make coffee again. Black. Strong. Another ritual that usually sits untouched on the counter. But this time I drank half of it before it went cold... Half a cup... Doesn’t sound like much, but it felt like a statement. A small, stubborn way of saying, “I’m still here.” I stepped outside barefoot. Concrete chilled my feet. Air met my face with a gentleness I wasn’t expecting. The sky was just beginning to open, a thin line of gold cutting through night’s leftovers. And for the first time in a long time, my breath didn’t feel like a fight. I stood there, not knowing what to call this feeling. It wasn’t joy. Or healing. It was more like… a door cracking open. Just enough light to see that the room I’ve been stuck in isn’t the whole house. I felt Him again too. Not in a loud, dramatic way. Not fixing anything. Just there. Close enough to notice. Close enough to steady me without saying a word. Psalm 34:18 drifted through my mind, uninvited but welcomed... “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.” I’m not “saved,” not in the storybook sense. I’m not fixed. But today, I felt the nearness. And sometimes that’s the first step a man gets. Half a cup of coffee. A breath that doesn’t hurt. Cold concrete under bare feet. Little things. Quiet things. But they’re mine. If you asked me what my rising looks like right now, I’d have to answer with a single word. Beginning.