Will the real you

Please stand up

Man up

Be bold enough

To say,

"People

I can no longer live my life for you

I can’t stay cocooned

Locked up

Tied down

Chained into

Doing what you “expect” me to do

Until I’m so much of your expectation I don’t even know who

The real me actually is"

It’s tragic

That the fact is

The moment you do

Anything against the image that people have created for you

They might dismiss you, deject you, reject you and to them you

Become the same as everyone else

And when you think of having a life for yourself

This image of possibilities haunts you endlessly

Until you become the very thing you’re secretly

Afraid of being stuck in permanently

You become the thing that in others you so openly hate

You become this version of who you really are

You

Become

FAKE

But let me make

This journalistic endeavor

And ask you questions in search of answers

When you look in the mirror

How many faces are reflected?

When inspected have you ever

Noted

Any more than your feet

In your shoes?

Is there more than one who

Slips into your clothes when you dress for the day?

More than your nose, your two eyes, your two arms, your two hands, okay

I know you are thinking what exactly is she trying to say

So I’ll just say it

The only ONE that is living this life for YOU is YOU

It’s not up to someone else

This journey is about self

Let me help

Make this clear

While you live in fear of the rejection that may come when you walk away from living according to someone’s expectations

You disappoint your greatest Investor

Because the only one who should be cashing in on your life is the Creator

What do you surmise happens

When the ones whose expectations you’re wrapped up in

Die off

Fall off

Call off

Walk off

and you’re still living??

What then????????

When you strip down to the naked truth and view this thing factually

Lives lived in pretension

Are actually

Just LIES in motion

So I wrote these lines

To get you to see that its time

For your mind

To enforce an immigration policy

Purge itself of alien thoughts that have for so long taken up illegal residency

Renew itself so you’ll be true to yourself

And finally have the guts

To rise to your feet this time when I call out

Will the real you please stand up?!!!!!

At the age of thirteen

a marriage took place between

my paper and pen,

and since then

I’ve written poems.

Poems that have pulled folk from their seats,

causing them to stand to their feet.

Poems that have made them ooh and ah, and

Egg me on like saints do a preacher.

Because when I’ve hit the floor I’ve birthed these babies of words that

Wailed mellifluously from mic to speaker.

Yes I’ve written the kinds of poems

Poems that show ‘em just what I could do,

And I’d woo them with my mix of words

Cleverly placed adjectives, metaphors, nouns and verbs.

The call and response of what I’ve spit and what they heard.

But this ain’t that poem

This poem wasn’t crafted for the crowd’s ovation.

In fact, it’s likely not to receive much praise.

So, it’s ok if you don’t raise

Up from your seats on this one because that’s not the motivation.

A call to action best describes this poems design.

This poem is to pierce your heart and mind.

This poem is your awakening to time.

Because

We are preoccupied

And

It seems

Too many of God's people

Have forgotten what it means.

That separation between

Holy and unholy

Clean and unclean

And they fiend

Like Jodeci

In the 90s

For those old days

And they dibble and dabble

In their old ways.

So let me bring to your frontal lobe

Something that surely you've at least once been told.

When you mate with Lucifer you can expect to reproduce sin.

So don't be surprised,

Don't become wide eyed

Because you now find

Yourself yoked and bound again.

It’s like some trend

Sin now and pay later

As though the wages of sin aren’t death.

We've bought into the worldview of

Inclusion

Without exclusion

So we no longer live circumspect.

Like we care less about biblical text

That let us know clearly

Holiness

Without which no man will see God.

Yet, we live blinded eyes

In this mirage of

Sugarcoating

Like we don’t really know when

All we're doing

Is feeding ourselves lies.

Actions have consequences

And inactions just the same;

So, to leave an imprint on our brains

That things have got to change

She came.

Shifting foundations, raising roofs,

Relocating our comfort zones to show us proof

And Sandy was her name.

We’re too busy

It seems too many of God’s people have forgotten their first love

And everything under the Son we’ve too quickly placed above

The Son.

Making it increasingly evident

That we’ve made void,

View as irrelevant

The very one with our mouths we proclaim is Heaven Sent.

Bent

On doing things our way

We say we are saved yet

It’s less reality and more cliché.

Godliness we profess

But what do we display?

Then we wonder why history making storms sweep the land in our day,

And 20 year olds decide they'll change the dynamic of a nation by way of one quaint town with the bullets they spray!

Wake up!

This warning is two fold

He’s grabbing the attention of the world, but more the attention of the one’s He’s already told

Just in case you have trouble comprehending what it is that I mean,

And you need me to paint a more traditional scene,

Turn with me in your Bibles to II Chronicles 7:14.

If my people who are called by my name

Shall humble themselves and pray

And seek my face

And turn from their wicked ways

Then will I hear from heaven

And I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land

Funny we looked immediately to the sinner man

But can’t we see

That surely this is the reason

He’s allowing Hurricanes out of season

And violence that we equate to national treason

To awaken us to the time?

Bring back to hearts and minds

That we can no longer sit by

Idly going about our lives

Compromise and pretend all is fine?

But we must pull out the plumbline

Of His word, measure ourselves and get straight

Can’t debate with the world

If we lay prostrate in the ways of the world

But we must separate from the world

In order to gain the world

And when we maintain His ways before the world

Then we can see change in the world.

So, no

I got enough pieces that I can spit to get you to get up and clap and talk about how I ripped it.

I’m spitting this piece because I want us to get this

We gotta get ready and stay ready, so we can help usher in a revival of Godly repentance.

Get your house in order

That’s why He keeps disturbing the routine we are so used to

And this disturbance of business as usual won’t always be stayed with just a warning

But afterwhile He’ll let it continue.

Clean house, so we can get out and be about what we’ve been commissioned to do

It’s crucial

Because surely, He’s coming quickly,

Make sure He doesn’t leave you

You are now granted freedom

Not just to walk it

But to preach it

Not to contain it

But to leak it

That those around you

Can’t help but seek it

Not just to have it

But to speak it

Yet

Many of us are committing homicide Because while we see the signs of the time Men panting for the word of life

We sit back with closed mouths and go through the motions like we are Christian mimes

Why?

Why are we practicing to be quiet

When silence is so deadly?

Despite our church attendance

& our good intentions

When we depart these Spirit filled and empowering Conventions

Do we leave behind the fear and tension Open our mouths to dying men and mention Christ

His life

His love

His sacrifice

His blood

Or do we exercise the right to remain silent?

Do we hold onto the truth

As though it were our first born

Despite the fact that we feel the Spirit egging us on

Watch as they move on a tank of grace that’s close to empty

Simply

Because we

Can’t find a moment to represent Christ conveniently?

It’s so easy

For us to shout

Throughout devotion

On Sunday

But Monday

Many of us are deaf mute

But if you can’t

Share with anyone

The blessings you’ve received from the Son

Then maybe blessing you was of no use

Sometimes we’re sugarcoating it

Truth

We’re withholding it

Instead of standing flat foot and

Bold with it

Then wonder why the youth haven’t

Chosen it

I suppose its

Because

We tell them we’ve arrived

When our actions show we ain’t even on the way

And they are going

By what we are and aren’t showing

Rather than simply by what we say

They can discern a faith walk

From a fake walk

Practiced from just that which we profess

And scrimmage to find

Something here of worth

When the world makes holiness

Look worthless

IT’S TIME TO SPEAK

When the infallible Word

Has been reduced to just

An ancient text

We’ve set it aside

In favor of compromise With economic tyranny Abortion on demand Scientific explosions Technological expanse

All manner of drugs, power, violence, sex

My God only knows what’s next

Now the government

Who on God’s word based the Constitution

Is now a part of stirring the pot of this boiling moral confusion

No longer in God we trust

Now they are sanctioning sin

Telling us that it’s the same constitution that says it’s right for her to marry her and him to marry him

While THEY were having Visions of Inclusion

Independent of sin’s exclusion

Have you asked yourself

Where was I?

They say silence is deadly

And while prostrate

We’ve lied

In our own agenda and desires

For these borrowed lives

Many souls around us have met their demise

Souls

They are Waiting for us Ears twitching

Intently listening

Wishing we would come

Because they see the news

And by it they’re not so confused

They understand that this thing is just about done

They may not be able to articulate

That it’s the tribulation that they anticipate

But we who are called to be this world’s silicate

Are being told to go, yet we respond wait

But

We have been given salvation To be ministers of reconciliation Bridging the separation

And leading men and women out of sin and degradation

Into the light

And uplift of Christ

So we have an obligation

To begin

To open our mouths and speak life

Like

Paul

Who was converted and straightway preached Christ in the synagogues

He didn’t go in with vain babbling, but preached Christ was the

Son of God

Look at how then the churches were edified

And walking in the fear of the Lord and comfort of the Spirit

Were multiplied

Or like Peter and John Who spake so boldly that Sadducees were grieved

But all the while that the enemy was grieved

About five thousand men heard the word and believed

It was when

God’s people boldly proclaimed his Word

That miracles were wrought amidst all who heard

So if it happened back then I think it not absurd

That it can happen again if God’s people would just get stirred

Up from our seats of comfort and ease

We’ve

Become content to be called His people

While remaining safe and secure

Underneath church steeples

But what would have happened if the early disciples

Closed their mouths to the world and did the same thing we do

Will we

Accept the challenge

For the sake of the lost

Will we fix this imbalance And really count up the cost Of Christianity

Venture out boldly

And preach Christ and the cross?

Will we take seriously the words Christ spake as true

When He said but ye shall receive power after that the Holy

Ghost has come upon you

Or will we read about the power of the Holy Ghost in full

Yet believe in increments

Thinking to ourselves that we are not the witnesses Christ meant

Or continue to make excuses when all the while we know

That He was speaking to us when He said to GO?

We must be the continuum

Of the work of the Son

Understanding that if we follow Christ

He left a work to be done

It is written greater works shall we complete For this cause we are compelled to SPEAK Speak instead of just letting them walk by

Speak when you hear that young girl’s soul cry

Speak even if you feel you are just too shy

Speak because so many are trapped in sin about to die

Speak because if you don’t the enemy will stay in their ear

And what they needed to know was that there was hope from

someone who’d been there

Speak because you holding back is just not fair

Speak because to know that someone’s blood may be required

at your hands is too much to bear

Speak because you may be the vessel used to grant them release

Speak NOW

or forever let go of your peace

You are now granted freedom

Not just to walk it

But to preach it Not to contain it But to leak it

That those around you

Can’t help but seek it

Not just to have it

Not just to have it

Not just to have it

But

To speak it

When I grab the mic and spit

It’s not so the people can say, “Yooooooooo she ripped it!”

But I use this art

Of spittin’ lines

Of poetic rhymes

To grip minds

And change hearts

I spit

So that young men will have greater dreams for their lives

Than hip hop and hoops

Bigger things on their minds

Than gettin’ dimes and

Pushin’ coupes

Use their brain to maintain

More information than the cost of blunts and an ounce of dope

I spit to bring them hope

I spit

So that young girl who doesn’t feel loved

Can be told that she is not beneath but above

That she is the head and not the tail

So she won’t be compelled

To give either one to some dude that’s tryna sample her goods and bail

So she won’t fail

To see that she’s a jewel not plastic

See that the parting of her legs ain’t what makes her majestic

But her majesty

Comes from the imagery

Of the Trinity

Etched in every line of her face

So she won’t waste

Time tryna find it everywhere but the right place

But she’ll know that her bounty is locked in

The Father’s love and the sufficiency of His grace!

I spit

So those of us who missed

Out on being fathered by our fathers

Will know that we ain’t gotta sit back

And let that lack

In our past cause our future to be devoured

But know that when we didn’t see him

Our FATHER was there

Lovingly watching over us because of how He cared

So intoxicated with love that He took time to number each strand of our hair

And even though

We never had

The earthly man we wanted to call dad

We were created on purpose

So don’t lose focus

But note this

The Father of all creation deems us worth it!

I spit

Not just for this

But so those trapped in the net

Of lies and compromise

Don’t forget

That someone has been sent

That will stand up and expose the truth

I spit for those who

Are waiting w/expectation

For someone displaying and saying

Change is possible

So people

Will know that Christ is the answer before they even get into the problem

I

Spit

To

Show

Them

The way out of predicaments

Evident

To have been sent

To cause their descent

Into the right now at the expense

Of their future tense

I spit to shine a light on who they were created to be

From before

There

Was even there

So they’ll beware

Of every pitfall

That’s set to catchall

Those that are birthed for greatness

I spit

For those young mothers left without fathers that feel they can’t get by

I spit for every young girl and young boy who thought no one heard their cries

I spit for the souls that are bound and long to be free

I spit for the one’s God calling saying now’s the time take heed

I Purpose through these verses

2 spit

For the silent and misunderstood

I spit life to the death that’s taking over our hoods

I spit healing of every hurt

Every pain

Every tear

Every loss

Of every sinner and every saint

From the White House to the crack house

From the hills to the valleys

Cradles to the graves

I spit

I spit because He’s put this in in my belly

Bitter and sweet

For me first to digest it then open my mouth and speak

Speak for all who need to hear one or feel they don’t have a voice

See this is Divine necessity that’s been placed upon me

This thing ain’t even a choice!

So with all due respect

I ain’t gotta be called the best at this

Because I was called to use this gift

And bless with this

That means I can’t care

If what I put out there

Is “rockin’ the crowd”

Because I ain’t up here for the applause but the commission and cause

That it’s time to CRY LOUD

Proclaim truth in this world soaked through in fallacy

Gotta ignore left and do what’s right when wrong we embrace too easily

And I’m gonna do this

Every chance I get

Every stage I hit

Every mic I grip

Because this is why I’m here and this is why I spit!