#PoemADay No.31: Beware My Silence
I'm the silent type,
the keep my comments and mental weapons
and wtf are you talking about Becky type questions
to myself type.
It's how they raised us. What they made us.
But sometimes you get tired of the same tired conversations.
So sometimes I speak, and then I read their faces, and immediately I can tell
the jig is up.
They know
I am not one of them.
The ladies call me passionate,
some niggas probably question my masculine.
But I can't help that I was raised like a Wakandan,
surrounded by warrior women,
I can't help that I look for meaning,
that I suffocate small talk
and would rather jump into a river of sharks with a bloody face and weights tied to my legs
than live with a preference for shallow conversation.
In a world that talks too loud and too much about
everything that doesn't matter,
I'm the silent type.
Until we chill for a night,
masks off,
souls on.
But if that ain't your vibe,
I won't judge.
You’ll just perceive me as the silent type.
And if you are basic,
you might feel a dash of discomfort around me.
And that's fine,
until you try to imply the wrong things about my masculinity out the side of your mouth.
'Cause listen,
I know you hate reading,
I know when you get on insta,
you not on here to express your feelings,
you weren't looking for healing,
you didn't ask for wisdom,
(I'm bout to sound real conceited,
but let me finish)
you not here for all that deep shit,
if it ain't funny, ain't trap with the same syllable
stuttering for seventeen seconds,
or some skin with some thick in some tights,
if it don't rhyme, if it ain't hype,
it ain't worth your time--
I get it.
You like the simple things in life.
I do too, sometimes.
But every day my nigga? Every weekend? ALL the time?
You need to drown your memories in ciroc EVERY Friday night?
Tell me you got enough pride not to waste your manhood so flawlessly.
There is more to you than Worldstar, pornhub, and this emotionally lobotomized atrocity
they got you pretending to be.
You are not their Frankenstein,
you are not their black boy with a ball,
you are not their target practice,
or prison fodder, or American Dreamer, praying to their money at their beck and call.
Wake the fuck up.
Sincerely,
One of The Silent Types