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In Arts & Entertainment, Black History, Culture, Poetry by Nicole Crawford

i find your theories misaligned

with what you practice and what you preach

like predatory men who write good poetry,

and student activists with telfars

and no smiles for their communities, 

and those kids back at school

who would snicker at the sight of me. 

although we could have never

been cut from the same cloth,

even if they tried to understand me 

(and they didn’t).

you see, the illusions in which you have

chosen to reside and manifest your lies

are killing us slowly.

and the cognitive dissonance

that you work to maintain is proof of

where your priorities have always been: 

in self interest, far from the unity our ancestors need. 

their recollection failed to sense

my father’s rage and my mother’s contempt

grounding myself as i visit my favourite

tree to make sure she hasn’t changed, 

they found me ten toes down

in the soils that made me.

this was the day that i realized

i was named for the victory of my community 

and so to think that no justice and your peace 

could coexist in front of a revolutionary 

tells me all i need to know

about you and your beliefs 

so i stand firmly on what i said 

i find your theories misaligned with

what you practice and what you preach 

like predatory men

who write good poetry

– rawest forms