The Chains of Habit are too Weak to be felt, until they are too strong to be Broken.
By Malcolm Scott
In, essence, the first time was like a kiss from a voluptuous apparition. But immediately, my mind pulled away from her advances. Every time I was in her presence my palms got sweaty, my breathing quickened, and my heart made a mad dash into my throat. Simply put, I wanted her with a longing that ached within the very depths of my inner being. Yet, my mind wouldn’t comply with my body’s impulses. It fought me at every turn, like a patriot defending the Alamo of Self. My mind was warning me against the possibility of enslavement. Meanwhile, none of these warnings were heeded, I wanted her smokey kisses, her earthy embrace, her Promises of security and escape from (my harsh) reality.
Soon, I pursued her with all my meticulous, calculated insensibility. Mary Jane and i began spending a lot of time together. We would spend hours building realistic illusions that after her departure dissolved in the currents of reality like sandcastles at high tide. The more time that we spent together, the less and less I wanted to be around feeling, thinking, well-adjusted people. She comforted me in my states of depression, with whispers of aloof principles of living, she allowed me to drudge the deep ravines of my being. She introduced to active vocabulary, free flowing speech, and poetic dialogue with the Universe. She was nonjudgmental, ever understanding of my imperfections.
She dazzled me with her artistry with lights and colors; she showed me how to redefine words and sound….she two timed me with my mind and had us both wrapped around her hallucinogenic fingers.
Little by little, I lost myself to the wiles of my addictions. It started as a small nibble that would become a gluttonous feast of self-destruction. She drew me into places that I would dreamed I would go. She (Addiction) became my shelter, my liberation, my lover, my regret, my friend and my enemy. By the time I realized that she was destroying me, I was too deeply in love with her, she possessed me completely and wasn’t about to free me from her grasp.
The more that I fought her, the tighter and deeper she sank her talons into my being. So I gave up and allowed her to run my life. She crushed my will to fight with poisoned kisses, drugged words, and alcoholic embraces. I wasn’t who I was before addiction, and I am not who I was after my addiction.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to break, habits left unchecked can and will breed addictions. Never allow your emotions and trauma to latch onto chemical stimulants to find release, because once bound, it is hard to break free.
Forgotten Wings
By Malcolm Scott
Forgotten wings
disused & abandoned…
i tricked myself into believing that we couldn’t fly,
World weary..Head Heavy
fitfully resting my eyes….
Dazed…
Does this pass for Dreaming?
i can feel the wind on my face….eyes- wide open
I can see these wings carrying me to the other side….
At second glance I realize that I am Dreaming,
It wasn’t me Soaring
Disused & Abandoned…
Seeking the courage to Spread my Wings and Fly
I have Forgotten My Wings……
During my freshman year we read a letter by James Baldwin to his Nephew, even though it was to his nephew, someone on the outside looking in could relate too. My professor tasked us to write something similar, so this what I came up with:
Broken Passage(s)
By Malcolm Scott
My Dearest Nephew,
Greetings, I know not where you are or will be when this letter finds you; but when it does know that it carries my Love with it. I hope that you are well, and that time has been kind to you in all ways, always.
It would be strange to start at the beginning because the beginning is so far back in time, that I truth as broken as I am I don’t know where to begin….so I will begin here.
We, as a people, come from a proud culture strong in intellect, cultural integrity, beauty, fierceness, and carries of wisdom that has been bequeathed too time through the ages.
This wisdom was passed down in oral tradition(s), the exploits of warriors, Kings,Queens, and statesmen and women etc. were teaching tools. These things weren’t done for no reason; rather the purpose of all of these actions was to ensure the well-being of the tribe.
You had to be trained so that you could know your place in the tribe, what you can contribute to the whole. Before that could happen you had to be judged to be a man by way of a Rite of Passage.
I write to you as a product of dysfunction and bad choices; a sufferer of the sickness associated with ..what I like to call, “Broken Home Syndrome”. Your mother and I grew up in a home with little to no male influences, nor did I understand then that it was a purposeful tactic instituted throughout the United States.
The (father) male influence that I did have was already by his past traumas with the added distinction of surviving an unpopular war. I’ve often wondered what effect did these things have on him, because whatever it was it lingered ; he carried it with him always and it colored his treatment of your mother and I (what was he forced to live with?). I would like to believe that he did his best to prepare me for life with what faulty tools he was given.
Back then I didn’t understand or even really know much about our culture, about our Greatness, the vast amounts of knowledge it contributed to the physical, emotional, historical life of this world; or the true devastation, the magnitude of the cataclysm that was/is Slavery.
Now that I am older I see the obstacles that slavery has left in its wake the educational, judicial, and economic systems devised to keep black men and black women children mentally (arresting their development). Chattel slavery by its very nature stripped us of our culture, of our native tongue, natures and customs, taking our methods of moving (mentally and emotionally) from childhood to manhood (adulthood).
In my minds eye I can picture a little brown boy, amongst a group of little brown boys awaiting instruction on the terms of what’s asked and expected of them while going through their Rite of Passage. Your expectant, smiling face looking just like your young mothers or so I imagine this to be true for estrangement is a fickle master.
In other cultures to this day, there are still things in place to mark the Passage into manhood: the Bar Mitzvah in Judaism, Somoans ritual tattooing, vision quest of some indigenous peoples, and in some African tribes use ritual scaring as an introduction into the sanctity of manhood.
But because of the advent of slavery, the breaking of our people, shattering of the family unit and the fact that 13th Amendment endorses slavery, still in effect through prison. Prison (seems)to have become a de facto Rite of Passage for our young boys (men).
As I lookout at the young, angry faces of the young men that enter these dismal crypts some believing that it is a badge of honor, that since their fathers, Uncles, brothers, and peers and sometimes mothers have been incarcerated, they think that is their lot also. This badge of honor, Right of Passage speaks to the loss of time, away from family & friends leaving a sense of estrangement, alienation, not to mention the humiliation of living in what amounts to a bathroom with another grown man.
Prison and the prison systems in place are thieves. You might ask why I say “Thieves”; because not only do they they steal time, they steal a persons mind (leaving stagnation) it steals a persons being, because it change a person into something different in order to survive their new environment; and finally it steals a persons humanity (degrading, dehumanizing, trying to break them and make you forget you are a person)
Never have I met you, blood of my blood, but I dream bigger aspirations that a life sentence, or a prison cell for you. Although it is an awful thing that 1.2 million (give or take a few million) people are caged right now.
Even when our family speaks of me, is it in whispers? I hope that this letter hits the mark and serves as a cautionary tale, resist going down the path that I have, as well as so many others have treaded. Don’t let your steps, your choices, lead you here!!!!
This is not the Rite of Passage that I see for you, it comes with too many strings.
My nephew stay in school, work a 9 to 5, be the best version of yourself that you can be. Manhood isn’t a given, it is earned, and grown into.
Love always,
Uncle Sidiq
Definition of a Rainbow
By Malcolm Scott
Greetings all during my first year as a Georgetown Student ( P.J.I. Program) I had the distinct pleasure of having a drama course. That is how I was introduced to Ntozake Shange’s, For Colored Girls….. This brought to mind a question about Rainbows. So this is what that question and book inspired.
Kid in Grey: This is for lil colored boys; who’s only definition of a Rainbow is their mother(s)…..
I’ve contemplated my death…..Momma,
Every time…..when bedtime called i had to worry that every time that you played being my mother
tucking me in…
Was there beer on your brea…the, and what that meant what you might do to me,
Taken in Midnight hours…innocence stolen…boyhood trapped in a nightmare,
purposely or mistakenly you forced a child to where manhood stood…..
Death would have easier…..than abuse at your hands,
Blacken eyes….broken bones yes these mend…but some how years move on and your still broken…fool of Addiction, distrustful, awkward, burial shroud raiment of my shame…so how will my Soul mend?
Following in your footsteps…..like shadows in redacted light…
I’m Broken, fearful of becoming you…
If you are my Rainbow…Momma……What shade are you?
Lil Speech: When she speaks she speaks to me like i’m nothing….accursed of her womb—
Kid in Grey: When she speaks—
Kid in Crimson: i’m nothing—
Kid in Crimson: (What shade are you)……
Quiet as Kept: Nothing worthy of her time nothing to love, nothing nothing not-a-thing nothing spoken but empty vocabulary nothing but loving words that broke me—
Kid in Grey: Nothing—
Kid in Crimson: ( What )
Silence is Golden: Nothing speaks as clearly as easy is disdain of a wombs worth of unwanted DNA—
Kid in Crimson: ( shade)
Lil Speech: unwanted DNA shaped, molded, fractured, broken, beholdened to a childish wish to Live in that perpetual moment of you holding … Me—-
Kid in Grey: – Where’s my Rainbow Momma?
Kid in Crimson: ( Are You?)
Quiet as Kept: not-a-thing..house that closely holds silence if you know what’s good for you..you won’t speak unless spoken too..Asphyxiated upon wordage if unbottled it might choke you—-
Lil Speech: but it’s cool though I’ve made my peace with it masterpiece like this pen my paintbrush and my Soul the Sistine Chapel where I put my pain my being on exhibit—
Kid in Grey: I am Nothing—
Lil Speech: I am Nothing— to be trifled wit laughed at…as a matter of fact my Greatness spurned metamorphosis differed… I’m here now
All Hail the Late Bloomer…..forgotten rainbow, I am the Treasure at its End……
Where’s My Rainbow Momma?
What Shade Are You?
Autumn Winds……
By Malcolm Scott
Autumn Winds play here on the Cusp of Memories,
Floral rainbows bespeak childhood bouts of wonder…..giggles of pleasure muffled by the sweetness of innocence of Imagination at play ….
” London Bridge
Is
Falling Down”….
The tune still lingers in the air,
As leaves float back to the earth,
My tiny hands grasping more leaves to throw into the spaces up above…between me and the trees,
Giggling sing songy……
” London Bridge
Is
Falling down”……
My small form crashing down to the Earth happily spent gazing up in wonder leaves waving as Autumn Winds play here, looking at the floral rainbows here at the Cusp of Memory…. I am Free Here….
For me this is Liberation..,.
Accidentally On Purpose
By Malcolm Scott
You look at me
without really seeing me,
Disdain brightens your eyes…..
I shabby to you….so it makes it easy for you to dismiss me….because you figure me to be worthless….
Accidentally on Purpose
I show you a glimpse of my greatness,
I am a Microcosm of the Universe,
Your apathy for me sucks the oxygen out of the room,
I born alien…my magnetism creates gravity I cause this atmosphere to sustain weight,
You…..my burden….is finally lifted so now I am weightless…..so I will not wait for less,
Accidentally On Purpose….
It would be a disservice if I hid my self from the world and let fear be the reason…not to dig deeper then what’s on the surface…..
Accidentally On Purpose….
I hope these words serve their purpose…
To help the broken find some peace within their broken pieces,
Clench your fist…break your chains and find your place of release….
Don’t believe people saying that you are a Savage lost to this world….a fallen Angel drunk off of the Devils magic,
I’m that voice….can you hear?
I’m that voice of reason cutting through the void of your inner static…Broken words that litter the ground (Word) crumbs to help lead you home…
Accidentally on Purpose….
I want to reintroduce you to the embrace of your Soul…..Accidentally On Purpose.
Mississippi
By Malcolm Scott
1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi
(shots) (shots) (shots)….I can’t Breathe…..you would call me crazy if I told you that I hear the voices of the dead, 4 Mississippi, 5 Mississippi ( shots) (shots)….it’s crazy to think that we taught you to Rule….how to be You, jealousy made you pull Us from our thrones…coopted our achievements,relegating us to Ash of the Earth…Broken Morsels of Carrion food….. 6 Mississippi…..Momma! They’re trying to Kill me ( shots )…..I am the Fallen of 1921 Tulsa’s Black Wall Street…..I was Hunted, My Life Stolen…..SO REMEMBER ME!!!!!…. I am Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Rayshard Brooks, Michael Brown, Oscar Ramirez, Philando Castile, Freddy Gray
7 Mississippi…. just another blurb, characters scrolling ( 7 Shots ) across the ticker at the bottom of your TV screen….8 shots 8 Mississippi’s round up to more like 9 Mississippi’s …..Breonna Taylor 8 shots that killed her No knock Death sentence passed on movie night….closer to 9 Mississippi George Floyd choked to Death with an officer’s knee on his Neck………
Redemption
By Malcolm Scott
My first question for you would be….are you a Good King or a Tyrant to yourself? My next one is do you believe in Redemption, if so what is the cost of it….and who decides if you are unredeemable?
In my experience, as soon as do something wrong some people consider you a lost cause. That every breathe that you have taken up until that point…..if there was cause or question(s) of the worth of your existence… Your breathes and deeds or the lack there of them was proof against it. An I am not even talking about what you’ve done to get your prison bit (term).
For some of us it starts earlier than adolescents to try and prove that we’re are worthy of life,let alone deserving of Love, understanding, compassion, etc. So against this backdrop…. Feeling like the world is against us, we struggle to find our way,suffering through myriads of slights and abuses(some of the self inflicted) and bottle up any emotion that we don’t recognise…that could be seen as a weakness, building walls and fortifying yourself with Apathy. The whole while searching….and clawing to understand why and how to be worthy of ACCEPTANCE.
....... ARE YOU A GOOD KING......So from a early age the concept of, forgiveness and Redemption was as foreign to us like hearing Spanish, German, Arabic or Emoji speak for the first time. We know that we are told, ” Do unto Other as you would have them do unto You.
So should I abuse, bully others the way that my parental figures violated me, ” You reap what sow.” So what did I sow in my mothers womb to deserve what I got? Or Am I / was I a consequence of my mothers actions, or actions done to her, was I a living breathing reminder of some past trauma?
..........OR A TYRANT TO YOURSELF.....Now we move forward as pre-teens we act out, ad teenagers we act out, and finally as adults we lash out ( at this point to rebel becomes a habit) we continue down a path that was forged for us, like Lemmings our destruction hardwired into beings. Redemption is so far off as to be on the opposite side of the Universe.
Some of us self correct that destructive part of our beings, but some of us get caught within the gravitational pull of our Emotional Black holes… so it becomes easy to let go and let ourselves be pulled apart by the things that hurt us. Why?
Is it because we are are too scared to face ourselves or is our self hate all that we know? How do we begin to understand what Redemption is, when we have so much difficulty truly seeing ourselves or forgiving ourselves?
So.. What is the cost of Redemption? It is Struggle, struggle, and more struggle, anger, addiction, loss, fear, abandonment and trust issues etc.
Who decides if you are redeemable? YOU DO !!!
you decide if you are redeemable, because even though we are subject to others hubris and active campaigns to crush us….
…..we give the power over us, we teach them how to treat us. We know within ourselves that we are deserve better, are worthy of happiness, Love, Compassion, Forgiveness, Empathy,etc. But here’s the kicker, ” IT STARTS WITH YOU!”
You have to start the process of Forgiving you, to Love yourself, to show compassion, mercy, understanding, and empathy to yourself.
It isn’t easy nor is there a person specific how to manual. But I promise you it is worth it, and it will become easier over time.
So again I ask you ……
Are you a Good King or a Tyrant to yourself?
192,720 Hours…..
By Malcolm Scott
My first 8,760 hours
Feeling like I was being held hostage with no bail
spent time coming to term with…..spending the rest of my life in Prison……
Hard water, bad food, recirculated air a lesser form of germ warfare……
Trying to get acclimated to the look & smell of Jail cells,
Little did I know that with every second that passed I would mourn piece of me…
Like the life that I could have had,
Societal bias’s of your Basic Structure of unseen boarders that became centers of Physical and Mental detentions…. Social Darwinism still couldn’t prepare me for the Reality of Prison,
47,800 Hours,
Minutes synonymous with moments missed..
Time wasted the only thing left is recriminations about what I could’ve done with it….should’ve done with it….seconds precious now….
cell walls feel like they’re closing in
now time feels like its slipping through my fingers….
Lock downs,inconvenient shakedowns, CO’s banging keys on the Railings it’s like them saying,” Here boy…here boy,chow time, here boy come and get it,”
192,720 hours of a daughters birthdays, prom, and graduations missed,
192,720 hours of becoming food for the beasts belly….slave to Penal codes and stolen moments…
22 years….
That’s 8,030 days,
192,720 hours…..
Deal With Doors…
By Malcolm Scott
What’s the deal with this Door?
No knobs to turn only bars that I cannot bend..
Keyholes… Doors with slits replacing peepholes,
Keys hmmm let’s see
of they push that button this doors slides open to let me out and in..
GRILL!…..GRILL!….GRILL DAMN IT!!!!
I’m tired of pacing back and forth like a caged animal…Grill damn it LET ME IN!
Because of my willful actions the verdicts in,
LET ME OUT, but behind every door that I tread they lock me in,
Abnormal, antisocial, barbarianistic, slumbering sadistic these adjectives aren’t realistic…
They are only verbal precalculations for governmental funding for Inmates per capita… Bunk space… Storehouse.
Legislative Megalomaniacs with God complex
perplexed at why rehabilitatee hates to be Private Industries… Willing Slave…oops, I mean Gross National Product…oops I slipped again…I mean breathing, feeling, thinking commodity,
REHABILITATE ME, Free me…. SHIT… they knew that their cash would return with interest,
Yet they are disinterested in helping me address my ills,
Only caring about cash options multiplied by repeat offenders….
With all this money being spent on building prisons why am I eating the equivalent of a kindergarten snack like PBJ for my dinner?
If there’s no sleep for the wicked then I’ll take that Mansion, that Yacht & That beach house in a Coastal spot… and they can have this repetition, this Hell, this Cell…
these Bars & these Dreams of Freedom from prison sentences with no end.
What’s the Deal with This Door!??
Its locked tight when I try to Parole out but Open wide to lock me in…
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THIS DOOR…..?
If Black Souls Could Swim….
By Malcolm Scott
Can you swim in chains
tread water in the deep end of an infinite Ocean?
Here I am trapped in this expanse of fluid(s) in motion,
My physical shell has sunk deep…. food for life Aquatic:
Remembrance,
as I still float here….
I remember the horror of being beaten and dragged away from my home….
Bloodied & broken,
unable to protect them….
I remember hearing my wife & kids screaming for me….as they met the same fate,
Who are these pale ones…. Why do they hate me?
Why are neighboring tribesmen helping them destroy me?
Were only moments ago you were a guest in my home breaking bread.
Held hostage for profit,
Kept chained in the sweltering bowels of coffin ships…. foot to cheek cramped body to body,
It’s getting harder to breathe
I feel like my soul to leave the mortal coil,
I’ve been laying here for so long,
I can feel liquid in my lungs, I feel like I’m drowning,
I. Can’t. Breathe!
When the breathing stops like so much refuse living or dead they throw our bodies into a hungry sea,
2 million plus souls met this fate…
Middle passage littered with the bodies of Men, Women, and Children erased from the pages of History remember them then you will be able to remember me,
Here I am trapped in this expanse of fluid(s) in motion,
My grave is this Infinite Ocean,
If Black Souls could Swim. I could leave this place and float to Heaven,
Can you SWIM IN CHAINS?
Treading water in the deepest end of Eternities Ocean?
[AFTER LAND FALL]
Inherently your history…. A noose around my neck,
Your children with shovels in tiny hands barely strong enough to hold’em,
Delighting in your deed(s) excited at the prospect of burying me a slave….
(but I’m not dead yet!!!)
Carrying me away…. dumping my form in a shallow unmarked, unconsecrated Grave,
A lasting Memory…. Family heirloom burying me a slave.
Are there worst fates then being thrown into the hungry jaws the Ocean?
If Black Souls could Swim
Love
By Malcolm Scott
LOVE….
Where’s LOVE when I’m….. Depressed and alone,
Where’s LOVE when I ….Need someone to wipe tears from my eyes…..
Where’s LOVE when I’m… Hurting…that voice telling me everything’s alright……
LOVE,
I’m tired of losing myself,
Dazed & Confused
discarded after being abused
by YOU,
Fleeing refugee cowering on the cusp of Oblivion,
One step away from Annihilation……
My mind filled with broken hearted revelations
CHASING YOU……
Feeling like my existences unworthy…. of you,
Why do you pleasure in hurting me?
Is it because of your worth to me?
Eternal Pauper
because I
don’t have you….
What’s Love without LOVE
but a empty shell, empty Actions, empty Promises, empty Words…..LOVE
Without Love
The grass gets no greener, the air no fresher,
Broken heart Comatosed
heavy against the inside of my chest and with every step that I take I CAN. FEEL. ITS PRESSURE!
My sentiment should be
F@*k LOVE !….
But Love created me, its the power that informs my being,
Instructs my pen, the goal that elevates me
When it is all said and done, it is the thing….
Keep Moving
By Malcolm Scott
Right foot – left foot! I gotta keep moving
My stride unsteady – my tear-filled eyes
Trying to focus on a new horizon
While all around me the shadows
Whisper to me
Taunting me – laughingly reminding me
Of my brokenness
Of a mother’s willingness to corrupt my innocence
Left foot – right foot!
Psychosomatic – psycho analytical
Suicidal tendencies birth from abandonment and neglect
Socially apathetic
Because your laws couldn’t – no wouldn’t – protect me
From a mother and her sister who
Thought
Familial love them raping me
Destroying
And breaking me
Making me believe the notion
That God hated me
Right foot – left foot!
Feeling alone
I withdrew into myself
Find safety in being introverted
One man island
That were I found my home
But the space was too small
It being crowded with past hurts
Broken dreams and pieces of the lost child in me
My inner sanctum wasn’t infinite
I slowly realized – in here
There wasn’t enough space for me to be alone
Left foot – right foot!
One step after another
I gotta keep moving – in pain – always the hunted
Seeking my safe haven
To make my stand
And stop running
Even when it feels like pain is perpetual
You can only find a piece of peace
When you are
Loving you
Right foot – left foot!
Left foot – right foot!
I gotta keep moving
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