Battles

A battle is never won

The battle is never done

But it feels good

Oh, it feels so good

So good to fight

For what you think is right

We fight until there's nothing left

There is no time to catch your breath

And noone's around to watch your death

We fight until there's nothing left

So good, so long

What you thought was right must've been wrong

Must've been a lie

Cause noone's around to watch you die

And noone's going to cry, not over you

Maybe it's true, maybe the good are few

And maybe the good die young

So what's the good of being good with all these words unsung?

If just for being just there is no justice

Then a life of passions and immorality would be so much more illustrious

They won't write a book for you, or take a look at you

I mean what's the point? Just take a look at you

What do you see? Doesn't it kill you?

You're nobody, even when somebody kills you

The Cracks

Give me the going rate or nothing at all
And we can make art from a crack on the wall
A crack that's so small, you had to point it out
Wouldn't have believed if I hadn't heard it from the horse's mouth
My eyes are a desert now, my heart is a canyon
My words vibrate on your ears, but you don't understand them
And I'm so through explaining
Gave up the complaining
I want something, I want something real
Love, give me your love, that's the only fair deal
But you can't make deals with criminals
You commit your sins in intervals
And expect me to forget
How much do you want to bet
That this won't do
Do to me what it does to you?
Because this time I won't submit
And this time I won't admit
What I did, it's done
Let's just say that it's been fun
Yeah, let's go with that cause the truth is vitriolic
No more confused little girl, no more loveaholic
And I can't tell if it's for my benefit
But it wasn't my choice and that's the end of it
I close my eyes and envision that faraway land
When where we are today was not in our plans
I'm not a fan of this
Emptiness
When hollow words are effortless
I remember when I would've begged for this
I remember so clearly when I would've begged for this
Tell me how much can I get for this?

When I Become a Famous Poet, Please Don't Cite Me

If I become a famous poet
Wait, stop, hold it...
...When I become a famous poet, please don't cite me
I will consider that a personal insult to my writing
I shudder at the thought of my words in quotations
And my name reduced to the confines of a parenthetical citation
Foolish writers fail to realize that every word that they say
Is inspired by someone or something in some sort of way
Obsessing over originality
When in reality
Writers don't create words, we just shape and mold them
Heard the stories, revised and retold them
Finding inspiration in our surroundings
To me, it's so astounding 
How we try to own saying and phrases
When we're all telling the same story, just in different phases
So don't quote me 
Or invoke me
Like my words are superior to yours
Nothing that we say is completely ever pure
Poetry's a beautiful blend of experiences and common knowledge
Might be inspired by a friend or a professor in a college
Paraphrasing phrases without placing quotations in it?
Can't do it, they'll call it plagiarism
But who are they?
Fuck the MLA
Every word I ever wrote
Is an indirect quote
I guess now I gotta start citing that show I watched last week
That preacher that I heard speak
My ex-boyfriend from the 6th grade

Or else they'll sue me and get paid

We separate 

And segregate 

But a word by itself is not truly divine

Until it gets the chance to intertwine

With another

And they become lovers

Birthing ideas and concepts

Opinions and responses

But if they found your words and mine playing together, they would kill them

They just wanna hold hands as innocent and indiscriminatory as children

I'm tired of being told who's a reputable source and who's not

I don't wanna hear about the college degree that you've got

I just wanna hear what you wrote, and be inspired

To go home, grab my notebook, and write some fire

Not imitation

But integration

I'm a poet

And I know it

Inspired by other poets

By society and family

Friends and people that understand me

Books and music

So it's pretty stupid

And egotistical really, how much we try to own and claim

But on a Works Cited page I never wanna see my name

I don't care what they say, tell the MLA people they can bite me

And when I become a famous poet, don't you dare EVER cite me

Beauty is the Beast

So I was just at work, on break, enjoying my lunch one day

When one of my co-workers came up to me to say

"You're really gonna eat all that?" With a face of disgust

And even though I know I've seen him eat that much

I just smiled and said "um yeah, I like to eat"

And without even missing a beat

"I don't find that attractive" he told me, as if he was giving me some bad news

"Well then, good thing I'm not trying to attract you"

It's funny, everyday we women get judged

By men on how we look, and as if that wasn't enough

Women judge each other too

So what's a girl supposed to do?

I mean you can't even go to the supermarket without seeing some magazine

Be it Cosmopolitan or Seventeen
Telling you the "5 Reasons Why You're So Fat"
Or "How to Get Rid of Your Wrinkles" or something like that
Or maybe they'll tell you the "Reasons Why You're Still Single"
And it's probably because you're fat and you have wrinkles
So we buy the diet pills and we buy the skin creams
Cross our fingers and hope to find the man of our dreams
But even that's not enough to do
Cause now they've got "Why Your Man Hasn't Said I Love You"
Or my personal favorite from all the fine selection of readings
"How to Get Your Guy to Stop Cheating"
Really? Find a guy that doesn't cheat, for God's sake, you're worth it
But  there's a whole industry designed to make women feel less than perfect
See sex sells, but insecurities are like a gold mine
Keep creating flaws and we'll be coming back in no time
Just to be one step closer to this beautiful ideal
This model on the cover that isn't even real
She's just that, a model, cause on top of all that make-up on her face
Photoshop will make sure all of her imperfections are erased
They'll take that bump out of her nose and full out her lips
Elongate her neck and shrink down her hips
And if they want to add a little "diversity" by making her black
They'll just lighten up her skin cause no one really wants to see that
See even Oprah's skin was once lightened as they blended her with another woman's body
I guess no matter how much money you make you can never escape misogyny
Now in ads aimed towards men where it gets a little more erotic
Minorities are a lot more prevalent cause we're supposed to be exotic
So in the commercials, the black girl's out somewhere in an African jungle and the spicy Latina's on a tropical beach
And the Asian girl is cute and tiny and has an accent in her speech
Put them all together and it could cause insanity
Appealing to the white man's sexual fantasy
In urban media, though, there's a different ideal for beauty
Where skinny girls ain't it, nah you gotta have a booty
But truly, there's a thin line drawn at "thick"
Sure she doesn't look like a stick
But she's got a cute face and slim waist to go with that big behind
We ain't talking Mo'Nique thick, we mean the Beyonce kind
So if you pass the thick but not too thick test, you can be in this video
All you gotta do is let the champagne pour over what little bit of clothes
You have on, you can show some skin right?
But only if your skin's light
They said "dark skin is in ya'll", but not if you're female
Guess that's just a minor detail
Light-skinned is a compliment, you know "yellowbone" and "redbone"
A black girl once told me she was jealous of my skin tone
And I was confused, see I didn't understand it yet
That when it comes to Hollywood beauty, Kerry Washington is about as dark as it gets
And that's not even as dark as it gets
At least we've come a few shades away from the paper bag test
You wanna know why your girl has low self-esteem
Just turn on the TV
If you're a confident female then I gotta give it up
Cause not letting them get you down can be tough
But next time a magazine tries to sell you some beauty tips
I want you to laugh at them, cause they don't know what beauty is
If you're a strong, independent woman with a personality
That doesn't need a man to keep her happy, see
If you refuse to mold to their idea of what makes a woman suitable
Then I dare them ever try to tell me that you're not absolutely beautiful