“Completed” is a poem about coming to a point in your life where you get to sit down, tell younger generations about the long and purposeful life you’ve lived. It’s a gesture of praise to our elders for all they’ve done and all that they mean to us.
Thank you for watching. Please share with your favorite elderly person.
“You look like somebody who I’ve met in another lifetime”
Like you travel. But not the type that could be understood By a regular human brain–I could never Be understood By a regular human brain.
“You look like somebody I know in another lifetime”
You draw nostalgia from my well Of buried memories: Feelings of love that were never supposed to resurrect Feelings of love that I kinda, sometimes, maybe, wanted to resurrect
This idea of different lifetimes and different dimensions really have me daydreaming endlessly. It’s a phenomenal idea: we are existing in another dimension, and–perhaps–the things that we did not get to achieve in this lifetime gets achieved in another one. I like that 🙂
I don’t know about your stories with basketball, football or whatever…ball But in my city, our sport is handball:
Where the outsiders and class-drivers reconciled Their pride, forces and hides Each Friday night, after school: concrete playground Blue round rubber band ball bouncing boldly. Man, that was our party
Our palms would bump till peel But this pain, we never feel. Slaps and echoes drumming Our eardrums Before it resonates into what seems to be an abyss; A neighborhood made of blocks, corner stores, out-of-schedule buses, Squirrels; pigeons And apartments ever too tight to fit our dreams, So the city never sleeps. Some say it’s because we are convinced that We will fix these dreams right Each time we’re breaking night.
But daytime is for society’s demands And kids walking in bands; Young adults mimicking gangs.
Maybe we only mimicked because, deep down. We knew. There were bigger purposes Than parading around corners, down blocks Where piggies oink with bother: Questions that could never answer, Why we’re always shooed off our own territory With diction about school, our potentials Which, for now, is in the form of Trouble seen in the skin color Of our brothers.
We always knew. This education: Stories of doctorates, laws and a backpedal To instruction, Was only the limits we were told To be bounded to. There had to be a way to let wind Slide under our capes. Although We, at times, refused to believe it.
But If a brother could actually use these real life wings That he won’t shut his trap about, Then, my brother, I’ll be the first to slide Up and down rainbows.
Sometimes Even we, tell ourselves to not believe in our dreams. Although, this stubbornness in us always sang else: There’s more beyond being trapped in this trap With a tight cap.
II My city life is: handball sessions at the local park’s Handball court. Where you know these Asian kids will not be beaten. Rounds on the basketball courts Where you know the black kids are Kings of the court. Skate spots that I doubt are legalized Where the white kids are discovering culture.
Culturally divided, we always were Culturally integrated, we always are For every now and then, We mingle our differences in the center of the court— Qualities of: Professional Athlete, Einstein and CEO Losing their differences.
Step behind that white line; cracked line And serve.