This is for the forgotten

This is for the remembered

The children looking for freedom that found themselves in the music And freed themselves in a lyric to find themselves in the mirror

This is for all the homies missing all of they homies Who say it out in open and holding em whole heartdly

Speaking it from the artery

Speaking in front of audience

Did it with no facade in this Did it with no applaud in this

Did it with all my heart in this did it when they was shook

Who did it when no one looked Who did it for all of us Who did it when dreams was crushed

When Giving wasn’t a given

Especially with our women they need to know they enough

This is for the single mothers with multiples hustles

This is for the depressed kids that cry in puddles

This is for the hopeful

This is for the uncles

This is for the homies knowing they gifted and humble

This is for the poets

This is really for me From river to the sea, know you will get free the first in they fam tree bringing home degree

The joy of a full fridge off of that EBT

The meek and the loud The then and the now

Survived and the drowned The nights on the couch

(the) duets with doubt (For) James Baldwin’s smile

The Black women that Black men won’t write about

I’m doing it for is for the brujas

Doing it for the dula’s abulitas hand making and serving all they Papuas Never spitting basura

Want the smoke like a hooka really about they cultures brewing they own kombuchas

For every one of the barbers fading sculpt you up

All the really strong friends really holding you up

All of your dearest dreamers lived and never woke up

The aunties pulling up for you always there in the clutch

This for my mother who really taught me to read

This for the shaman who really taught me to breath my brother living his truth and went after his dreams

Dedicated to Brandon call me back my g

This is for the Black folks This is for the fat folks

This is for the real hood

This for the Virgos This is for the Leos

This is for my people getting it out the mud

Doing more than they should

Doing it cuz you have to living misunderstood

All the things that we laugh through (Even if you reject me) see you as one of us

This is for the pandemic babies And the therapists

Gangbangers Looking for exits and some advocates

The challenges you couldn’t calculate on an abacus that cultivate and activate the balances and calluses

The lovers the wanderers

The wonderful The Trans folks

The elders The living the witness

This for the preachers who need to dig deep and ask for forgiveness This is for the folks that’s locked up and in prison

The unafraid to be wrong really ready to listen

The Unafraid and just strong living loud on mission

The underpaid and keep on Till all the fear dissolved

I’m really bearing my soul Really isn’t just song

It’s Embedded in the heritage

Some Narratives inherited No one ever dies but are you pre pared for it ?

Where you heart? Are you aware of it ?

What is success if you ain’t sharing it?

We do it the quiet kids with stories to tell

The big sisters who bear witness and hardly are held

The weight lifters the shape shifters

Who ain’t with us word workers that paint pictures that stay with us