Nahamah Jackson-Brown is a sophomore at American University’s School of Communication. She enjoys reading ,singing, writing poetry and short stories. She hosts an open Mic at AU monthly for the Black Student Alliance.

By NAHAMAH JACKSON-BROWN
Observer Contributor
Oct. 18, 2007

The Color Complex
The color line’s the line to cover the other line…cowardice
This is the line that makes us assume that we are powerless
Sifting through the ashes and graves of the flowerless
We seem to forget our need to empower this
Community of ours

We always reach for only a limited amount of stars
Seeing only between those bars
Our radiance shines far beyond what we conceive
We are much stronger than in our hearts we believe
We limit ourselves when we limit each other
Some people say
Forget all that talk about loving one another
It’s all about loving ourselves
Wishing only we do well
Reaching for the tree
Not the forest

Restricting our fruits of labor to just one harvest
If you feel this way, then disregard this
Cause life is all about helping one another
Not limiting yourself to just one’s relative sister and/or brother
If you were meant to be alone
Then you would have been born
On a distant shore
Behind a locked door

Incognizant of the color line
Incognizant of the color complex
Only taking in what the mind elects

Oh then you wouldn’t have to give homage
You wouldn’t have to pay respect
I said it two ways so you would definitely be hearing me
Because my ancestors inflicted a reverent fear in me
To insure that I would not let my sister fall
To make sure that I would hear my brother’s call

My Air
Writing use to come to me freer than air does to my blood cells
Words use to stick to my mind like a baby to its mother
when I heard a nice phrase my heart would shudder

Like I was in love
To me the perfect poem was like sent from above
My dove
lightly bring my whirling thoughts to a halt
like snow without salt
there is always room for slush

A good poem brings my heart to mush
I’m in love with the thought patterns of those souls
who issue delicate prose

Take a bunch of words and change them into a magic carpet
that flows from their soul like a harmonic scale

They are feeling their work
and even the trees can tell
That all is well
And that their souls
swell
with more and more
intellectual spores
words seep in and out their pores
writing for me has become an arduous chore
that has to be done
until in my mind this battle over words has been won
issues lay on my heart heavier than a million tons
until I get my poems out

I’ll never again see the sun
because my vision will be impaired
instead of images

I’ll see in phrase

My eyes will only glaze out across the distance
I will be in need of a pen and paper’s assistance
to interpret what I see
For me to be finally free
I’ll have to be let loose
from this harmful conviction
because I’m so set in my ways

I’m too lazy to write some days
so then I get numbed over from pain
because I got all these words still left up there in my brain
what’s this cause for my insanity

I see words in my dreams
I see prose in sun rays
I see stories on cloudy days
I see the beauty in pain
after I let it rain on a page

I see the incredible prose I’ll reap after my rage
has died down because I chose to be a scribe
as long as I’m alive
and my fingers still have the ability to cling to the skins of my pens
as long as the trees still inhabit the earth
and make paper for a smurf like me
when I compare myself to all
of humanity

I realize that I’m a small part
of this one
but while I’m writing

I’m oblivious to everyone and everything that surrounds me
when I have a poem in my head
nothing on this earth makes sound to me
this is a powerful thing that allows me to transcend

Its like yoga for me only
my wrist is the only thing that binds
and the one area that I am concentrating on instead of me
is an additional part to my skin
and that’s my pen
if a pen were to be injected into my veins

I doubt that it would be mistaken for a pathogen
because I feel that there is a rightful place for it next to my heart
there is a hole there now
so an injection would be a start