August 28, 1963

I am here. Standing on my own two tired feet.
I am here listening to this man with a smile full of cheeks
And eyes full of crow's feet,
His wrists once bound by the manacles of steel in a Birmingham jail
That may as well have been slave shackles tied to a ship rail.
Now, they're replaced by cuffs of white adorned with links of gold
And an outstretched hand where hope and peace take hold.
He stands in the shadow of a giant to finish what he started
This noble orator to deliver a proclamation to us
Which resonates through time on the field of justice like a battle drum.
I was there.

I was there because I was the black man standing in back.
I was the white cop, and the child holding his dad's hand.
I was the lady dressed in her Sunday best
And I was the baby sleeping on her mother's chest.
And I am every man, woman and child with straight, curly or kinky hair
I was there because you were there.

But it took some time to get there...
Hundreds of years of hopeless despair
Because darkness dominated the sense of discern
And limited our visibility to see the path concerned;
The path to freedom that darkness consumed
Where slavery, racism and segregation loomed.
But the sun, the sun begins to rise anew and shed its truth
Over this path.

Now, in this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the union
The memory of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and every Human being
Who ever fought the flames of withering injustice is enshrined forever.
We are all there together.

We are there to collect what's owed to us as heirs,
We are there because there were some who dared
To plan and scheme to rob us of our dignity.
We are there to collect on this dream.
And we are not interested in picking up the crumbs of compassion
Thrown from the table of one who calls himself our master.
Cuz our freedom is inextricably bound
And our humanity found in each other.
And if you're neutral then you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
No we cannot walk this path alone, we must walk it together.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge
That we shall always march ahead
Cuz I could not be there if you weren't there.

Three Minutes (SLAM/Spoken Word version)

Just give me three minutes of your time, that's all I ask of you...
It's takin' every ounce of my strength not to call you
And I know that we said we're through,
But I just can't accept that forever doesn't mean the same for me as it does for you.
So I don't wanna hear you say forever when you really mean "just until..."
You see I look at forever as one of two things: heaven or hell.
And I wonder if time exists in either.
Einstein said time was relative
And others say it is as it always was and always will be
So I ask myself would 3 minutes in heaven be the same as 3 minutes in hell?
Three minutes in hell, I’d imagine, would seem an eternity,
Each second... drawn out... for millennia... worth of suffering.
And I'd imagine three minutes in heaven would be whisked away
Like two petals of small flowers dancing in the wind carrying with them their fragrances:
Laughter, love, joy, hope, life.
Soon three minutes turns into millennia.
Tell me, why is it when I'm with you, I get lost in time?
Why is it when we’re not together, I lose my sense of smell?

Tell me why, without you, the world barely moves,
Time crawls like an inchworm through the ground, gruelingly slow,
Wet, cold,
Feeling every painful movement of its body through earth until…
It finally arrives.

Why is it, I'm having such a hard time letting you go.
I just wanna scratch this itch
like a crackhead looking for their next fix.
I wanna call you and tell you all about yourself
And how this... this is my own personal hell
And my very fears of losing you
Came true
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy
And I just wanna make you see
that this suffering isn't easy.
And then I want to take a cold shower in delousing chemicals to get this sweet aroma of you off my skin
And I wanna plug my nostrils with smelling salts to wake me up and let your scent never reach me again.
And I know this might sound crazy
But I don't ever wanna hear again how I'm so amazing
Cuz I'm so tired of amazing not being good enough.

So here I am bearing my cross...
At a crossroads of where to go next.
I know life goes on and all those other clliches
But life without you just won't be the same
Cuz life with you took on a whole new meaning so far
As we shot for the moon and landed among the stars.

We promised the world to each other knowing it's not ours to give.
But there is something of mine that I can give...
My heart and soul on a silver platter.
So dine on them tonight cuz even though we may not be together,
At least the best part of me can nourish you and be with you forever...
I'm goin out on a limb and I'm takin a chance,
I just want three minutes of your time, that's all I ask...
May I have this dance one mo'gin?
Like two petals of small flowers dancing in the wind.

Three Minutes (Original Version)

This is the original version of the poem I wrote back in December. This version was more of a love poem than its spoken word counterpart.


Three more minutes could have turned into another week,
Another lifetime with you in this short existence.
Three more minutes is all I wish I could get back,
Just three more minutes.

Is three minutes in heaven the same as three minutes in hell?
Three minutes in hell, I’d imagine, would seem an eternity,
Each second drawn out for millennia worth of suffering.
Three minutes in heaven, I’d imagine, would be whisked away
As petals of small flowers in the wind carrying with them their fragrances:
Laughter, love, joy, life.
Soon three minutes turns into millennia.

So then why is it that when I’m with you I get lost in time?
Why is it that when we’re not together, I lose my sense of smell?
Tell me why, without you, the world barely moves,
Time crawls As an inchworm through earth, gruelingly slow,
Wet, feeling every painful movement through space until…
It has finally arrived.

And there we are again, two petals dancing in the wind,
Two lovers letting eternity blissfully pass them by.