you
walking crime-scene I know you might be
in shock so I’m gonna say it one more
time I am a walking crime scene my skin
laid bare is inscribed with the muffled
screams of ones who only knew being
stolen my hands have learned to mold
fists and expunge mortal flames my feet
keep learning to take speed but hopes
never know not being fast enough to get
away my legs pried open will be made a
temporary home by an uninvited guest my
eyes naturally brown will learn to wear
the hues of blue green purple and red my
chest will learn a deafening silence and
forget how to rise my mouth in cages a
revolver tongue whose bullet words
ricochet perfectly and return to me the
mirror a trusted friend has my figure in
chalk outlines my expressions numb and
deathly cold I am a walking crime scene
many of us can relate to these
sentiments I’m not gonna ask for a show
of hands or for you to clap if you feel
me because essentially I know the
difficulty of that association
identified by the worst that can happen
to you I’ve been there it’s toxic and we
know it but even as intelligent
sense-making human beings we keep that
based thirst for blood intricately woven
into our indoctrinated need to please we
call that living I want to propose a
different way of looking at how you
inhabit your life a way to look at your
lived experiences as more than just
footnotes worthy of a eulogy or an
obituary but rather as the foundations
and the impatient impetus to give your
life purpose
a selfish purpose that benefits you and
the very people that you are habituated
to appease I want you to join me in
developing the nerve to possess yourself
I grew up in a black majority country
never realizing that one day I’d be
called an ethnic minority call it’s
privileged ignorance but what I did
recognize was the silencing of people
like me the people who’d step outside of
the lines drawn in the desert sands the
unnamed who flickered like embers and
late-night fires that I first came to
know at my grandparents cattle post
playing black mamba dealer and then on
school trips where we’d toast
marshmallows to dunk into our hot
chocolates and the starlit hood skies
with no way of mocking my true north
first by day and then by night I became
a war zone cut by the stairs punched by
the sniggering I soon learned how to
trade bits of myself in this conflict in
a hope to create some sense of harmony
but one thing you’ll learn from a
lifetime of biting your tongue memories
lose their flavors and so I went on a
mission all about me spotting myself
under my bed in distant friends laughter
in forgotten photographs in nicknames in
denim jackets Sun battered and rain
kissed soil scarred knees and
remembering that’s the way love goes I
found that breathing could be a
revolutionary act hard sustenance and
part control art did that for me
it triggered an urgency for me to be a
better me through creation and I started
to reclaim the very thing I thought I’d
been trading all along which in fact was
just taken from me my voice I’m many
things to many people but nowadays it
all starts with what I can call myself
and know to be my truth artivist writer
humanitarian friend a relentless Madonna
child of a loving mother and a treasured
father I build no monuments to these
because the proof is in me I own it I
now call on you to undress yourself of
the scar tissues of your oppressions and
redress those parts of you that you only
ever defined by their value to other
people it’s not a matter of can you it’s
a matter of will you will you reclaim
your story and all its parts it
shouldn’t take fear to frighten you into
self belief this isn’t arrogance this is
developing the nerve to possess yourself
I am a living pride scene my skin is a
lyrical landscape of duets with the Sun
my hands collide to send seismic waves
of adoration and set course for dancing
my feet carved meandering pathways for
Wanderers like me
my legs have learned to climb to jump to
abound the impossible my eyes praise the
wetness of happy tears and their
medicine for grief my chest jolts with
the pounding of a resilient drummer and
this mouth is a free house to compassion
and that revolve a tongue still shoots
but the mirror has learned to show when
it cracks
and I continue to learn myself to mend
and never buy that I am a living crime
scene because I am a living pride scene
thank you
[Applause]
walking crime-scene I know you might be
in shock so I’m gonna say it one more
time I am a walking crime scene my skin
laid bare is inscribed with the muffled
screams of ones who only knew being
stolen my hands have learned to mold
fists and expunge mortal flames my feet
keep learning to take speed but hopes
never know not being fast enough to get
away my legs pried open will be made a
temporary home by an uninvited guest my
eyes naturally brown will learn to wear
the hues of blue green purple and red my
chest will learn a deafening silence and
forget how to rise my mouth in cages a
revolver tongue whose bullet words
ricochet perfectly and return to me the
mirror a trusted friend has my figure in
chalk outlines my expressions numb and
deathly cold I am a walking crime scene
many of us can relate to these
sentiments I’m not gonna ask for a show
of hands or for you to clap if you feel
me because essentially I know the
difficulty of that association
identified by the worst that can happen
to you I’ve been there it’s toxic and we
know it but even as intelligent
sense-making human beings we keep that
based thirst for blood intricately woven
into our indoctrinated need to please we
call that living I want to propose a
different way of looking at how you
inhabit your life a way to look at your
lived experiences as more than just
footnotes worthy of a eulogy or an
obituary but rather as the foundations
and the impatient impetus to give your
life purpose
a selfish purpose that benefits you and
the very people that you are habituated
to appease I want you to join me in
developing the nerve to possess yourself
I grew up in a black majority country
never realizing that one day I’d be
called an ethnic minority call it’s
privileged ignorance but what I did
recognize was the silencing of people
like me the people who’d step outside of
the lines drawn in the desert sands the
unnamed who flickered like embers and
late-night fires that I first came to
know at my grandparents cattle post
playing black mamba dealer and then on
school trips where we’d toast
marshmallows to dunk into our hot
chocolates and the starlit hood skies
with no way of mocking my true north
first by day and then by night I became
a war zone cut by the stairs punched by
the sniggering I soon learned how to
trade bits of myself in this conflict in
a hope to create some sense of harmony
but one thing you’ll learn from a
lifetime of biting your tongue memories
lose their flavors and so I went on a
mission all about me spotting myself
under my bed in distant friends laughter
in forgotten photographs in nicknames in
denim jackets Sun battered and rain
kissed soil scarred knees and
remembering that’s the way love goes I
found that breathing could be a
revolutionary act hard sustenance and
part control art did that for me
it triggered an urgency for me to be a
better me through creation and I started
to reclaim the very thing I thought I’d
been trading all along which in fact was
just taken from me my voice I’m many
things to many people but nowadays it
all starts with what I can call myself
and know to be my truth artivist writer
humanitarian friend a relentless Madonna
child of a loving mother and a treasured
father I build no monuments to these
because the proof is in me I own it I
now call on you to undress yourself of
the scar tissues of your oppressions and
redress those parts of you that you only
ever defined by their value to other
people it’s not a matter of can you it’s
a matter of will you will you reclaim
your story and all its parts it
shouldn’t take fear to frighten you into
self belief this isn’t arrogance this is
developing the nerve to possess yourself
I am a living pride scene my skin is a
lyrical landscape of duets with the Sun
my hands collide to send seismic waves
of adoration and set course for dancing
my feet carved meandering pathways for
Wanderers like me
my legs have learned to climb to jump to
abound the impossible my eyes praise the
wetness of happy tears and their
medicine for grief my chest jolts with
the pounding of a resilient drummer and
this mouth is a free house to compassion
and that revolve a tongue still shoots
but the mirror has learned to show when
it cracks
and I continue to learn myself to mend
and never buy that I am a living crime
scene because I am a living pride scene
thank you
[Applause]
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