Fifty
I did not always believe
I would live this long.
As a Black boy,
eighteen felt like a rumor,
not a promise.
Now fifty stands before me
strange and holy,
heavy with the ghosts
of all the young Black men
who never got to grow old
the missing boys in Toronto,
the bodies hanging
from the branches of American lies,
the silence this world wraps around our pain
and calls peace.
Because how I see the world
and how it sees me
have never been the same.
I see beauty.
I see tenderness.
I see love fighting to live
in broken places.
The world has often seen danger
before it saw my humanity.
But still, I am here.
Still loving.
Still creating.
Still using these hands
to make something beautiful
for the people around me.
So this life
this breath
this fiftieth year
is not just celebration.
It is survival.
It is prayer.
It is proof.
And I am grateful
to still be here
with love to give.
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