Vampires in the Shadows
as i stood among my boys \ us staring at him breaking in the middle of our back-to-school dance \ i knew soon enough it would be my turn to break too \ yes there was hesitation \ storm clouds gathering in my teenage chest \ but i knew i would step forward into the cypher anyway \ arms pumping \ pistons firing \ legs carving through the musty air \ hips cutting like lightning in the midnight sky \ knees orbiting until the room fell still \ my Black body frozen \ prayer hands before the gospel hymn \ heaven's gates cracking open \ light spilling like molten fire across the gymnasium floor \ it wasn't only the fact that he was White \ though high school was the first time i sat in class with White boys \ once i learned they consume our culture \ wear our clothes \ sing our songs \ dance to our music like rivers drawn to the sea \ i wondered what the fuss was anyway \ and even though one White boy once questioned the Blackness beneath my caramel caribbean skin \ after the sting i realized he was just as confused as i was \ his parents from ireland \ his ginger hair out of place among the blonds and browns \ no different than my green eyes searching the Black kids' table in the cafeteria \ and some part of me knew he understood the weight of being different from those already marked as different \ so when Remmick entered the cypher again \ we stared not only because his White skin glowed among our Black shadows \ but because something in the air had shifted
and what bothered me most was the thickness of that air \ as if something unholy had slipped into the room \ a ring shout of restless boys hollering into the night \ a kaleidoscope of anxious teenagers committed to the ritual of breaking \ popping \ locking the body to free the mind \ hip-hop our scripture \ sneakers shrieking across maple wood \ elbows snapping to the drum's pulse \ light and shadow wrestling until the gym trembled \ our bodies drifting toward the underworld \ suspended between beat and breath \ hell pressing like a hound at the door \ priests hovering on the periphery \ and in every corner i swore i saw fangs \ vampires pining for cold blood \ smoke curling beneath stained glass as if God himself wasn't sure whose side to take \ and though i knew better \ every station from BET to PBS to MTV had confirmed our history \ our freedom dreams scattered like confetti across the playground \ lost in our catholic tradition \ wretched sinners that we were \ we pulled one another close from every corner of our concrete jungle \ we knew we had to break \ we knew our lives depended on it \ arms curling into hands \ legs sliding into feet \ shoulders folding into waists \ all unraveling \ all falling apart \ all daring to be born again
and i wondered if the solution to our long division \ to our inherited pain \ to our thirst for blood and hunger for atonement \ was simply this \ to join one to the other \ hand in hand \ and allow ourselves to break \ together \ one body at a time \ to release the pain trapped in dry bones \ to discover the joy buried in cotton mouths \ to reveal the rhythm stitched through our song \ to become living machines \ electric pulses transfigured into hymns of rebellion and prayer \ and as i watched my White classmate pop and lock and break \ as the DJ folded my rhythm and blues into the pale blue of his tender eyes \ an ocean of sorrow surfaced between us \ a tide too deep to name \ memories slipping through the teeth of sharks \ ghosts of the waters our ancestors did not choose \ and i wondered \ maybe what i thought was appropriation \ what i thought was imitation stripped of soul \ maybe it was not what it seemed \ not this time \ not this place \ maybe it was simply us \ boys stumbling and breaking into a dark and lonely world \ bound by a music we could not escape \ haunted by memories we would never forget \ and for a moment i felt it \ not certainty but possibility \ not freedom itself but hope reimagined in the breaking \ trembling like light at the edge of shadow
Last Time I Seen the Sun
I. The Fire
Last time I seen the sun,
it was midnight in the juke joint,
horns crying through blue smoke,
bodies glowing like stained glass,
footsteps melting into heart pine.
They moved like a sermon driven by the drum,
hips and shoulders rising in tidal waves,
tambourines crashing like a summer storm,
laughter spilling among runaway tears,
and for a moment, we were all forgiven.
Joy torched every wall—reckless, alive;
a flame I felt but could not embrace.
It burned in their eyes like sun on water,
calloused hands holding the rhythm close,
the only truth left in our crumbling world.
And I thought that it was true love—
the kind that makes you change your name,
the kind that baptizes you in sweat and song,
the kind that turns sinners into believers
before the sun returns again.
II. The Hunger
Last time I seen the sun,
I swore I would find it again—
in a smile, in a kiss, in a tender caress;
but the long night is a restless lover,
memory always outpacing the clock.
Every glow folds into shadow,
every spark dissipates to smoke;
I mistook the dance for devotion,
heartache as divine revelation,
only to wander deeper into darkness.
Desire made a fool of me;
told me freedom was a sound,
a language I could master.
But each time I reached for it,
her rhythm escaped me.
They called it a love song,
but it was a lullaby wrapped in longing—
a hunger for myths that cannot be held,
a thirst for rivers that do not flow.
You still got that real in you?
III. The Light
Last time I seen the sun,
it awakened our mourning, gently,
a whisper tugging at buried stones,
a warmth soothing our deepest caves
where no one else can reach.
They were all still dancing, somewhere—
joy, an endless river through time,
laughter cheering us upward and onward,
rhythm teaching us how to breathe,
melody guiding the chase.
But I've learned love is not possession—
not movement, nor fire, nor escape,
but presence that rests,
a steady glow after the storm,
home in my breath.
And now, I finally understand—
I have always been free,
in the quiet after the song
where love hums without witness,
where fear unlearns its name
and the blues never end.