Part poem, part blog entry, this has been something that I have needed to write, to get out. Maybe you’ll find some of yourself in it; Maybe not.

-Camaray

Your self concept ain’t what it used to be,

sometimes it’s like you’re your worst enemy.

Self-doubt kills insight like small pox blankets,

covering your beauty till the sickness contained it.

Just tryna be the person your family and friends need

but your gauge is fucked up and hard to perceive.

And your act is fake and hard to receive

cause folks are more perceptive than you used to believe.

But what’s really the worst is your head full of ideas, and crystals, and moonlight and warm sands and tall trees, perspectives and sweet dreams.

Teeming, begging to pour out of your skull.

Out of your mouth,

heart,

art.

But you can’t let it out. You know what they could do to it; how they will distort it, and by default, distort you. Destroy you.

They may not say it out loud, but they will think it, and believe it, every time another word comes out of your mouth.

And so you sit there in class, not saying a word.

Letting your thoughts rise up to the top of your head, your brain swelling, having trouble containing the magnitude of everything.

And then in class someone says something that you think you have a compelling answer or comment to, but you just leave it there in your head.

The pressure to say something not only your professors will appreciate, but your fellow peers will understand, and not get offended by, is immense. Survival out here in a mothafucking class room is intense.

And you think, as you’re walking out of class, how shitty it is to not believe in your own words, or ideas, or moonlight, or crystals. If you don’t believe in them, how will anyone else?