just alyssa

Spoken Word Poem (click to listen)   Sometimes I wonder if you’d written your love down for me on paper… Would we have the same handwriting? Would we spell it the same? Loop our “L’s” into infinity symbols? Would your words bleed into mine? When I first met you love was as foreign as the Black Sea. It was kept in a junk drawer of emotions to describe things as tedious and minuscule as make-up or favorite foods. It didn’t capture moments the same way it did after meeting you. It didn’t have me tripping over sentences or blushing over compliments I never wanted in the first place. If you put your love on paper, where would the sentences end? Would it lead on into deep paragraphs or stagnate after only a few words. I don’t know how your love looks on paper or where it would ever lead, but I know how I spell it. I know where my love draws its lines and I know where it starts. When I put my love on paper it’s more than just a line. It’s more than syllable...

Racism is spreading like wildfire these days and personally I’d like to blame Donald Trump for helping spread the hate. Though we are all adults and we know the difference between right and wrong, so perhaps we should blame ourselves … Black Lives Matter was started in 2012 by three black women of the LGBT community. Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza started this organization and movement after the wrongful death of Treyvon Martin. They were angered and hurt after yet another murder that didn’t make sense. It became a huge public spectacle that started riots and struck up fear in the black community. The point of the movement was to bring awareness to a big social issue. They were making their voices heard by saying, “hey, we matter…… too ”. In the U.S., African Americans make up more than 1 million of the 2.3 million people in the prison system. They are incarcerated at nearly 6 times the rate of whites. More than 58% of all prisoners are either African Americ...