Take me, the box, for instance. In instants
Not stereotyped or predicted to doom
Look beyond the label for a minute. Look in it.
My seal of freshness keeps you from the truth
Were you to break the labels you might be surprised
You might even see, if you would open your eyes
I am -much- more than my packaging. Besides,
I can’t fit my story on paper…

Take me, the man, for instance. What is this?
You quantify the limitless with limited views?
What would you do were I, for instance,
To tell you, write to you, and show you the truth?
I’ve been preserved, in the public eye,
As a menace long before there was an “I”
As self-evident truths seek foreclosure
My shelf-life is limited by exposure
To the very enclosure in which they seek to confide
The body of a man whose mind soars free
I am beautifully black. I have nothing to hide
“I will fear no man…” but they fear -me-.

They keep expecting -my- box to fix -their- description
When the “writing on the wall” would be a better inscription
What they expect of me and what they want are two different beasts
So the world -and- my family hold the edge of their seats
They perceive in me a threat…
All of this and I haven’t even opened my mouth, yet
The -inside- of me is -outside- the box
But -inside- the box is the -outside- of me
Some times I’m so confused…
Which one do they mean when they say be “true to me”?

“Thick of lips with wooly locks, skin a richly dark complexion
Temper colored as the skin, most likely married to a weapon”
All this, and more, am I labeled; falsely, sure!
Not that the truth it lacks, but in me, box, there’s more...

-So- much more.