Be

To just be, at times can involve memories
Of losing someone to death of the most painful kind
Exposed and raw
Carry on, you must 
For work and play outside the haven of your home

Careful
With a suit of emotional armour
I ventured into a space
Once considered safe
But no longer
For a volcano was brewing its magma at my core

How
A confrontation with a white man
of the most dreadful kind
Words thrown in a sentence
(abrupt, harsh, condescending)
Defense to those words thrown in a sentence
(ghetto, Sheman-hear me roar persona, 0-60 in one second)

Due to my talking with a person sitting next to him

“Stop screaming in my ear!” –the belligerant white guy

“Excuse me, what did you say?!” – me the person of colour warming up

I can go on as he obviously did not receive the notice on messing with a woman of colour going through mourning and not having the time or patience to deal with a man, who addressed me in a tone uncalled for,

But… I’ll stop here for it did get ugly as I told him, “Don’t make me go ghetto on you” and he said, “You are ghetto”. Magma turned into lava and flowed…that’s how it went until WORDS OF THE MOST UGLY KIND sprewed forth in fire and brimstone from my mouth
I left seething in invisible black ash through the exit door

You
Not asking for an education on your past
I was schooled about it on the ride home
On their cell phones two members of the group in the space
I once thought safe disclosed your past and mugshot
You are not a nice person
You were arrested for stealing $37k from a client
Posing as a lawyer when you were disbarred years ago
For illegal practices

Obviously money and you are not a good mix
like alcohol to an alcoholic
like a rock to a crackhead
like chasing waterfalls and slipping
like the lucky charms guy engulfed in sugar looking for his charms

I did not know what you were emotionally carrying that day and time. You did not know what I was emotionally carrying that day and time.

But yet?…What would Jesus do?
(Not referring to the’Jesus Gone Wild’ moments: cursing and killing a fig tree, flipping tables and using a whip, hanging out with sinners)

But
Love your neighbour, see God in everyone, treat others as you’d like to be treated
Those words were not in my heart on that day and time

Treat
Be careful how you treat someone for you do not know what they are going through

That is my mantra when I walk out the door into the world
But I failed that day
I reacted
I did not think before speaking

Someone
I have changed in the past 8 years 
Mom, my mom is no longer here 
to soften my extremes at the world
When she passed
I took it upon myself to become what I admired most about her
No matter how people treated her, talked down to her, forced her to live with an aunt in another country,
Margarita, my mom always showed kindness

In that moment of abusive words firing back and forth
I did not take the higher ground when

Kindness was needed

(c) IMOB/Walsh-McCalla