The Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services has declared a winter shelter warning for Tuesday, January 14, 2025 at 4 pm until Thursday, January 14, 2025, at 9 am. Call 211 (available 24/7) or 443-984-9540 to connect with shelter. Get more info here.

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Anti-Captivity Poetry

06.10.20

Client Relations Coordinator, Malcolm Williams, LCSW-C shared the poetry below at our agency talent show in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

 

I don’t believe in captivity so I write

Because the words in my head are trying to escape

My pin to paper opens the gate and words hit the sheets like massive quakes

Shaking the foundations that madness reside

And shining light on the evil they try hard to hide

I’m a Gemini poet and my words are songs of captivity and rejoicing dancing in the streets freedom

Painting a vivid picture of the reality we all are living

My lyrical vibe flow deep from within

Exposing the system with each swipe of my mighty pen

Striking furiously between each creative sheet

Liberating mind drumming vibrations to each eardrum it meets

 

I don’t believe in captivity so I write and my words are proof of it

Freedom Writer of breaking free thoughts

You can feel the strength when my words flow out

Screaming like birth canal crossers no doubt

Feel me, see me, but by all means hear me shout

Storming into this world with earths gravitational force

My thoughts don’t get along with my mind so they stay getting a divorce

And my thoughts come out angry because they didn’t get a pre-nup

So when you hear what I write best believe damnit, I’m gone cuss

 

I don’t believe in captivity so I write

Freeing the words inside of my mind

They roam on paper before taking residence in your dome, new home to zone with

I spark changes in the minds of the people when I spit

Verbally punching and leaving third black eyes in the midst of my poetic existence

You see freedom poems is what I spit

Not for my ownership but for the masses to get equipped with, fit with, quick with, slick with

Because the battle does exist

You see healthcare disparities show just how ill equip we be

Following the lead of this money hungry society

And we are in the loosing lane insane to how powerful our brains are not

Being equipped with the shit this system teaches us is legit

I reject your message that push daily to silence this rebellish behavior

So I write with the force of Malcolm, Assatta, Martin, Tubman, Douglas and Davis

And those who stood against night raids from ghost who felt it better we be encaged

I don’t believe in captivity so I write

For those who find themselves voiceless in the midst of the pain

Baltimore city is full of people sleeping on park benches in the rain

While COVID-19’s constantly running through the Black Butterfly like New York City trains

And my people fall susceptible to disease because of societies bottom-line they push to maintain

As police brutality replays, loop the TV over and over again.

 

I don’t believe in captivity so I write

I don’t believe in captivity so I write

I don’t believe in captivity so I Write

To right the wrongs

America has forced upon our existence for far too long

I don’t believe in captivity so I wrote this poem…

By Malcolm Williams

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