Founded in 1979, the Maryland Food Bank provides six million meals a year in Maryland through its partnership with nearly 1,200 soup kitchens, pantries, shelters, and community-based organizations. Learn more about their work.
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
Founded in 1979, the Maryland Food Bank provides six million meals a year in Maryland through its partnership with nearly 1,200 soup kitchens, pantries, shelters, and community-based organizations. Learn more about their work.
More than a quarter of all client visits to Health Care for the Homeless are with case managers. Presented below is one day in the life of Case Management Coordinator Adrienne Burgess-Bromley, who has been with the agency for 16 years.
Baltimore, you are rockstars! On the sunny first Saturday of November, 300+ runners, walkers, friends and volunteers took over Patterson Park for the 10th Annual Rock Your Socks 5K! We danced, cheered and enjoyed a festive race village complete with coffee, bagels, donuts, a bounce house and easy ways to engage with community partners.
Since opening Sojourner Place at Oliver in 2022, our affordable housing development team has been busy laying the groundwork for more affordable housing in Baltimore through a newly formed subsidiary under Health Care for the Homeless called the HCH Real Estate Company.