This poem doesn’t have a name for a reason.  That’s because it’s like me, nameless and shapeless, with no proper definition to it just yet.  But you know what, that’s not stopping me from writing it and speaking it.  You may as well sit there and truly listen to it.  Because this is not poetry, this is spoken word.  It’s a change from what I normally do and say, but I’m gonna do what I say and say what I do.  This poetry comes from the heart and rings oh so true.  It has the anger and frustration that I feel day after day week after week, but I never let myself show for fear of seeming weak.  But this poem contains my love.  My love of all things beautiful and everlasting things that most people only truly see after a period of fasting.  I like for my spoken word to speak truth and who I truly am, and hopefully it does all that it can, to show you what a person who’s quiet day in and day out, who never seems to scream or shout, truly feels deep on the inside. When most of the time all he wants to do is hide.  No one truly knows what it’s like to feel so awkward all the time, and only finding comfort in words that rhyme.  Life for me is just a waste of time, unless I’m spending it writing and speaking my lines.  Lines of wisdom from one so young in this life, but it seems that nothing happens to him but pain and strife. Not knowing who you are is a dangerous thing in this world; it causes so many things besides destruction and churl. A lesson I learned and that my grandmother learned as a little girl, she passed this on to me and taught me that I can have anything in this world.  As long as I knew who I was and what I stood for, only then would life open its doors.  To me, this is something that makes a boy who has never smiled a real smile feel happy.  For someone who felt his father didn’t understand them, and who felt different and separate from the woman who he called mother, all because she found love and had a baby by another lover.  This lesson I had to learn and still learn to this very day, simply because I had to make my life in this world, my way.  This is my pain, my struggle, my history.  This is what happened that made me who I am, and I love that my grandmother showed me what I need to do to grasp my life by the hand. But you know, I know who I am, I am the man that I see myself to be, because I am…Darriyante Shawntariuz Tramanye Johnson, let no one else ask that question.  With this name, I have my claim to fame along with this spoken word that has allowed me to speak to you all now.  Speak not preach, because never will I teach unless you choose to be the worthy student that many teachers seek, but never find, because that student has not showed up in this lifetime.  But I speak to you now and have chosen to show this side of me that makes me who I am in this world, because I am proud of it even though I’m nervous and might hurl.  But I ask you, classmates and teachers, listen to what I say, because this is something that never happens twice a day.  This is a rare commodity to hear such a change overcome this young man who you never expected to hear speak such words that ring true and deep.  I speak to you and hope that you hear that, NEVER AGAIN WILL I LIVE MY LIFE IN FEAR.  I grow tired of that nervous scared feeling that life and the gods above have forced me to feel,  right here right now I speak to you in my weakest and my strongest time, giving to you these words of mine, which yes they rhyme, and yes they force me to E-NUN-CI-ATE, but like so many people put on their Facebook pics, please don’t hate, because I choose to show who I am in this world and let me make me instead of letting all the haters out there shake me and break me.  Because with these last few words I hope you get my message, and get it well, because get ready, cuz I’m coming out of my shell….