Michael Osei-Bonsu

This Place With the Light

The light cast by the sky calls out to me

I heed it’s call and follow its shine

And then I see it;

An opening a portal leading to a place illuminated by this same light

A place where inspiration fils the air as the wind blows

A place where desire pulls me and ideas flutter around like butterflies

It’s a beautiful sight

And then the light goes out

It seems the sky no longer shines its light through the opening, the portal…

Darkness settles on this place that was once full of light

But the butterflies still fly

And the wind still blows

I cannot go through through the opening, the portal now…

But someday…sometime…somewhere int he future,

This place and I will have no distinction

I will fly with the butterflies

I will blow with the wind…

What happens at 13 o’clock?

Celeste laid in bed with her phone clutched in her hands. She was scrolling through her social media feed, looking for something interesting to keep her awake; during the previous semester at her university, she adopted a late sleeping habit due to the numerous assignments she constantly had to complete. The digital clock on her wall reported twenty minutes to 1 a.m. Staying up this late was nothing new to Celeste but she wasn't finding anything very interesting on any social media platform she had an account on so she decided to go to sleep once the clock hit 1 a.m. She kept scrolling...about five minutes passed and she stumbled upon a post on Instagram about the sky turning red and very unearthly sounds echoing through the streets in cities around the world at 13 o'clock. "This is probably something out of some fictional book or movie", she thought. She liked the post and kept scrolling...fifteen minutes passed...sixteen minutes passed...seventeen minutes passed...then eighteen, then nineteen...Celeste wished her friends goodnight and got ready to go to sleep. Before sleeping, she felt a sudden urge to look at the digital clock on her wall. The digital clock on her wall didn't say 1 a.m. as she had thought; It read 13 o'clock. "Surely, this is a glitch," she thought, so she got out of bed, intent on changing the digital clock's battery but before she could even touch the clock, she heard loud and eerie sounds coming from outside her window. She immediately remembered the post on Instagram she had seen earlier; the post that warned of this exact occurrence. In denial, Celeste went to the bathroom to wash her face; she thoughts it was very possible that she was just dreaming but even after washing her face, the eerie sounds persisted. She then ran to her window with hopes that the sky would be its normal, natural hue but much to her dismay, the sky was blood red. Strange inhuman entities were roaming through the skies and the streets. Celeste backed away from her window and began breathing heavily. She ran to her phone and called her best friend, Stacey. Celeste began crying the moment Stacy answered the call. Stacy spoke with a frightened tone in her voice as she asked Celeste what the eerie sounds were. "So this thing is happening?", Celeste asked, despite knowing the answer to that question. She had seen it with her own eyes but she wanted someone to tell her she was just imagining it or hallucinating. She explained what was happening to Stacy and spoke about the Instagram post she had seen earlier. Stacy in disbelief, went to the window to check for herself; after moving the curtains aside to reveal what was happening outside her window, Stacy stared in fear. She was in shock...but as she stood there, one of the inhuman creatures roaming through the skies began heading for Stacy's window. Stacy saw it but couldn't move her body, all she could do was scream; she wanted to close her window in hopes of keeping the creature out but before she could do anything, the creature let out an unnerving screech as it reached out one of its alien-like hands and pierced through her neck. Celeste heard Stacy's scream through the phone and then a loud thud after...she heard the creature screech again, and then the sound of a swift, fast wind, as the creature left Stacy's room. Celeste called Stacy's name but there was no response. Celeste shook her head and quickly rushed to Instagram to text Stacy, hoping that maybe, the call with Stacy had lost connectivity or something else relating to technical issues. As soon as the Instagram app opened, the first post on her feed was by the same person who had posted, about twenty to thirty minutes earlier, about the events that were occurring. The post read, in big bold letters, "THE APOCALYPSE HAS BEGUN. THE TIMER HAS COMMENCE”…

Black In These Here United States of America

"I CAN'T BREATHE...I CAN'T BREATHE",

He said as he laid under the weight of a heavy knee.

Hypoxemia...He was deprived of air.

He was deprived of hope.

He was deprived of the chance to ever see his daughter again.

He was taken away from his family.

His soul was squeezed out of his body by the weight of a faulty, antagonizing federal policy

Labeled a criminal without proof of guilt;

I guess "Innocent until proven guilty" is not applicable if you look like him and...

If you look like me.

Me...I am tired,

We...We are tired

They...They are threatened by our enlightenment and courage.

They were at peace when they kept us from acquiring knowledge,

But now we wield knowledge as our weapon, so they mobilize to create more we don't know

They have an agenda and they are in a hurry.

But we fight for the right to be free from oppression

in opposition to their fight for the ability to impose oppression

In response, they change narratives and tell stories while messing-

With our image;

With his image;

With my image,

In hopes of regression of our fight,

And our spirit,

And our flame,

And the extent of the effectiveness of the lessons we learned from the centuries of black

oppression

As they knelt on our freedom,

On our humanity,

On our purpose.

Enough is Enough

We are not here to start a war, however,

We are here to stand tough.

We are here to remind them

That just as surely as we broke down the structures they put in place to allow open and blatant

racism and discrimination,

We won't stop until we reform or defuse or destroy the structures they have established to

propagate their institutionalized hatred and malicious thoughts.

Whether free or in cuffs,

We are tired, but together, we will stand strong.

Rest in Peace, all you who were hated, and bled because of your possession of melanin.

Melanin...Not a narcotic, yet still, a substance of illegality in these here United States of

America.

It seems black culture is admired but black skin is hated in these here United States of America.

Black people were brought to this land in large numbers but now, when seen in large numbers,

they are labeled dangerous, in these here United States of America.

We are tired...Yet we will stand strong.

Rest in Peace, all you who were hated and bled because you were caught living with dark skin,

and black blood.

We are tired, but together, we will stand strong.

We are the revolution...

We are the change...

We are black...He was black...I am black,

And whether they like it or not, WE ARE AMERICA...

By God, the fight shall continue until there is no more fight left to fight...

Until there is no more brown or black or white...

Until there is no race BUT the human race.

We are tired, but together, we will stand strong.