So I was cleaning out my closet today and ran across these four old poems I wrote back in high school. I figured I'd share these with y'all.

You know, so you can get a good laugh and what not. They're kinda hokey.

Spare Thoughts Pleasure–and pain. Is there ever time for just you? When was the last time we stopped to catch our breath? Who knows where the time goes?

Structured from mind and matter steel and wood Coexistence of black and white man and nature Overcoming of forest by pavement ignorance by knowledge…

Existence… Concern for yourself for others for your environment Making the most of things you wonder why you ever initiated and of things you have no control over Pride in your eventual accomplishments and the strength you had to continue Understanding what it's all supposed to mean when it's over….

Spare Thoughts III

As I stand at the open gate, an unfamiliar world stares at my first steps of freedom. I am afraid. If I should fall, the whole would see me turn back to a closed gate. For twelve years, I have had something to which I could return. But now as I take my first few steps, I am afraid I might fail in being the me I long to be.

Each person as an individual is important. Just as colors alone in their pure state are beatiful, so is the individual. But these colors may be added to other colors to produce a different beauty. When all these pure colors are added together, a true picture of reality is produced. Like the colors, individuals are beautiful as themselves, but it's only when an individual can add to life than they help to create the harmony of colors needed.

Spare Thoughts IV

As each of us searches for our own meaning of life and our own situation in which to fit, let us remember to seek inner peace above all else. Inner peace is the hardest goal to attain in this society, for we become too involved with the mundane life we presently live. Continue to search for your own identity by finding peace with yourself. Once we find internal peace, external peace surely follows. How can we rule the world if we cannot rule ourselves?

Being Black has its advantages and its disadvantages. Our main advantage is that being a minority, we have more of an incentive to excel in every aspect of life, mainly intellectually. It's not that we're out to be militants rebelling against every institution of life; it's just that we realize that we must rebel or again become the underground. We're only trying to live our lives and be ourselves. Is that too much to ask?

Spare Thoughts V

Time is rushing by like the water. Too many things must be done, and the only way I know how to do them is my way. You listen to me and watch my revolutions. Silently standing behind me to intensify my faith, you know the battles won are few. But you know also that my mistakes must be my own. You sit as a teacher who is interested in my growth, to guide me when I stray and to make sure my causes are what I truly believe. It is for you that I continue.

The opportunity to grow…recognition of the necessity to examine values and ambitions. Reaching out for answers, discovering another question, often running blind or into walls and wanting to succumb to age and quit and wait for the easy solutions to come. Leave the journey for the others. We will acquire abilities, but we must find a use for them. We are confronted with the challenge to live and the purpose in that living. We must seek and experience; accept or discard and progress as we come to realize the others that comprise each of us.