Dr. Kiara Shanay Lee

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Keyboard, Keys, Hardware, Pc, Calculator

I saw a picture of a couple and

A couple of years ago had I been in this situation I

Woulda tripped

I woulda

Been in my feelings so mad at

How you mis-

Represented yourself

How our picture could have been perfect too

Way deeper than the photograph itself

Now I put those feelings on the shelf when I start blaming myself for your deceit

I’m an open book and your a locked diary

It’s only a matter of time.

And time isn’t on your side.

Your wife has one foot out the door and

On my way out our wedding portrait falls on the floor

It shatters and

It tatters

Broken

I leave it right there

Because that picture

Is the realest photo we ever had

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Friends First

Divorce, Separation, Relationship, Argument, Conflict

Momma said

“You should be able to look at your partner across the most crowded room and

Simply know from his look that he got you”

Momma was right but

hindsight is clearer than foresight

I got his front back and sides

Because I am a lover

Because I don’t front about me and mine

But he’s undercover

A foe dressed as a friend

I’m so tired of playing pretend and

I’m so tired of cold nights under covers next to

him looking

Still looking for a friend

I find myself mending a friendship that never was because

I’m still in that crowded room

Still searching for “us “…..

We Can’t Sleep

First off, this is dedicated to the life and legacy of Breonna Taylor. Secondly, it is a call for Black folk who been sleeping to wake up.

we can’t sleep because

she can’t sleep

eyes like brown

skin like me

she was resting her wearied body and

her wearied soul

so tired

a special tired we’ve all come to know

after work, faces masked metaphorically too and questions asked

facing age old tests designed for us not to pass

a day in the life of being Black

she was tired

we’re all tired at the end of the day

she lay in her bed she rested her head in

the comfort of her own home

because home is all we got these days we’ve all come to know

her last night at home she bled from her bed

not in sleep but in death she

was sleeping while they were knocking

down her door

guns blazing in the middle of the night

in the middle of the dark

it’s amazing that folks who look like me are saying that it’s her fault

eyes like brown

skin like me

she was sleeping

and you been sleeping too

but your sleep ?

damn, your sleep really is a crime

blaming her for the people she knew

blaming her for the streets and the crew

blaming her for something she had nothing to do

with

drug dealers and the wheelers and the dealers

people we know, people we love

even when we don’t agree with what they done done

maybe she loved one, maybe she knew many

I don’t really care because

she should still be here and the cops still shouldn’t have been there

in the middle of the night

a slaughtered queen, a snuffed out life

you would know it ain’t right

if only you knew yourself

if only you knew

but you don’t because

you been sleep

I Know What It’s Like to Live in the Shadows

man in shadows of windows

Because we don’t often talk about the shadows we cast upon ourselves

Shadows hide people and things from the light

In the shadows I’ve vanished like

Dark at night

In the shadows I’ve questioned like

What is wrong and what is right and

In the shadows I’ve answered

My questions with fear and fright like

“Are you alright?”

In the shadows I’ve replied and

In the shadows I’ve lied

In the shadows, I know what it’s like

Quiet like silence, rowdy like violence

Challenging either way you slice it

Determined consistent opposition

My truth is defiant

Trust me, I know what it’s like

To be so determined to dim your own light that

You’re scared of your own shadow

Trust me, I know what it’s like

I know how shadows hide people and things from the light

Hello Scholar

An Open Letter about Representation in Academia from a Black Professor

Because there’s still more room at my table

Hello Scholar,

I want you to know why I am here. I want you to know why I choose to be in a profession where I am most certainly a minority, where across the board, people who look like me are far and few in-between. Did you know that only about 3% of full-time faculty are Black women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016)?

I am not here by mistake. This is not random. This is just as intentional as it is strategic.

“I teach because I need you to see a visual representation of what you can be…and what you can be better than.” — Yinde Newby, author and educator

Allow me to break this down a little bit.

“…what you can be…and what you can be better than.”

Please don’t for a second think I’m only here teaching you so you can see that you can be like me. Why would I place such limits on you and your beautiful mind? Why would I shame our ancestors, bound by the burdens of slavery and institutional racism, by curbing the leaps and bounds they’ve made for you…the hopes and dreams you were made for? I want you to see you in me and I want you to do bigger and better. I want you to surpass, to transcend, to outshine anything I’ve ever done or ever could do. Don’t see me as the goal or the limit, but rather, see me as the standard. The stepping stone. I want to give you a leg up, but only if you let me.

You may not be familiar with the leaps and bounds I’ve had to make to get this seat at the table, but trust me, I didn’t sit here intending to be the only one. I sat here because I was passed the torch and I plan to pass the torch off to whoever is up to taking the seat.

“…I teach because I need you”

The journey has been far from easy, and it’s far from over. You think you need me, but truth is, I need you. I need you to let me know it was all worth it, that I’m supposed to be here. I need you to justify what I’ve been through.

the dream killers

the “you’re not supposed to be here” stares and micro aggressions

the long nights, the sacrifice

giving college the last 10 plus years of my life

the failures, the questioning of what I’m doing and

who I am

And making God laugh with my own so-called “plans”

tests on material I don’t even remember to get to places I’ll never forget

climbing mountains to help people climb I don’t even know yet

Let me know.

This one is for the scholars, the ancestors and their successors.

With Warm Regards,

Your Black Professor

The Heaviest Burden

For the nights when our love don’t love us back.

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The heaviest burden

The most urgent concern

Is when tears burn your face from the words of others because

The worst sounds come from sobs in pillows smothered with covers undercover

Doused in brokenheartedness

The hurt that our mothers vowed to protect us from

The heaviest burden

When you feel like a burden

unwanted and unappreciated

Don’t you hate it?

When somebody rather drag you out like last night’s trash just because

You and your crown are too heavy to lift?

But don’t you hate it even more when

You put your own self in that trash bin?

The heaviest burden

When you feel sorry for yourself and

You start to tear yourself down just like everyone else did

As if they really needed help with it

You take in the words and you start to believe

The alibis and the lies

Against your spirit

You can see you falling out of love with yourself so loud and so clear you can hear it

A car crash, a tree fall, a falling apart

Damn, it wasn’t like that from the start

Damn, has an artist ever been more dismissive of her own work

Of her own art?

The shit is taught. And she listened.

The heaviest burden

The rising from the fire

The guilt of a liar that

Only lies to herself

She needs some help she

Needs some medical attention

Did I mention that wounds cut the deepest

From self inflicted

Injury?

Well tell me where to start because

The heaviest burden is me

Somebody tell me where to start because

The burden is too heavy

I Still Don’t Like History

jpg — Me, at an overlook of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 2016

I pass by the house

The childhood of my dreams

All the love I could ever want or need

Was in it

Y’all did it

The Black American Dream

Y’all did it

And I like to look back but

That doesn’t change the fact that

I don’t like history

I hated that class with a passion

The past

Because it’s almost worse than math

Because the numbers say the odds are against me

What’s worse than that?

House on the lake south of the river

Apartment building downtown

Still reppin for the hood

Y’all did like the white folk

I guess to some people that’s supposed to mean you done good

The perfect home torn asunder

By the perfect storm

It was warm

But I knew something wasn’t right

My tears burned when I would cry

When y’all would fight

But it was still warm

Forehead kisses in the middle of the night when y’all used to check on me and

tuck me in tight

Under my skylight

Under the stars

The tension was so thick between y’all I could cut it with a knife

But what does an 8 year old know about knives and

What does an 8 year old know about life?

You went your separate ways and it had to be done

It was for the best

Y’all had a good run

Somebody dropped the ball

The last inning, the end of the game

I was in the crowd, I was your biggest fan and

I still am

But I still don’t like history

Now I’m grown and

Whenever I’m alone

I am haunted

As yesterday whispers in my ear today is in tears because the what ifs of tomorrow burn

Like the tears from when I was 8

I am worried and afraid of

The childhood of my dreams and

All the love I could ever want or need

Worried and afraid of history repeating itself

Red

red

The school pays no mind and makes a little girl pay the ultimate price because the school clock says there is no time

No time for a woman to be a woman

Because outdated textbooks and sentence structure mean more than the period at the end

Of the day

There’s more than enough time they say but

When she rushes back to class, everything is

Red

The flow of life

The greatest abomination

Drips down her leg

It makes no sense

The thoughts placed in her head like

All the things her teacher should have said

It makes no sense

No time for a woman to be a woman

When everything is red

My Room

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It don’t have to hurt if

I stay in here with my thoughts and with

My mind because sometimes

I rather spend time with them because

Sometimes it hurts too much on the outside

It hurts so bad when reality hits me

It hurts and I

I lie and

I say “I’m fine, I’m fine” but the truth is

There’s a very thin line between the lie I tell and the tears and the fears that lie on the inside

It don’t have to hurt if I stay in here

If I stay clear of the news and the television and

If I don’t hear about more Black children gone missin or

No longer livin

If I don’t have to let my cup drain dry from the alibis of people always gettin and never really givin then

Maybe it won’t hurt

If I stay in here I don’t have to be misunderstood and if I stay in here

I could get to know me better because

In here she doesn’t have to be censored or assimilated or inundated with masks or with doubt

In here I could really learn what she’s really all about

Too loud, too dark, too I-don’t-really-look-the-part out there but in here

the part is all mine

And the time is my time, because sometimes there ain’t no time for me on the outside

All the while I reclaim my time while the outside still has the nerve to still say it still ain’t all mine

Corporations make money off the sick

While we all chokin’ out here on air that’s too thick while they tell us that

Global warming “doesn’t really exist” and

We all play the part, but the lies

They really don’t stick

It’s sick

But as the ways of the world smolder outside my door

I look over my shoulder and turn my back to the fire

It’s far too much to bare

It don’t have to hurt

So until the smoke clears

I’ll be in here

Little Black Girl Armed

You

Can see the spark in her eyes when

She raises her hand and

When she writes her thoughts out

Or when she opens up a book

Meanwhile the others look

Down on her, the others think less

Of her because they’re shook

By this little Black girl armed

with a mind and a book

They

Don’t know what to do and

They don’t know what to say so

They cover their papers as she looks

The other way on test day because

they wanna say

She is copying their test knowing

Damn well she isn’t

Knowing damn well she knows

The answers

Knowing damn well the answer is

To never question the intellect of the

Precocious little kid

Because she is Black

While fighting what their parents taught them

About who is who and

What their parents taught them

About colors

She

Has it hard in high school

And so do her body, mind and spirit too

Too good for JV, too dark for AP and

Too “white” for the step team, so it seems

She

Doesn’t really know what all this means

Until she met this boy on her way to the bus

He approached her and he read in between the lines that

She was focused on something different

So he said “Listen.

If you keep your nose in them books like that you ain’t ever gonna get no man.”

Words meant to change her course and her plan did no such thing

She walked away and he was shook

By this little Black girl armed

With a mind and a book

She

Grew up and saw the spark

In another young girl’s eye and

She shed a tear and held in a cry because

It took her back to a time when

Being a little Black girl armed

With a mind and a book was

Revolutionary

Then she looked the girl in the eye again and it was a little scary because she

Realized the revolution is far from over for

This little precocious kid

Because she is Black