** I wrote this after watching Miles Hodges' poem "Alcatraz of Balloons" I've been a big fan of his and the other artists from The Strivers Row for a long time now but when I heard this piece and his other one called 'Count On It" they just touched a part of me and I had to write. This poem is a response of sorts/ letter to him**

Dear Mista Miles Hodges,
I want to say thank you
Must admit the first time I listened to you I was more focused on how good you looked than your words
But
They still reached me
Brought my wandering mind back from the gutter and forced me to listen
To see more than a pretty boy with light skin
I saw your soul
Or at least the part of it you exposed when you took off your mask
And let honesty shine brighter than your smile
 

Miles, you moved me
Taught me about Harlem
A place I've only imagined
Mind rooted in the past when black artists ruled
 

Picture the Dance halls and speakeasies
Instead of run down houses and broken families
Trying to survive
Just trying to get by in a world that's determined to keep them down
Creating felons and drug addicts instead writers and poets
Tell me what is this world coming to
Mind bogged down with the weight of the world pressed on my shoulders
Determined to be better than my ancestors were
Make them proud to know that they're sacrifice was not in vain
 

But sometimes, my mind grows tired of thinking of ways to be the best of everyone who came before me
Angry that in my quest for higher education I sometimes forget where I come from
A strange mix of northern thinking with southern mannerisms and speaking patterns
Sometimes I forget where I came from
 

But when I first heard from head to toe
I, like thousands of other women, imagined I was the girl you were spoke of so seductively
Examined my body thoroughly
Comparing it to that southern belle hoping to find myself in her
 

And after listening to that piece five times in a row
My head dropped out of the clouds
Lust filtered out as I read between the lines
And delved deeper than the surface of your sensual words
 

Was stunned into silence as line after line pierced a part of my soul few have every been able to touch
Mind blown cuz I don't even know you
Yet your words seep into my mind and enthrall me
Like starry nights and thunderstorms do
Feel me with peace….and force me to think on things from my past halfway forgotten
Never truly forgotten
 

Mista Hodges
I had shivers the entire six minutes and ten seconds your voice bled truth from the depths of your heart that soaked into my skin
Renewing my mind soul and spirit like nothing else has these last few years
You get me
 

Weave my thoughts into silky lines that flow smooth and gently across my mind
Pulling out of me into beautiful stanzas of truth that couldn't unveil itself any other way
Giving me an escape
Surrounding me in love and acceptance
 Filling me with the need to experience life…and create art….and pray my existence in this ever changing world will have been worth
Living
That I  will have been a necessary being this world needed during the my short stay on earth
I pray
That I spend all of my days dying slow
Living and laughing hard
That I'm more than one of the 7 billion souls going about life aimlessly
I have a purpose
Am learning everyday to see the beauty in a world that's tried to crush me more times than I care to remember
Miles,
Your words helped to remember
That although life can be cruel and occasionally knock me down
I
Am so happy to be here