22yrs old and born in Winston-Salem (an ode to Langston Hughes) (1998)

you critiqued my critique

of a dead white man's societal critique

you gave me a b

i suppose we see things differently

like langston's critique of english b

before me

my education is what i see

what i choose to write is

my representation of reality

i apologize for forgetting

he was born in thirteenseventyeight

i thought learning was the lesson not the date

i know the pain of tracing roots

and i'm sorry I was late

i was just wondering why our realization

didn't explain the hate

it is there then

I still see it now

the consistency