I never took the time

to look into that homeless man’s eyes,

I just threw him change;

charity in disguise.

Somewhere, he could’ve been mixed up

in my family ties.

Wrinkles of wisdom on his face,

experience in those lines.

If this were another culture,

he could’ve ruled tribes,

If we saw the aging as wise

instead of nearing demise.

But I just threw him out of my mind

when I threw him those dimes.

Never to be thought of again

beyond the day my blood dries.

Lost in a crowd of rush hour drones in business clothes,

A man stands out like a rose, shoes showing his toes.

His suit is older than the rest.

His chest shows through his vest.

This flower is sour

and people cringe close to his breath.

His slacks are worn through at the knees.

He’s mumbling words

he only understands.

To him, the rest of you are absurd.

Briefcase gone. Every day, he sings the same song,

same routine, walking the same streets, no matter how long.

No matter what the weather is telling him, he’s working for change.

Can’t understand for the life of him why people look at him strange.

His pants recede a bit from his bare behind.

He looks about eighty.

Probably closer to sixty, but the streets made him age swiftly.

Hat upside down on the ground, singing some notes, freestyle.

Can hardly see now.

Not far from senile.

No one there to watch his back

except his seeing-eye dog

At his feet. As he sings to the world

For making him wrong.

If I see you sing,

Can I see your soul?

If I see your art,

Can I see your heart?

If I see you dance,

Can I see your pain?

And would you still do it

If no one spoke your name?

He never was much for asking for things,

so he’s just hoping a couple compassionate beings

will fill his hat with some change

in exchange for that which he sings.

Sometimes, he swallows his pride,

Or what little he has left,

holding up a coffee cup outside.

Because if he doesn’t swallow his pride, he’ll just be swallowing spit.

His stomach is mad at him, growling, because it’s hollow as shit.

He reassures it with a pat, telling it to be strong,

and feeds his dog with half the pennies at the pit of his palm.

Because that’s the only one to show him love, to make him feel heard.

Some give him change, but never think about returning a word.

I might throw him a dime sometimes on my way to the grind,

Catching fragments of ramblings of a man bereft of his mind.

But he never asks me.

Perhaps, that’s why I throw him change gladly,

while still haunted by guilt,

because although he could’ve been some kid’s daddy,

I still see a bum. Not a homeless man, but a bum.

Damn, life can sure make a man numb.

Let me throw him some crumbs…

I see him in a subway, in a circle with some fellow drifters,

makeshift instruments providing orchestra for an unfettered scripture.

Singing loud enough to break glass, yet people walk past

like they don’t exist. Tight, like there’s a stick up their ass.

This man’s burdens are a thousandfold the pains most have,

and it’s amazing that he still has the emotions to laugh.

Stone and bitter faces surround him in identical clothes.

Mired in routine, still got the nerve to turn up their nose.

Funny thing—he can’t see, has no money, no family,

makes a home among ruins, yet still carries on happily.

Because he’s alive, and when his time comes, he’ll embrace that as well.

He’s seen some things in the streets, has a lot of stories to tell.

But your clothes are fresher than his, so you think your spirit is too.

Yet his weathered voice weaves truths that no tailor can imbue.

I listened to the radio and shook my head, that day.

Because I just saw a star.

If only we all could sing that way.

So if you’re trying to rap, I hope you hip hop.

And if you’re trying to roll, I hope your shit rocks.

If you’re in the country, I hope you do what the folk do.

And if you got rhythm… I hope you’re blue, too.

She was a rabbit.
An animal of prey.
Around every corner, the threat of a different terror.
It was the beginning of the bloodiest war of all time,
And she was thrust directly into that era—
Wet behind the ears,
In a world full of power-hungry men.
The war lasted six years,
But in her world, it saw no end,

Because, see, tragedy was part of her fabric—
The things she’d experience, the things she’d witness.
Drunkenness. Sexual abuse. Unspeakable things,
Too extreme for her adolescent existence.
So she had no room for the tragedies of the world,
Smothered by poverty and the gravity of its perils.
For, even a rabbit could profess to be more impressive than a squirrel,
But as it was, she happened to be only a little Black girl.

A tiny little thing, too,
With a complexion so light
That sometimes it was hard to trust those
With whom she shared the same plight,
With whom she shared the same oppression,
The same stains of the hood.
With a complex complexion,
And hair, “good” and misunderstood.

Ironically, her father was ashamed of his own Blackness
And never professed to be a father;
He was of a cowardly practice.
So, she never knew much about him.
Placed in an orphanage at the age of three,
She grew tough without him.
With a sister two years younger
And a mom still trying to grow.
So she played the mom, at times.
And life was the seed to sow.
She didn’t know what it would sprout,
Only that it had to be watered.
And that she had to survive it
And make sure it never destroyed her.

She was like a rabbit: terrors around every corner
In a world against her, with no one there to warn her.
Her mother would die for her, but struggled to protect her,
Sometimes exposing her to the threat of her own predators.
No weapons to defend her,
Except the strength of her own character,
As they bounced from dump to dump,
Eviction to eviction,
Struggling to find a home.
Can you imagine being so vulnerable?
In a stomping ground called The Bottom,
A name true to its depiction.

She would drop out of high school and meet a local hood kid—
Heroin addict, dealer, gangster type. Did a couple bids.
Hustled under the streetlights,
Watched by the feds.
They both converted to Islam...
Married...
Had six kids.

He was clean by then,
But to be a man to his wife,
He became a high scholar
Of white-collar vice.
Where they were from,
That risk was a relatively meager price
To lift the family from the gutter
And give them a better life.

Respected by legions from all walks of life,
He became 
A leader of men. But beauty often hides darkness
Within its frame.
Detailed strokes on a canvas,
Dissected, reveal a strain.
Their love was a fortified bond
Built from struggle and pain.

He was a symbol of strength—
Self-made, self-cleaned.
A beast of a man,
Inspired by a rabbit to see a dream.
But still a man, and from broken places,
And his brokenness was a stream
Beneath the skin and revealed itself
In the form of betrayal to his queen.

You can leave the streets,
But sometimes they leave a stain.
You can scrub it out, change—
But fragments often remain.
The highs were evident to all,
But the lows, she endured alone,
Letting the highs carry her smiles
For the chastity of their home.

Still, their love endured,
Sustained by her efforts to forgive,
And strengthened by that seed she had to sow,
Which, remember, was to live.
They were great parents to their children.
But for her personal health,
As the kids grew older,
She knew she needed to write a chapter for herself.

So, she went back school for her GED,
Then earned a nursing degree,
Studied abroad in places
No one imagined she’d ever see.

From a little Black girl
With adversity in her fabric—
But adversity to a rabbit
Only matters if it can catch it.

Many years would pass.
The kids would move on and leave the house,
Chasing dreams and degrees
As she grew older with her spouse—
Both mountains of strength and perseverance
Until fate came.
In the form of cancer,
Calling the name of the one who wore a mane.
Just three months later,
Over forty years of a bond.
Over forty years.
What a climb.
Over forty years…now it was time.

Three more months, and her mother would pass,
Whom she barely had room to mourn,
Blinded and deafened
By striking lightning from an unrelenting storm.

She was her backbone,
Doing her best to be a mother.
He was all she knew
And she would never know another.

They say all great love stories end in tragedy.
That was always part of her fabric.
Now, she had to stay strong for her family.

The war had been raging
Since the very beginning of her story,
But all she ever cared about was love—
No accolades. No blaze of glory.

And that love carried her through a fire
That should have melted her bone to skin
Through poverty, oppression,
And trials that would have felled most mortal men.

Tragedy was always part of her fabric.
But who knew those odds against her
Happened to be a part of her magic?

Now a widow and matriarch in her elder years,
Life is still a struggle.
Waking each day and standing
Just so the family won’t crumble.

Through each phase of life, each season,
It’s like she’s given another reason
To let go, But instead, it inspires in her
A new motivation for breathing.

From birth, we’re fed glorious tales 
Of heroic figures to believe in.
But this is love. This is meaning.
A little Black girl, now queening.

We’re told that the lions are the kings—
The roar, the claws, their teeth.
But one animal makes
Even the most ravenous lion retreat,
Creating new paths of growth from the heaviness of its feet—
More graceful than ferocious,
And always motivated by peace.

There are countless elephant sculptures in her home,
Decorating every inch of it.
She’s always had an affinity for them.
She likely feels a kinship.

And as her years wind down,
As her strength begins to wane,
A woman’s love keeps her alive
Just as the elephant’s does the plains.

So one thing that will never wither
Is the beauty her soul contains
And the abundance felt from her reign
Down to the smallest of grains.

She was born into it
And always knew the war wouldn’t cease.
Teaching us all a lesson in love and survival.
She was a rabbit,
But in her core…
A beast.

Tip the Author 😊

She was a girl,
but she was in love with a wolf.
And wolves are always true to their nature,
while humans—
no matter how much they resist—
are ever so influenced
by the deceitfulness of men.

So in the end,
it wasn’t his teeth
that devoured her,
but his realness.

In my more active days as a hip-hop artist, I adopted the alias “The Wulf” (spelled with a “u” instead of an “o” to establish uniqueness and avoid conflict with other potential “Wolfs”). I chose it because of my admiration for the animal’s raw and authentic nature. Wolves can be playful, but they are also proud, fair, devoted to their family, caring, and deeply in need of their freedom. Above all, the characteristic that resonates with me most is their reputation as fearless and courageous leaders.

Using honesty and integrity as revolutionary tools, I was determined to make it on my own terms as I strove to transcend the boundaries separating the underground from popular hip-hop. It’s the same approach I take to life. So, while I no longer create music like I once did, I’ve retained the alias because it identifies with my nature—a practice I believe we, as human beings, have lost appreciation for as the world becomes more industrialized and controlled by technology.

True to my wolf nature, I make conscious efforts to swim against the currents of modern society and ground myself in the sane and sensible waters of nature. That’s where my soul feels most connected, where I feel most grounded and in tune with who I am.

Conflicting perfection—that’s nature. Being alone with it allows me to connect with everything else. It helps me tap into the most carnal parts of myself while presenting so many symbiotic dichotomies…that are somehow so innately understandable…that I can’t help but feel the presence of The Creator.

It teaches me to slow down.

I need that—especially being from a big city. Sometimes, we all just need to… slow down. We can puff out our chests all we want about the glory of “not giving a fuck” or the pride of solitude. But there is harmony and romanticism in nature, and humans are made to love. It is the water that forms our physical beings, the electricity that fuels our consciousness, and the energy that sustains our souls.

As indefinable, deceptive, and scary as it may be, love is what completes us. It is the only reason to exist—to experience it, share it, and influence it. It is EVERYTHING. Anyone who says they don’t need it in any form is either lying or inhuman.

The problem is, we don’t let nature define our romantic love anymore. To me, finding a true, natural love means everything else becomes secondary, because that love becomes your life force. She/he is your world, you are hers/his, and together, you create the possibility of family. You shut out man-made pollutants. Every day is Earth Day—you do everything in your power to keep the planet you’ve built together healthy, because deep down, you know that if you don’t, you will be the only one to suffer. Just like humanity will never destroy the Earth before it destroys us and begins life anew.

I’m not exactly a fan of being a rideshare driver. It’s a part-time job that helps make ends meet, but its one redeeming perk is the unpredictable nature of the work. Driving the same crowded streets filled with uniformly impatient, often unreasonable people can feel monotonous and frustrating. Yet, the conversations that occasionally emerge with passengers during these otherwise repetitive trips reveal a paradox that sometimes makes the inevitable headaches of city driving worth enduring.

On the morning of the day I began write this, I picked up a woman from North Philadelphia—a mostly impoverished section of the inner city where the anguish of systematic neglect is most palpable. Its gentrified pockets—ironically named to distance themselves from the trauma-riddled communities they replaced—stand in stark contrast. North Philly is the hood. While I don’t live there, I live nearby, so most of my rides pull me in that direction, as low-income Philly residents are most likely to use the service. The woman—a light-skinned, glasses-wearing, diminutive figure who looked perhaps to be in her mid-fifties (albeit often hard to tell with Black people)—got into my car in a flurry of humor and energy, joking about her frazzled state as I had arrived sooner than expected. Her bubbly, loquacious nature promised an accelerated forty-minute ride. I usually try to return the same energy of the passenger, and in this case, the result was a seamless exchange that went from one topic to another—her workday, aggressive Philly drivers, the weather, Donald Trump and the 2024 election, and finally, her family.

While most of the details of our conversation have faded, when she spoke about her “son” stuck with me. She described him as a 16-year-old interested in joining the military, though she was less than thrilled with his decision to pursue this path before finishing high school. At first, I thought it was the typical parental hesitation about a risky career path, but the story took an unexpected turn. As she spoke, I realized the boy wasn’t her son but her grandson. His mother—her daughter—had been shot in the stomach and killed while pregnant with another child.

She recounted this tragedy as casually as one might describe a trip to the grocery store. Her tone stayed light and conversational, as if recounting events she’d long since come to terms with. I offered my condolences—perhaps clumsily, saying something like, “Damn, that’s crazy”—and listened as she continued. (I’ve never been the best at providing comforting words as a response to tragic news, but I’m much better at being a cathartic conversational outlet.) Her grandson’s father was also out of the picture, serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder. She admitted her grandson had behavioral issues, which, given his circumstances, was unsurprising.

In the spirit of reciprocity, I opened up about my own experiences. I shared how my father had also killed before, but he always seemed to find a way out of things. He was a gangster, a hustler, and a heroin addict before eventually becoming a Black Muslim during the civil rights era and member of the Nation of Islam after encountering Elijah Muhammad’s teachings through Malcolm X. Even after turning his life around, he never stopped hustling and raised six children through the proceeds of an illegal “white-collar trade,” the details of which I disclosed to her. Tragically, he passed away from sepsis brought on by cancer treatment during a hospital stay.

She listened with intrigue and shared her own connection to cancer-related loss. The conversation shifted to the military—how my father had been dishonorably discharged for refusing to take orders. She asked, “Was he militant?” He was as militant as they come, I told her. But as result, I never had a favorable opinion of the military or taking orders, especially for any purpose I’m not wholeheartedly invested in. Nonetheless, I confessed that part of me regretted not accepting military recruiters’ invitations during my college years, even though I bristled at the idea of being subservient to any White man.

We circled back to her grandson. She joked about how he used his military ambitions to sidestep finishing high school. “He’s Muslim too, like his father,” she added, before clarifying, “But he doesn’t do any of the things—”

“He’s just Muslim by name,” I said, finishing her thought. “But he doesn’t really practice.”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, the disciplinary part of the faith is what helped my father. But that’s why I brought up the military thing. It could be good for your son in that way. It could be what he needs.”

She agreed, but emphasized he needed to finish school first. “He think he know everything. Always looking stuff up on the internet. I told him you gotta be 18.”

“Yeah, he’s trying to find a way to weasel out of having to go to school these last two years,” I said as we shared a laugh.

I wasn’t sure if what she said about enlisting was true, but I concurred, and before long, we’d reached her destination. It felt too soon. She jubilantly thanked me for the conversation, mentioned the tip she’d be leaving, and said she hoped to see me again on her return trip. I thanked her for the tip in advance and for making the ride pass so effortlessly.

As I drove away, a warm feeling rose in me, something I could only describe as growth, catharsis, and a comforting connection with something familiar, all wrapped in a ball. I reflected on the ease with which she shared her trauma and received mine without judgement or scorn—both containing details that might seem unfathomable, offensive, or terrifying, to most. I thought about how effortlessly we exchanged harsh realities that might horrify others. It is frightening in a way, how we can recount such tragic experiences with such detachment, conditioned by a lifetime of pain until it becomes almost routine.

Trauma has become part of the fabric of Black American life. On its own, that isn’t something to celebrate, but in the strange balance of the universe, it’s also where the potential for redemption lives—a reminder that even the heaviest burdens can tilt toward something meaningful. I wouldn’t exactly say conversations like the one I had with her are common, not anymore, especially in today’s world where authentic connection feels rare. But they are unique to those of us who share a certain struggle—an unspoken bond forged by shared pain.

Then I thought about how rare even these moments of connection have become, and that warm feeling I had began to cool a bit. We don’t nod or speak as much to each other in the streets, don’t make eye contact with our brothers and sisters like we used to. We are not as willing to assist our brothers and sisters when they are in need. The trauma woven into our DNA is there, whether we acknowledge it or not. But as we lose touch with where we come from, with our ancestry, as the effects of desegregation wriggle through our community, feed on our weaknesses and insecurities, and fatten up over time, we confuse the tension of that connection woven through shared trauma for something restrictive. In truth, it’s the tension of a binding force—something that held us close.

The culture Black Americans were forced to create was born of tragedy and loss, a necessity because everything else was stolen. The world rejected us, but out of that rejection came resilience. Our trauma became our war cry, our battle scar, and it propelled us to greatness in art, science, athletics, politics, technology, and every avenue we pursued. We became some of the most admired, emulated, and feared people on the planet.

That trauma is still a part of us all. But we can’t run from it. I did not know the woman who rode in my car that morning, but she was no stranger. She felt like someone I could trust, and I believe she felt the same about me. She was a part of the garment. A garment we have to reconnect the weavings of until we are familiar with its feel again and are able to reclaim what makes us unique as a people by remembering our trauma doesn’t destroy us—it completes us. It unites us. And there’s no feeling more natural, more comfortable, more therapeutic, than that.