Sacrifices- Dreamville, Earthgang, Smino, Saba, & J. Cole

Hey Y’all,

Happy March. This year is moving a little fast like every year after you turn 20. Nevertheless I’m grateful to see it all change. I’m getting better at walking away from people and things that no longer serve me. I’m getting better at preserving my energy. And if that means leaving some people without an explanation then that’s what it is. Life is too short to keep people in your life that don’t make you genuinely happy. It’s too long and precious to let people keep mining the gold out of you in your brightest moments. And when someone continually oversteps and tries to take my finer moments and turn them into a self serving spotlight or take my downfalls to lift themselves up, imma head out. Imma let them go. My reflexes are getting quicker and honestly y’all, I’m tryna live a really long fulfilling life. So I’m finding, in order to wake up and get to that fulfilling life, I need to only serve what serves me fully. So I wrote a poem after someone asked me why I don’t feel guilty about walking away from a long relationship with no explanation.

God Told Me to Wipe my Feet When I Walk Away

In everything you do—give thanks.

I turn every cheek until I’m dizzy.

I choke down vertigo when I step over everything swept under the rug.

Today my body is made of rear view mirrors

The eyes in them glare back at the apologies I make space for.

There are still some ghosts I make eye contact with

For the sake of one of us finding rest.

We don’t see potential in haunted phones

I pick up when I know it’s not you

I want you to remember when I held the end of your line

Waiting for your words to drip like tears on a fresh grave.

The first time I compared you to death, God told me to remove my shoes

The future is sacred ground.

Death doesn’t live there.

I was tuned to your heart

You were the gardener of my despair

The silence I felt after we talked for too long

Told me all I needed to know.

I feel this peace

I don’t hear anything anymore

I don’t see a future in your promises

So there are no pillars of salt to be now.
Forgiveness is easier bought, than given

Easier to say than to swallow whole

Or even in parts.

I don’t do either.

I wipe my feet, and don’t look back.

In leaving—give thanks.