I'm going to read your poem or your story or your novel and write a response.
Not a response, but a reply, or rather, answer you.

It will be a song in meter and stanza that might flow like a soft conversation.
When I am finished, you will have a time to answer back.

This will go on for a while.

Baltimore will change you. Seen through the eyes, ears, and hearts of Black American, your liberal effort will be read as a white occupation.

It doesn't matter your intentions, if you've meditated on it all year long, if you yell at a black face, you have cast the whip.

You're not allowed to have emotions, you have to subservient yourself to the trauma of your students, your fellow teachers, the parents walking on the street. Your trauma no longer matters. It is not the same. It might not even be exist. Or rather, you're over 50, haven't you processed that **** yet?

Oh, Baltimore will change you. When you came here you wanted to help, you wanted to solve the problem of racism, of less than equal, you wanted to uplift like MLK and make real the sentiments of your 60s parents. Then you met the attitude, the snares as you walked through the Aldi on Orleans Street, the ostracization of your Black colleagues, the Black clicks, the Black power, and the side glances and suspicion waiting for you to be racist and oppressive. The questioning eyes looking at your old white face and grey hair, expecting you to control or belittle the Black man, woman, and child. Why did you come here to teach our children? What do you want with our children?

You face the slow walk of the Black man and woman. Why are they moving so slowly? Don't they know I am in a hurry? Are they doing that on purpose because of the years of white control and oppression? Are they punishing me for all the sins of the Whites? Or is it because that person is big, slow in pace because of the sheer weight they have to carry? Is that racist to think that? Does the butcher move slow at the meat counter because he wants to make me wait? Why am I even thinking this? I never thought this before! Baltimore is changing me.

You face the fast driving and the motocross culture of danger, noise, and recklessness. You meet the street fights our your front door, parents surrounding their children, cheering them on to kick the other 15year old's ***.  You get called a white ***** time and time again simply because you speak your mind. Or...did I do something wrong?  WAS I oppressive? I just wanted to....how can I even breath here? I might do it in a way that hurts the Black community. Why are they that fragile? Are they that fragile?

Baltimore will make you ask, where should I stand as the Black community moves into it's place? It will make you ask, "Why am I defending the white man? Why do I feel a need to play devil's advocate?" But why do I need to feel obliged to step aside for the Black? Isn't that the sentiment I have felt all my life? Move over for the Black. White people have had the lead for too long. Move out of the way for Black people, let them get ahead. Let them get ahead?  Like I hold the keys to the door? We were told (by MLK) that the dream was for us to play side by side, hold hands, walk up or down the mountain together. That is so hard. For both sides. Why are there sides?

A frozen house stilled mid-life,
while the lives within shed
blood from a tear mid-stride.

hearts stopped beating,
loving strokes suspended mid-brush,
her dappling with the voice of another
pulled her love into adultery's pouch.

his seduction cloaked in friendship,
his lie of never leaving,
his deception of true nature,
he could have known he would never love her.

her home barren of family noise,
empty, gutted, a winter's frozen shell.
she will lie now in the out-lands upon the ground,
freezing alone, unforgivable, a harlot, wishing, hoping for death.

Mother Rock, I sit solidly on the porch
as the May wind blows the lanterns.
I am the family stone, I hold this space
while the children's lives soldier on
to the fields of hearts, where swords and shields
penetrate and cover, where new blood is drawn.

I am finally finished playing at war.
My position is still, as the wind washes past my solid form.
This day moves all around me,
washing me away, eroding with each brush of breeze,
my blue jeans fade in sunshine,
my gray hair streaks, as it lingers to my shoulders.

Too much happiness is like an illness
that you lie in bed for waiting until it
leaves your body.

Just as you are laughing, cracking up,
closing your eyes and throwing your head back,
you get well again. And stop laughing.

I couldn't imagine a lifetime of being sick
with happiness. I've never been sick for
more than a week. My immune system
is far too strong.

a mother's joy is
not to watch the child grow,
but watch them grow old.

I can't figure it out, but I am forever planning an escape
2. or a solution to this problem of going nowhere
3. in life you have to risk safety in order to find
4. an oasis hidden in the visions.

1. Or a solution to this problem of going nowhere
2. will in perpetuity evade your grip
3. An oasis hidden in the visions
4. of calicoed men, quilted with jacquard and eastern tapestries.

1.Will in perpetuity evade your grip
2. from your lack of complexity
3. of calicoed men, quilted with jacquard and eastern tapestries,
4. tangled between silken limbs.

1. From your lack of complexity,
2.  I can't figure it out, but I am forever planning an escape
3. tangled between silken limbs.
4.  In life you have to risk safety in order to find.