they graduate from pre-k...

i watched all these little children tumble into the auditorium. their eyes searching for a familiar face, a mommy, a daddy, a grandmother. searching for someone they love or someone that loves them.  i tried to enjoy the moment and reminisce on the time that felt like just yesterday - the day they were born.  i only know my story of labor and delivery but i tried to imagine others.  i tried to imagine which child was born to a mother on drugs or which child was born to no mother at all.  it pained me to see children in their innocence coming into a world that had very little left.  i watched their chubby cheeks, their fluffy dresses and their lopsided ties come down this aisle.  i wondered who would get their heart broken first, or get arrested or get caught skipping school.  i considered all of the bad things these good children would end up doing.  and then my humanity kicked in and my parenting stepped out.  i imagined that the little boy with the mohawk would become a heart surgeon and the little girl dancing down the aisle would become one of the world's leading entertainers.  i imagined the shy little girl selling out stadiums with the voice she was too shy to use now.  i imagined that these children would be the best leaders this world has to offer.  but in the meantime, i just want to enjoy them.  i want them to enjoy their tiny moments of shine.  i want them to eat broccoli with their hands and i want them to fight sleep till their little eyes shut.  i want them to enjoy being children.  they can always be great adults later.

photo diaries

temple brought us together.

and temple tore us apart.

yeah right. play on playa.

my big brother dancing on em...

(the girls giggling in the background? twenty years of friendship)

damn shawty.

it's ok if sometimes you don't recognize your reflection

it might help if you sober up though.

little girls play in their mommy's makeup

except i'm the mommy

being born a creative spirit has been frightening.  it's a terrifying experience to know that my survival (mind, body and spirit) is dependent on dying a little bit each time. it's a scary thought to know that i will never be a doctor or a lawyer, the tangible successes that are admired. it's terrifying that my success, the tangible kind, the kind that sells off the shelves, is completely dependent on you giving a f.ck.  and i'm sure my parents wish i had eight degrees, doctorates, a firm or a practice but that's never been me and not that those aren't beautiful things but they just aren't beautiful to me.

this speech above moved me.  i need to read her book, EAT, PRAY, LOVE, that's coming out as a movie in August 2010 starring Julia Roberts.  It's based on a true story. Isn't all creativity?

white zinfandel

after five cups of wine diluting the conversation of once-lovers and now friends, i purged. literally. all hail my porcelain god with my buffalo chicken salad and my regrets for relationships that could have been but weren’t.  lying on the floor in nothing but my panties, it was clear to me that i had ended up where i had started.  i'm starting to believe that love never leaves you. i was about to say 'true love' but true and love in my mind, are synonymous so why be redundant?  but what really concerns me is the idea that if love never leaves, why we can't manage to stay.

i wonder how long a first love matters and how much are we willing to risk for the 'grand' first love.  do we ever outgrow the baby steps? will the butterflies fly away? 

i'm not gonna go as far to say that i want a crystal ball or anything like that, but i just wanna know if i can ever love anyone else with you loving me? one more thing, if you never let me go, how can i?

feed me

i couldn't wait to get out of the shower to write this piece. bear with me.

the breeze moves between us to bless this union 

and not even mangoes can compete with how sweet his lips are

thunder rolls calmly like my hips to his 

and you can light a match with our lightning

we move to rhythms of a song we played a long time ago

as we repeat the notes, the melody has never lost its star power

we sell out...of our souls for a moment so close our fingerprints melt

in a place where identities don't matter

because it's not who you are, it's who you've become

he's a hard pill to swallow

curing me from the sickness of being addicted to him

he's always been a dichotomy of flavors

on the tip of my tongue, holding my speech and tingling my taste buds

i can taste him in my dreams

but he consumes me

nourishing himself from the thickest parts of me

my thighs, these hips, the small of my back, this soul

i digest these moments 

each moment

with hot sauce and pray for the heartburn

what do you write?

so somebody asked me if i was a writer. and i didn't know what to say. i write but does that make me a writer? who decides? and then i thought about the conversation this morning and got pissed. well, not pissed but offended. you damn right i'm a writer. i've been writing since the fifth grade, it was the only assignment that wasn't homework. i bleed my craft. i know more words than numbers, more authors than street names. i recognize pages more than friends and memories are chapters in my mind. and journal entries are memoirs. and boyfriends are characters. i live my life in paragraphs, summaries, metaphors, haikus and novels. i am a writer simply because i am nothing else. have i been published? yea. when i was fifteen but that's not why i'm a writer. i'm a writer because i would rather write than speak and if God came down from the darkest skies and exchanged my voice for a pen, i would thank him, in a nod of course. and God could even take away my eyesight because what i write is what i feel, deep down inside. if you split my arms open with a knife, words would come bleeding out of me. and just because i love writing doesn't mean it comes easy to me. it's hard. it's so f.cking hard to put the heart of me on your kitchen table and tell you to feast on my dreams, my hopes, my heartbreaks. every time i put these words together, it's like you've had sex with me. you've gone deep inside where i'm so wet you might drown and i'm so tight, i can't let you go. and even good sex, great sex hurts. so today, it's not about if i'm a writer or not and it's not about if i publish a best seller (although that would be nice). today, like every other day is about finding something or someone that inspires me to bleed out excellence through my fingertips.

so yes i'm a writer, not an accountant, not an event planner, not a student, not even a mother. and though i can become those things and i am some of those things. i'm a writer. first and foremost. i was born for this. and i would die for it. depending on who asks me to.

up to date.

gotta catch up on the news.

BP.
what the f.ck is up?

Arizona.
Need i remind you that this country was built on the backs of immigrants and your soil was fertilized with our blood?  i'm just saying.

Lakers vs. Celtics Finals
the game is tied. artest, get it together. odom, be productive. rondo, stay hungry. robinson, convince them to give you more minutes. allen, stay consistent.

Joran van der Sloot
Glad they caught your ass. Maybe Natalie Holloway's family will finally have some peace.

iPhone 4
phenomenal.

Hannah Seligson wrote a book - A Little Bit Married
i'm sure most of the people i know can relate. here we are, co-habitating, believing each one of us is monogamous, making joint decisions and no ring in sight...and breaking up is worse than divorce because there is no damn alimony. so now your heart and your pockets are broken.

i almost forgot

long story short. a typhoon hit the Philippines. the earthquake hit Haiti. and my friend @tiffthomp did a brilliant thing. in collaboration with a few other people, she created Two Countries: One Cause; a relief concert where all the proceeds are going to the perspective countries. here are some pictures of the largest charity event to ever hit Temple University.

for the full professional pics...visit http://k3nreyes.zenfolio.com/p257925955.

TWO COUNTRIES: ONE CAUSE

MAY 1, 2010

use your life by saving one.

bad lighting. good times.

purple is the color of royalty. so either recognize that you're a queen or accept that no one else will if you don't.

my childhood friends are my child's friends.

if haters do exist [probably somewhere in the land of unicorns and mermaids], wave to them.

what's the point of childhood if you can't choose when to go back to it?

for those of you who think i talk a lot [my kindergarten teacher Ms. Vails] i acutally think more than i speak.  can you imagine?

quaint

i wore all black everything.
hair down to the middle of my back.
prayed my brown eyes weren't green from envy. 
drove the car he had driven more than me. more than anyone.
his cd was still playing through my speakers.
every stop sign reminded me to breathe.
and every green light reminded me, we're not going any further.
there he was on a sidewalk full of people. only one mattered.
ex marks the spot.
his smile could make tears rethink their purpose.
i looked at him and saw my reflection.
isn't that what happens when you let someone inside?
they filter through you and eventually you can't tell where you began and he ends.

and it's only a matter of time before you are looking at a reflection you don't recognize.

our interaction could never be poetry. no metaphors for love. no similes for hate. no literary license for one moment to describe them all.  i looked at him and his smile turns light bulbs on inside of me.  but the behavior that brought us here disappoints me still.  a few posts back i decided i had moved through this. once he was a memory. then missing him became the memory. and now there are some moments when the stars in the sky align just right that i receive a reminder of the man i once loved.  [SECONDHAND - IT'S NOT OVER...youtube this song and continue reading].  it was like seeing a ghost. it's only when you get old do you realize how young you were.  innocent and naive are no substitutes for moral behavior.  we've done wrong. horribly wrong. the kind of wrong that you take with you in every relationship that follows.  


it was supposed to be a conversation but ended up as a slow dance. recalling moments where we should have went left when we thought we were going right.  we spoke about the should haves and the could have and the would haves. it's so much easier to get a point across when you're not mad anymore or betrayed anymore or when you're not busy lying anymore.  it's so easy to be honest after your untruths have been discovered.  it's so easy to speak after not speaking.  but it's not so easy to love after you've taught yourself not to.  one thing is evident - we have moved forward as adults, as a man and a woman, separately but very much still together.  i used to think that puberty was for ages twelve through sixteen.  but when you're looking at someone who's hurt you, suddenly you realize, you never outgrow that awkward stage.  when you stop believing the only man who's called you beautiful, you know all too well the struggles of the ugly duckling.  


as the conversation moved on like we had, we spoke about things as best friends instead of once lovers.  we spoke about careers instead of kisses, we spoke about vacations instead of children, we spoke about the past instead of the future.  and when we smiled at each other, it wasn't too flirt or to reminisce, but rather it was to acknowledge that friends become lovers and lovers become strangers and strangers meet once again to be friends.  


and who knows if we'll ever date again? neither of us are wondering but even still, despite everything, i would give up my life for his in a heartbeat but that doesn't mean i'm not going to live it to the fullest before i do.

killing me softly.

sometimes it's easier to cope with your death than to accept you're living without me.

brilliance

i've been writing really personal entries lately, personal meaning you know exactly who i'm talking about. it's something i never really do because i enjoy secrets and sometimes i think a story can stand without its characters.

i have an ex. and he's brilliant.

and don't say "then why is he your ex?"

brilliant and monogamy don't have sh.t do with one another in this case.

but when i say he is brilliant, i'm really saying that his mind is made of gold.

and no i'm not trying to gas him.

i don't seduce with means of flattery.

but i do give props when props are due.

as a matter of fact, the conversation below is between him and i.

yes, we talk. still. after the fact. sometimes, we talk a lot. sometimes we don't talk at all.

it's hard finding a balance with someone you've loved and someone you've hated.

but the important part is that despite our shortcomings as a couple, there is no amount of bitter in the world that could ever hinder me from seeing his talent in totality.

even when he's not my man, he's a great man.

*********************************

me: i can actually just tell you what i told her

i was gonna blog about it.

but i can always copy and paste.

don't say anything till im finished. i'll give u the signal

i told her...i was watching this speech 

(i'll send u the link)

it was about the stigma that artists have to be crazy to truly embody their craft...

and we always are asked if we're not scared that no one is going to give a damn about the art we create

and of course we're scared...i don't want to depend on writing because what if no one feels what i feel or understands me, then i'll just starve

but the speech got into how the true ART is showing up every day prepared to create, whether it's good or not, depending on who you ask

so i said, he is brilliant and i think part of the reason he's not done with school is because he's better than the institution

he doesn't need school to teach him or to better his skills, he was born great. so how can he ever understand the value of school when he doesnt have to pay for brilliance because he was born that way?

i think the most amazing talent that he has is his ability to recognize talent in others

if he was looking at a cricket match with absolutely no knowledge of the game and its rules, i would bet my life that he could easily pick out the best player on the field. it's a gift.

 me:  my dad told him, anything u do good, dont do for free but he does everything good so why charge?  he has the ability to always get better so if he gives you something, f.ck it. come back next week and he would have come up with something else

my fear for him is the same fear i have for myself.

the creative process is unique to the creator, i myself, have to be in a deep pain to create some of my best poetry. anguish, betrayal and disappointment are the food to my craving spirit

would i potentially put myself in situations to yield my best work? it's not such a bad idea. would i sacrifice my happiness to create? doesn't sound crazy to me

and that is what he does. to produce the best his mind can come up with, he has to physically withdraw himself from others.  he cannot clog his life without hindering his creativity.

he has no choice but to love another artist because he will always be in love with his work and she will have to know that feeling to understand it.

the fear is that artists literally have to die for their art ...every time because everyone else can't.

our gift is intangible. we don't save lives with pints of blood and therefore our craft is invaluable and therefore the cost to produce that craft to us seems worth it

he is an artist and i love that about him. he's brilliant to me and i dont compliment many people. but not many people are brilliant.

end scene

 him: almost cried.. almost

 me:  hmm...

 him:  lol na.. but wow. when I was reading I was thinking how much it sounded like u were describing urself

 me:  i wont deny we're very much alike.

 him:  seeing the talent in others

and much of what you said

i want to thank u tho

 me:  dont

*************************************

sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, we are who we've been with. choose wisely.

do what you love

my brother told me i was born to write. meanwhile, every day i wake up dying to write. 

platonic sometimes takes effort

had a conversation with a fellow Leo and artist.
doing his thing, going for his dream. he'll probably be the next Denzel.
and i just want to be somewhere between Zora Neale Hurston, Nikki Giovanni and Terry McMillan.
so i guess it's never too early to write about him.


he has a tiny lisp. it wouldn't even be classified as a speech impediment. an untrained eye probably wouldn't notice it, but since i'm always searching for greatness, i notice all the things that are against us and make us great anyway, like a lisp - to an actor, who will be using that voice with that lisp for the rest of his life, more importantly his career.


usually, i would say that for actors, it's all in the eyes but i could not stop staring at his mouth and i mean that in the most non sexual manner ever, at least for today. his power is in his mouth and i'm not sure if it's what he is saying or how he is saying it. the mystery will work for him either way. 


his fearless attitude is attractive but i see in him the same things i fear.  his desire for art and his passion for work has created what seems like an inability to love, the same love that he will one day portray onscreen.  and i'm not saying he doesn't love someone or that he will never love someone BUT like me, love will come, he will never go searching for it. and if it doesn't come, actually it will come. it always comes. people are attracted to greatness and fooled by excellence.


for people as talented as him, the art will never leave you, never betray you and every morning you wake up, it will be right beside you. it won't make breakfast but it is consistent, it is loyal and love will never come with that guarantee.  and if we are blessed enough to find something as close to that guarantee as humanly possible, we will be too busy nurturing it to enjoy it.  Leos can only speak in the language of success and humanity is built on failures so he, like me will find himself in difficult positions.  his first love, art vs. his true love, her.  


in speaking with him, three things are apparent.
1. we could have been awesome friends and better lovers.
2. we left ninety percent of our conversation unspoken.
3. he's so hard to please and so hard to leave.

because i rarely say this, i must document it. i'm impressed and i'm sure we're both waiting for the world to catch up.

is this what they call progress?

i believe in forgiveness. because this time i need it.
i believe in marriage. not because i think i found the perfect person. but rather because i learned to love an imperfect person perfectly. and by perfectly i mean, flaws and all.