phantom photos

Of course @danigirlbx took this picture and I stumbled across it in my photos.  

I have a natural pout and my default face is stank but I told y'all that before…

I can't even help it at this point.

Shame...

I absolutely love this movie : A Low Down Dirty Shame with Jada Pinkett and Damon Wayans.

This movie makes me crack up!  I have the videotape that goes in a VCR, talk about old school technology.  I really wished my VCR still worked so I can pop this bad boy in but I'm sure I'll come across the DVD one day.

when relationships go wrong

on the wrong day, this makes absolute sense to me.

labor

I know absolutely no details concerning this pregnancy, although I'm sure that would make for good conversation.  However, I don't know why this seems 

SO NATURAL to me.

I do remember my grandmother telling me the following the night I started my labor,

"Tassy, you can do this.  You don't need any help.  Your body was created to do this.  From the beginning of time women have carried and delivered their children without any assistance.  You were born to do this.  You can do this.  You are not the first and you most certainly won't be the last.  Bring your child into this world.  I'm praying for you."

Maybe that's why this picture isn't a shock to me.  As long as our bodies can create children, I wholeheartedly believe that we can carry them and bring them into this world.

Ladylike

It is so strange to me that men who were once owned now want to own a woman, a black woman.  I can’t seem to understand the desire to own something or someone rather whom you cannot comprehend.  That’s like owning a saxophone you can’t make sing.  Why keep or own anything and anyone if you cannot seek out its purpose?  Why would you ever build a cage around something that was meant to fly?

As a Black woman, I don’t remember sitting in the palms of hands that were waiting for me to lift off.  I do remember though being smothered by arms that wouldn’t let me measure my own wing span in an air space I could call my own.  Trapped between heavy and hairy legs, I became the property of men with less pennies than sense.  How confusing it is to be born by yourself and yet yearn for the heat of another human being so much so that you end up a mockery of your own dead flesh.  Nonetheless I had many masters and endured several lashings probably because I found it quite contradictory to be a house slave to a man that never owned a house.  But these are only exaggerations of  a few sleepless nights with some very energetic men.

For a long time, sex trapped me in its ownership.  As long as you found your way inside of me, you found yourself wrapped up around several ideas of thought that were no longer under my control.  This is not to say that I was submissive but more so easily convinced that your word was better than my own.  I look at men today as gatekeepers to lands I don't necessarily need to tread on.  They are so damn convincing with their dimples and their baritone voices in the moments right before the sun comes up.  A man can convince you that living in his box is better than living out of your own.  I am in a constant state of envy of their power to control the mind by starting with the body.  It is my understanding that sometimes when a man lies on top of you, it can help you form the habit to take things lying down.  But what do I know?  Like many women, it's not the weight of our emotional baggage we're carrying. It's the weight of the men we physically can't let go.  I don't even think we really have trust issues, in fact, I think we trust too much.  I think we give our love away too soon, I think we make breakfast too often for a man that has not dug in the hot dirt to pick the very vegetables we prepare.  I just think we do too much sometimes for men who don't do nearly enough.  And so we end up as indentured servants, working hard to pay off a debt of some kind, hoping at the end of our service we'll be free enough for him to keep us around.  I can't tell you what goes on in the male mind because I haven't heard much from it over the years.  Just being honest.  I mean I've heard what men think universally but as a man?  For a man to come up with a unique concept about loving a woman and remaining in love with that woman while being faithful and understanding to how human that woman is, I haven't heard much about it.  I've heard they want a lady, but how ladylike can we be after being dragged through the mud, videotaped for his visual liking and confronted by three other women having done the same?  I just don't know how much of a lady I can be when they act like being a lady is synonymous to being weak.  

I wish more men would appreciate the strength of a woman in her speech rather than in the curve of her spine.  I wish more men would understand that yelling in an argument doesn't mean you've won because I've been yelling every night while you enter my secret garden and I haven't even won your respect.  So as far as being a lady, I adore my ladylike qualities.  I don't burp in public, I try not to wear see through clothing and I always have my hair done.  But…one thing about being a lady is to recognize when a man is or IS NOT in my motherf.cking presence.

I bet you think this is about you

Sometimes he thinks I'm talking about our relationship, when in actuality I don't feel like we have a relationship to talk about. 


It's hard to acknowledge something I can't understand.  It's not hard for me to say, 'I'm not f.cking talking about you!' but apparently that's hard to believe.  Men always want to be the only one.  They always want to be the best one.  Truth is, I've been in longer relationships, harder relationships, better relationships and I'm hardly, if ever talking about today's relationship.  And today, there is no relationship.  But people think twitter is my diary and that's partially my fault because 140 characters can sound so authentic.  But then again, people forget I'm a writer and I can say and will probably say something that sounds so passionate and so sincere that you think it's happening at my kitchen table.  The truth is, you'll never really know.  I don't do disclaimers often and I explain myself even less than that but if a man is cheating on me right now, then I promise you, he's not my man and therefore, he's not a character in this here story.  


I wish I could tell you how hard it is to write and have someone constantly calling or texting thinking it's about them.  And because I'm not one to confirm or deny lackluster accusations, I bear the brunt of always being the angry black woman, when in reality, I'm not angry at all.  I know some great men that will probably be great husbands one day, but I'm not sleeping with any of them.  Call it a drought or call it being picky but whatever the case may be, I'm not f.cking any of the ain't sh.t negroes that are trending topics on my timeline.  That's where I've been, not where I am.  


But on another note, I was told to celebrate my happiness.  It's something I have to get used to.    Happiness is a journey that I have yet to embark on fully.  When and if I get there though, maybe I'll be like Mary J. Blige and redirect my art's purpose.  Until then,  I will discuss what I know, what I've seen, what I've felt, what I have come to understand not only as a woman but as a Black woman.  I can't show a man how happy I am that he's in my life if he can't show how happy he is in mine.  

Those Kisses

I kissed him from that dark place within myself hoping his tongue could spread some light my way. I spent his deliberate kisses like they were spare change used to buy old school sweets. His lips wrapped around my collarbone liked a newborn's hand around its mother's finger - we belonged. His kiss lingered like day old roses on a courted woman's mantle.  He smelled nice and I just wanted to taste him.  I just wanted to melt into his flesh and stay there until we became a puddle of lovers.  I still think about his kiss in spare moments of my time, when I'm brushing my teeth or my hair.  Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I can still feel him over my shoulder, breathing down my neck, stroking my spine, whispering in my ear that kisses are more intimate than watching a person make love to themselves.  His kisses were like mangoes that I could pluck and suck on till it stuck to my lips, so sweet that it becomes bitter and then so bitter, it becomes forbidden.  I like his kisses.  His far away kisses that I can still taste from miles away, mornings later, I really like his kisses.  And I thought to myself, why am I acting like I've never been kissed before but I've never been kissed before.  Not like clouds rolling over on unsuspecting rooftops, not like a child's first day of school, not like a warm shower after a cold day, not like a good man after a bad one…hmm.  I've never been kissed before.


His kisses make me want to call my ex-boyfriends and say, "I'm not a virgin anymore."  But they're so busy smacking their lips for the wrong reasons that they wouldn't even understand what kind of kissing I'm talking about.  His kisses are something like mermaids in the deep blue sea, it has never been proven that they don't exist, but they're still magical.  I think I fell in love with his kisses, sweet deliberate kisses, with no other intention than to teach me that the true power of speech is when you relinquish it.  Man, I love his kisses and they make me want to love him.  And he will be the first person that I make love to again, the first person that lets me put my guard and my dress down for some real, homemade kissing.  His kisses are like the deep conditioners of relationships - it makes me soft.  And I will probably will never tell him how good his kisses are but since I said I would marry him, I'm guessing he already as an idea.

Down the Aisle

I remember wearing a handpicked lily in my hair on that warm afternoon in the south.  The Mason Dixon line was long behind me like high school lovers and unspoken abortions.  We had no history in the south, well no history that we could name.  The only aunts and uncles we had there were slaves we could only recognize in our features.  But there we were, with our feet enamored with the fleshy grass beneath us.  It only made sense to build a future where the past began, so we came home, never really knowing when exactly we left.  


Like I said, it was a warm afternoon.  It wasn't hot enough to make the leaves on the great sycamores sweat but the breeze did tickle nature's most precious monuments.  One hundred chairs lined up before me with lavender bows tied delicately around each seat.  They looked handcrafted by a mystical fairy godmother and I was pleased.  Lavender is my mother's favorite color and I made it mine just to be closer to her.  This new set of miles between has us  only made me want to get closer to her but at fifteen I wanted to get as far away as possible.  I believe that is the simple irony of mothers and daughters.  Nonetheless, I could see the back of her head waiting for me in the front row.  She was an aged woman with more wrinkles than stories and even when she chose not to partake in my life, she was at least always there to witness what was going on.  I glanced over the rest of the chairs filled with members of our family.  I could see Mason's uncle's head bobbing side to side like he was drowning in his own alcohol and his wife sitting still beside him as an example of what he should have been doing instead.  Ms. Nina was a beautiful and kind woman who was with a bad man.  I loved her more for loving who others considered unloveable.  I'm sure Mason got his kind ways from her.  He used to sit me down in front of him while playing with my hair and tell me all the rules of being a gentlemen from the collections of Ms. Nina.  She was the reason he ran my bathwater after long days of traveling  or walked on the outside of the sidewalk with his hand in mine.  Ms. Nina had raised a son instead of a nephew and he was better for it.  Everybody else sat there looking like shadows to me, place fillers until I could make my way down to the front.  Each body felt like a replacement for an emotion I was feeling.  Ms. Nina was my peace.  Her husband was my drunken escape.  My mother was the true representation of so many questions that would go unanswered but a reminder to keep going.  And the rest were emotions I would rather not to discuss, not because they aren't deserving of acknowledgment but rather because I felt like my time was now limited to do the acknowledging. 


The music stopped as a signal for me to move from behind the curtains of my quarters to step into the piercing sun.  My moment had come to make an appearance and declare my love for the man waiting at the front.  I paused, wondering for a moment if I was beautiful enough, if the lily in my hair was still blooming behind my ear.  My dress was made of a simple cotton, the kind that hung on lines in the backyard waiting to be pressed by the sun and I wondered if it curved around my breasts, waist and thighs like his arms had so many times before.  I pushed the light curtain to the side and put my leg out first.  I looked at the fifteen feet that I had to walk and realized it would be an eternity literally.  I was walking toward the rest of my life and I never understood why women had to walk it alone.  Had tradition never considered the possibility of a man and woman taking this journey together?  Nonetheless, I was dressed in my best determined to meet him hoping that my warm hands and my declaration to love him for an entire lifetime will loosen his stiff neck and his tense shoulders and convince him to join me.  I felt the wind blowing from the east with a butterfly in its waves.  The air was calm as if to join in for the serenity of the moment.  Birds sat on their arched tree branches, quiet with observation.  I took one step at a time, each one heavier than the other.  Muttering under my breath while twirling my solid, gold ring around my fourth finger, I told myself, "Just one more step, just a moment longer."


I finally reached to the front and grabbed Mason's hand.  Tears streamed down my face as I hung my head low.  My veil sat on my eyelashes until I used my free hand to push it back.  I needed to see his face.  His face so peaceful, just like the day we got married.  Mason wore calm like it was his favorite color.  I watched his lips hoping they would move, hoping they would say the vows we made seven years earlier just to reiterate the most important promise in marriage - till death do us part.  I stood over my husband's casket grimaced with the pain of loving him in that death still, for wanting to lay beside him, for asking God to make a little more room for me in that coffin.  I didn't want to part.  I wanted to die with him and I wore my finest dress for the last date we would ever have.  His wedding ring glistened on his cold hand and his suit framed his broad shoulders just like the Earth had when he carried it from time to time.  My husband was so handsome, so wonderful, too precious to be laying in the unappreciative dirt.  I felt the sun on my back hoping he would feel it too and get up to complain about just how hot it was, but he didn't move.  He didn't speak.  He just laid there in a mahogany casket that would never be as comfortable as our bed.  I wanted to be with my husband even in death, but life had left me behind.  Life had forced me to stay for just a little while longer, it had asked me to keep breathing and it hurt me to oblige.  They never tell you when you get to the altar that the hardest part of your marriage would be the end of it.


I love my husband and I vowed to love him as long as we both shall live.  So even though, only one of our wedding rings still turns around the flesh of a lonely ring finger when I want to feel him next to me, I will love him, in life, in death and whatever happens after that.

have you done this?

detached and attached all at the same time

pretty cute

you probably know your husband

I say this all the time and I scare myself every single time.

who I am

A lot of people ask me when I'm going to stop writing sad stuff.  Why?


People are sad.  But to be quite honest, I'm hardly happy.  I'm mostly indifferent.  Not being happy doesn't mean that I don't understand that I'm blessed though.  I'm working towards much more and maybe I'll be happy then but for now, I'm ok.  I don't know if you visited Concrete Cakes but there was a lot of our conversation that didn't make it to the website and I promised you I would tell you.


I hate writing. Why do I do it?  Because it's all I know.  Writing is like brushing my teeth, doing my hair, drinking a cup of tea in the morning - it's my ritual.  It's a part of me.  Then why do I hate doing it?  Think about the worst thing that has ever happened to you.  Then think of the second worst and the third worst, until you come up with a good list of the worst experiences in your life.  That's what this blog is, reliving the most painful memories every day just to make sense of them, just to comfort someone else.  Contrary to popular belief, I hardly verbalize what I'm feeling.  It's not that I don't know how obviously, it's probably just because my fingers move faster than my mouth.  Writing is crying and words are tears and writing can be laughter and words can be smiles, depending on which day you catch me.  But I will probably never stop writing about sad things because I know too many women that are sad, that are wounded that walk by you on the street and you never notice.  So when I write, this is me telling those women, even those men, I see you, I hear you and I know what you're going through.  I don't know why I'm like that and I don't know why that appeals to me but that's the way God made me and it took me a long to say, I want to spend my life talking about how I feel to people that might have felt the same way.


In the same breath, I love writing.  It's freeing, it's not judgmental, it's beautiful.  It's always changing and it's always demanding more from me and I respect that.  Writing never yells back at me, it never cringes at my truth, it never avoids me when it gets tough.  Writing is who I am.  I'll even tell you this, there's been quite a few times where I've cried as I'm typing or I've typed with my eyes closed.  Writing comes from something inside of me and if I knew where it came from, I would go to the source with all my valuables in my hand and offer them as a thank you.  


I love y'all and I'm glad you're here, but I notice the people who aren't here and it cuts deep.  But you, yes you, make me feel much better about it.  I do this for you, for me, for us.

still practicing

day 14
write a bad poem, as lousy as you can, do everything wrong, just let yourself be awful


i loved him more than i loved myself
that's as bad as it gets.

I saw God

I know I haven't been writing on here.  I've actually been writing for the book and then I didn't really have good internet so I've been missing in a little bit of action.  But here I am, wounded and looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.


I remember speaking his name into the wind
Begging it to carry him far away from my lips
Curled up in my thoughts
In the deep crevices of my mind
My brain exhausted with functioning only in his memory
I gave myself three days to rise again
Because someone told me that misery is divine
Instead on the third day, he came over and he rose to the occasion instead
I found myself on top for one more time
Found him inside pretending to be mine
Coming to the only conclusion that makes sense
My three days were over and I was still dead
Praised for words I spoke weeks ago
Only then, my tears considered holy water
And my mother still wept at my feet because somebody sacrificed her baby
I died for him and his sins
Let him pierce the very rib he gave me just to prove to him that I bleed just like him
But I could never heal
Just like him
I thought of myself as a kind woman
A woman whose love transcended the very waters he walked on 
But I am merely a fool with curves
With eyelashes curled like the toes of orgasming women 
And a smile that can only be defined as begging
I loved him in parts of me that God hadn't even named yet
And I went back to God empty 
Swollen with wounds and stoned by the rocks of men with heavy hands
I went back to God empty, a shell of a woman he made complete
A woman he made in the likeness of perfection in the garden of Eden
I went back to God empty
Praying, pleading, begging Him to give me not free will but the will to be free
I saw God in the mirror that night
I bartered my rib for a peace of mind 
And I sold my memories for a new set of eyes
I tell you
I looked at God that night
I swear I saw God that night
With the brightest eyes not even the sun could comprehend 
With the warmest hands that summer could not lend
With the strongest legs that could bend
I saw God that night
When I was in desperate search of you instead.

Nothing Last Forever

If this song doesn't have my ex's name all over it, I don't know what does!  I'm just going to add the lyrics because it's that deep.  BASED ON A TRUE STORY.


[Intro]
(oh oh oh oh oh)
(la da da da da)

[Hook]
I tried, you tried, we tried
All of the times that we had together
We should have known nothing last forever
(Can't say we didn't try tho, can't say we didn't try)X2

[Verse 1: J. Cole]
When this shit end, man it's gon get ugly
Real real ugly, your grandmama love me
And your mama love me, little sister hugs me
Even got a few homegirls that wanna fuck me
Soon as this shit end, forget about it
You been stayin' in my crib, you gotta get up out it
Cause if you layin' in my bed, let's admit about it
One time fuckin' and we no longer upset about it
Cause when this shit ends it's either all or nothin'
I thought you loved me, how the hell you gon call ya cousin?
You know the diesel ass, half slow, evil ass
Nigga in that Honda showin' up with that drama
On my mama, we been through it all
From the goods to the bads, rise to the fall
You done seen me at my best, seen me at my worst
So when this shit ends, know it's gon hurt

[Hook]

[Verse 2: J. Cole]
They say we won't last
I know you suspicious, but you don't ask
And I don't tell, that's where we both fell
A good nigga gone bad
Good chick, alone, mad as fuck, she done had enough
I be, out here tryna raise my status up
But success bring bitches, and they bad as fuck
Ass fat as fuck, with a little ol' waist
I ain't want the whole meal, just a little ol' taste
Should have looked both ways fore I crossed you
I guess I never thought I could have ever have lost you
Now I'm out stuntin' with this bitch, who ain't about nothin'
While some nigga learnin' all the shit I taught you
Damn, guess you deserve that, a new start
But deep down you know we grew apart
Long before I broke your heart, if I lost your respect
I'm just hopin' you don't look at me as you somethin' you regret

[Hook]

[Verse 3: J. Cole]
I got your message I been meanin' to respond, know it's been awhile
Apologies, I ain't been around
I wanna kick it, but I know that shit is different now
And times have changed
Let me know if I'm out of bounds, are the lines the same ?
I mean ya, lookin' good, yeah you still got it
Been reminiscin' and I'm not sure how I feel about it
Now we can say that all good things come to an end
But we know each other way too well to pretend
We went from friends to somethin' much more
To breakin' up to makin' up and fuckin' once more
Second chances, we gave enough to finally
We gave it up, but some days I be wakin' up and wantin' one more
But what for ? maybe it's just the weather
We break each others heart's, so maybe it's for the better
Holler whenever, cause you always got a friend in me
And nothin' lasts forever, least we got these memories

Concrete Cakes

Remember when I told you about Concrete Cakes??  Click here for a reminder.  Well, I met up with the creator, @Concrete_G and we had a great time.  I was a little nervous, well I was a lot nervous and I probably spoke too fast!  But he did a wonderful job and the feature is finally up!!!!  I'm so excited to be a part of a major movement of young artists and visionaries.  Humbled to say the least!  This was a great way to cheer me up and I want you all to really keep up with his website for more upcoming talent.  This is your generation so see what they're up to!  And thank you! Because with you noticing me, he wouldn't have!  

I love y'all! No seriously, like from the bottom of my heart!

CONCRETE CAKES!

for my baby

day 13 - write a poem a child would like


playing dress up in mommy's things
watching her get dressed, do her hair and slide on her rings
she kisses me and makes things better
and in my lunchbox, she always leaves me a letter
she's the prettiest woman i've ever seen
i'm her princess, but my mommy? she's my queen

BUY his album!

Trey songz reminds me of my ex or my ex reminds me of Trey songz (same mannerisms, same smile, same haircut, same laugh, I mean everything)…It's weird but I love this video, this song, this concept and all the different types of women represented.  I also love this beautiful, one piece bathing suit featured.  Don't forget to see one of my favorite fashion icons, Rihanna, at the end and yes I called her an icon.  Her damn legs are made of brown sugar and her hair was fire engine red but she still manages to pull off a cream suit…She's a damn icon if you ask me.


Oh yeah, enjoy the song!

her dress is blooming

Heidi Klum and Seal

I'm going to ask you to ignore Seal's muscular yet greased up chest.  We're looking at her dress.  Isn't it amazing?  I would have definitely worn that to my high school prom.

where is the romance?

so i tweeted that title the other day and i was very serious.  i couldn't recall someone doing something romantic for me recently.  now that could be because of space, time and opportunity, but i noticed which meant that someone had let space, time and opportunity get in the way.  now, it could also be that i have no one who fits comfortably in that role to be romantic but whatever the reason  - NO ROMANCE HERE.


but i was talking to someone yesterday and i just know that we speak two different languages.  it's like i say "up" and he hears "down."  if rosetta stone translated "we believe in love but we can't figure out if it's for us," i would sell my second child for it.  but our conversations are either really good or really bad and sex happens in the middle.  anyway, his version of comfort feels condescending and my version of defeat feels like anything but.  


so we got off the phone pissed at our own lack of understanding and i took my ass to sleep because that's what i do when being awake gets me into nothing but trouble.  i woke up to quotes on my phone that better explained his thoughts and was a clear indication of his effort to speak my language. 


romance isn't a limited to flowers, lingerie and dinner dates. it isn't a language found only in storybooks written by fairy godmothers.  sometimes the most romantic thing someone can do is love you in plain english.

jody my jody

they are honestly the cutest non couple ever.

right after tupac and jada.

what it feels like

I felt bad today, the sun peeked through my curtains and I just had to pull the covers over my eyes.  You ever wake up and it still hurts?  And you have people telling you get over it, don't waste your energy, why do you still care?  Because I'm human and I'm allowed however much time it takes me to do it on my own.  Who wants to be cuddled up in the covers with tears painted on their cheeks in the shape of tiny fingers trying to wash them away? No one.  No ones asks to be sad, to be betrayed, to be lonely.  No one asks to be forgotten.


I even tried to tell myself that I wasn't feeling bad, that my mind was playing tricks on me.  My soul felt like an empty refrigerator that I kept walking back to hoping that if I opened it enough, it would be full again.  But your body doesn't care what you tell yourself.  My bones ached his name this morning and my knuckles cracked in a way that sounded like my heart was breaking.  I wanted to cry but my body didn't care what I told myself.  My legs were heavy as if this journey wasn't long enough, as if I wasn't strong enough.  I wanted to ask him if she, if they, were so good, why'd you keep calling me?  Why'd you keep kissing me?  Why'd you keep doing all these things to make me feel good if leaving me didn't make you feel good?


The reason I tell my story is because I don't want anybody else telling it.  I don't want anybody else messing up how I felt, where I went, who I loved and what I learned.  I may scream, I may cry, I may laugh, I may even kill myself trying to explain this life I live but it's mine.  Those are my emotions, never to be defended or described by anyone else but me.  I owe them that much.  When I'm alone and weary or when I'm alone and happy, it's just me and my emotions either kicking the breeze or shielding ourselves from the sparkling sun.


I own these emotions and they are sacred like a grandmother's pearls, like a girl's first time, like your baby's first tooth.  I gave life to these emotions that peel off of the pages of dictionaries and demand that someone feel something for making someone else feel like nothing.


It's not that I still love him.  It's more so that I feel like he didn't love me.

the ocean

after all he put me through
after all he put me through 
after all he put me through 
hell would be a vacation


I could have asked the ocean to be nicer
I could have asked its waves to roll a little smaller, a little slower, no louder than a whisper between little girls under pink canopies 
But I never asked the waters not to bring me hurricanes anymore 
I just moved
With all of my luggage
With all of my memories 
I left the oceanside
My favorite place to be
I left my peace because you brought war there
You brought dead bodies, burned flesh and obituaries to my feet
You brought burning crosses to my front door
Left religion in the devil's shadow
You took my sacred place
Even when I waved the white flag
Even when you heard the "I surrender" pleas
Even when you saw my wounds spread over my skin like wildfires in the midwest
Even when I tried to take my last breath, you breathed into me just to keep me there
Just to keep me mumbling about life while I died on the inside
You brought war to me
You brought famine to my bones
Stirred the dust and flung it in the air so that even when I realized I lost myself, I would never know where
It's not fair
It's not fair 
It's not fair that you get to live on the oceanside and I can only see it from postcards you no longer send
And I want to scream into the sand and make tornadoes out of your lies
I want to make thunder from my fists banging on my chest trying to break through my own ribs just to see if my heart will beat back
I want to make lightning bolts out of your smile just so everyone can see what the f.ck I was so shocked by
But the likelihood of me getting struck by your bolt twice is unlikely so I'll take my chances
I want to yell at every girl you slept with and convince her that I loved you
That I really loved you
And sex was your only facade to be held tight
I want to scream
I want to yell 
I want to exhaust you like air from my lungs
I want to stop inhaling hope just to exhale memories of you
I need to feel the salt in my wounds and let the sharks smell the blood you left behind
I need to let the sun bring some color back into my life
But I'm stuck here on sidewalks I don't recognize
Dancing on unfamiliar concrete watching trees struggle to grow between the cracks
Listening to city buses rumble past me taking men to new women and old women to new destinies
I'm stuck here in the city dreaming of the ocean you took from me

still

I want to tell y'all how much he hurts me.  Just little things, minor disappointments, a change in his inflection, the bass in his voice, the misdirected anger, it just hurts. But then I convince myself that there are worse things, there are worse pains, there are lying men, there are cheating men, there are thieving men.  He's not one of those men and though he doesn't shatter me into bits and pieces, he's slowly chipping away at an iceberg he acts like doesn't exist.  


I've never asked anyone to love me, I've never begged for anyone to care about me but I find myself begging for something I know all too well that he is incapable of.  He doesn't love like I do and that doesn't mean that his love is less than, it's just not enough.


Does that make me ungrateful?  Am I picky?  He doesn't even believe in unconditional love and I need unconditional love.  I require unconditional love.  I get cranky when I'm hungry and when I don't feel beautiful, everything around me feels ugly.  And I get sick a lot so I need a love without conditions because I won't be able to grow in that kind of love.  I will barely survive in that kind of empty love but that's how he loves.  I've learned that love is like an apology.  It can be sincere but you don't have to accept every single one that comes from someone else's lips.


But I love him still even when it hurts, even when I have to walk by him in the street and act like he's just another stranger with a story I'll never read.  Even when I'd rather struggle because my pride is way sweeter than a bitter favor, I love him still.  


I love him still.
I love him still.
My heart beats the very name I carry.


I love my father, even though he doesn't know how to love me.
I love him. Still.

pretty simple

day 12: tell your life story in six words


it keeps going, so will I.

me in a list

day 11: write a list poem


i'm a leo
i like long walks on the beach
and that's all bullsh.t
except the fact that i'm a leo
i fell in love with onions when i was pregnant 
just one more affair that makes me cry
i would wear leggings for the rest of my life
but they don't go well with stilettos
i say i love you when i mean it
and i keep repeating it till you believe it
i think the Bible is the greatest story ever written
kinda wish a disciple or two would borrow me for something epic 
i wonder if Jesus could walk on water, could He swim through fire
and i still believe cain loved abel 
but i know all too well that the same person to kill you will show up at your funeral and smile.

cuddling

courtesy of Twitter

I've been told that i'm a "cuddling motherf.cker" so I'm just gonna admit that I'm all about position A and F BUT sometimes fatigue gets too real and I'm D all the way.  Which one are you?

epigraphs...

Day 10 - pick a one line song lyric to serve as an epigraph to your poem.  Then, write the poem.
(I know I've done this before and I know I've done it with this particular song and I also know that I'm so over poems!)  


Adele - Someone Like You


I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it. I hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over.


Took me a minute to realize that we were not a movie
That the previews had foreshadowed nothing the ending of us had revealed
I left pieces of myself on your voicemail waiting for you to respond while I waited for you to return
Only to realize that I didn't even recognize you anymore
And that I was barely recognizable myself with puffy eyes and lips so tired of calling your name 
I really didn't want to show up at your front door that night
But I drove there by habit, muscle memory
It was the only place to go 
You were my refuge long before you became my war
But either way, I was running towards or from a battle I had no chance of winning
And I surrendered
Laid there on your front steps curled up in the last two years we shared
Hoping you would see that our memories were never better than our potential
Wondering if you could hear my dreams breaking under your tongue
I gave up in front of you
I let my guard down in front of you
I sat silently in front of you hoping that you would hear your heart remind you of someone your brain conveniently forgot
You were so done, so through, so gone but for me…
For me, it just wasn't over.

your crown

first let me say, shoutout to all the mothers in the world but this a special tribute to the moms raising black daughters.  

My grandmother and my mother always made sure my hair was done and they had to.  I had long, thick and curly hair which is all a recipe for the looking the f.ck crazy.  But nonetheless, every week I sat down and got up with bows, ribbons, elaborate designs, plaits, fish braids, twists, curls, french braids, single braids, you name it, I had it.  Now I can't tell you how much time of my life I spent with my hair getting tugged at but I appreciate that my mothers, (I meant to make mother plural) felt it fitting for a little queen like myself to wear her crown well.  Was my hair difficult to manage?  Of course, but never once did they make me feel like my hair was a burden.  Every time, they did my hair, they made it a point to make me feel beautiful.  

Now I'm raising this little woman, there are days when I certainly do not want to dedicate to three hours of taking out her hair to redo it BUT, my daughter is beautiful and doing her hair is a reminder of such.  When she looks into the mirror, I want her to know that her self esteem matters that much to me and I want her to feel comfortable with her reflection.  If I don't think she's worth putting effort into then she won't.  It is my job to teach her that she is important, that she is beautiful and that she is worth more than she can ever even imagine.

People stop us on the street often to admire her hair and though I know she's thankful that someone thinks she's pretty, she sounds very proud to say that her mommy did her hair.

taken from my iPhone

do y'all see God peeking through?

a lot of us are waiting for a miracle that already happened.