Dead him, I'll pay for the casket

Boys will be boys until they’re ready to be men.

Hey you! Taps screen, yeah you. This is an interactive blog. Do me a favor. Get your phone, scroll down until you see my name and DELETE, DELETE, DELETE. If you just have my number stored, because you don’t want to be pressed about having my name in there, delete that too. Now, go on and scroll to all the girls that you have no intention of taking seriously. How many ya got? Three, four, fifteen? Delete them too. That was your first step into becoming a man. What does the bible say? When I was a child, I did childish things. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. Only children insist on keeping toys they don’t even play with or like anymore. Stop it and stop it right now. You are pathetic. You can no longer build a home of sticks and sand in my inbox. Stop wasting your messages and your emojis on me. The subscriber you are trying to reach is no longer available. I used to think there was no harm in ‘keeping in touch’ but the harm is that I wasn’t keeping UP. Why are we pretending to care? Why are we being cordial? Why are we wasting time sending empty texts? You could spend your time sending “Good morning beautiful” texts to the girl you really want to be with. And I’m not just saying that you don’t want to be with me because some of you have made it quite clear that you want all parts. But I’m saying, in the nicest way possible, well, I'm saying it any way possible, I don’t want you.

And why would I? You’re sitting in my inbox from your comfort zone where no effort is required. You could be doing anything while you text me. Maybe you’re in traffic, maybe you’re bored, maybe your girl is in the bathroom, whatever the case may be, sitting in my inbox only proves one thing – you’re good at multitasking. A text message is not impressive, even if it is every morning. Let me hear your voice, let me hear you smile, let me hear you laugh and show me that you want to hear the same things from me. So bye bye to all the text message boyfriends.

It has been spoken, word must become deed.

I want more and because I want more, I have to work more. I want to invest my time and energy into someone that deserves it and I want to be someone that deserves another person’s time and energy. To be quite honest, we spend a lot of time wanting a love we’re not deserving of.

You want a man that calls you, but every time he calls, you’re in Opal.
You want a man that likes you when you’re chilling with no makeup on but you always have makeup on.
You want a man to take you out to eat, but you’re entertaining men without jobs. Where pray tell will he get the money for that from?

You ever see a man put a wedding ring on a joint that’s running full speed? NO! She has to stand in one spot for him to kneel at her feet. As my good friend @_daveybaby says, “how are things going to fall into place when you’re not there to catch it? SIT.”

I spent enough time pushing love away because I wasn’t ready. Maybe it was for the best, maybe it wasn’t but whether someone leaves you or you leave them, the void is really just space for someone to love you better. And that someone may be the very person that you’re not with today, just a few years later.

Me being selective is not me being bitter. Was I disappointed? Yea. Was I unimpressed? Yea. So what? Nobody’s perfect and calling you out on it doesn’t make me bitter, it makes me honest. It’s also another way of saying I’ve been hurt before, what I was doing wasn’t working before and I need to heal, grow and move forward. It’s a sad but necessary realization that if you’re not cutting it, you need to get cut.

It’s time to be the men/women who can leave their phone on the nightstand facing up because there’s no worry about who might be texting you something crazy in the middle of the night. The only game I want to play is spades, cards face up, all TRUST.

If my husband is reading this, babe, you got nothing to worry about. I don’t even need a password on my phone.

Hi Me. I'm sorry.

When's the last time you apologized to yourself?
Sometimes we put ourselves through our own agony
Sometimes we victimize ourselves and try to act like we didn't build our own crime scene
Don't act like you haven't slit your own wrists before
I saw you swallow an entire bottle of pills one day
Maybe you should have let him kill you instead because suicide is shameful from what I hear
No one to persecute
No one to pay
No justice to serve
I mean, I know we all cry sometimes
But some of us are squeezing out our own tears and blaming a man who doesn't even know what our tears look like
I'll tell you something
He could never do me worse than I've done myself
Cheating myself into settling
Quieting my own intuition 
I'll tell you who should get slapped
Me
I should slap myself 
And you should slap yourself too
Till you're blue in the face
Till you have nobody to blame but yourself
That man may have broken your heart but you gave it to him
It's not that he didn't love you enough
It's that YOU didn't love YOU enough
And so we're sitting here thinking n.ggas aint sh.t
But ain't we a direct reflection of the people we love?
So girl, we ain't sh.t either.

Sometimes writing means not writing at all

Ahhhhhh!!!! The book is coming. Until then, when I feel like pulling my hair out, I just take pictures. ❤

Every now & then, I give her some props

We've grown up together.
I was an A cup when I met her.  I'm a solid C now.
POW!

Under Construction

Brick by brick
You know you build up a pretty big bridge
Now don’t you tell me SOMETHING
All over again

Caution here
Now I’m scared I may just hit my head
You’re taking me step by step
I’m falling again

You got me under construction

Walls
Wall by wall
You felt this home barely hanging at all
But I know you won’t let me fall
All over again

Now by now
I hear you pushing, you pushing me well
You know when I’m going through hell
You feel me again

You got me under construction

Because this song pretty much wraps up my entire relationship.  I love him and hate him all at once for this.

Hand me downs

I still have the bruises from our last encounter
but it's your awkward hellos that leave the most scars
I wonder if she can hear my voice when she rests her head on your pillows
Or if she uses my shampoo when she stands in your shower
Hair dripping wet with the confessions you haven't made yet
Have you told her that you had to push me out of your mind because I had made a home there?
Or did you just tell her that I was crazy?
And that sometimes I call because I have nothing better to do? 
No
No
No 
No
Is that your favorite word still?
I wonder, if my dress will fit her...
No not the dress I left, the wedding dress
The gown I was supposed to wear when I met you at the altar
Tell her that her ring is a hand ME down
From the HAND of ME...DOWN a notch...
And don't forget to tell her that your best friend doesn't require you to be a better man
"Babe, be quiet. You can't talk if your mouth is full. Come here."
So you fed me charm, pillow talk and lust
And I still starved

The Deadline Has Been Set

The book is coming.
Hold me responsible.

A little humor...

I didn't make the rules.  I just make sure I'm the exception.

I have never been single

I have never been single
Never
I can't remember a time where I wasn't loving someone or blessed enough to have someone love me
And though you may say loving someone doesn't equal a relationship
Think deeper
Pause longer
As your heart ties itself to the beat of another, are we not in a relationship?
If we pray for the peace of one another in the midst of war within ourselves, are we not in a relationship?
If I am pulling at the shoestrings of your heart like the waves to the moon, tell me are we not tide (tied) up in one another?
I wonder if all of this love has exhausted me
If all of my borrowed ribs have created too much clutter to give my heart some wiggle room
Is that not a sign of eternal partnership? emotional longevity? and all other things too righteous to be my own as an individual?


God, I wonder if trees get lonely sometimes
They never mate or move from their spot but they bloom the brightest


Is that a sign for me to dig firmly through the dirt for a little spot to call my own, sprout my leaves and then outstretch my branches to the clear blue sky, like "here I am God, doing bad all by myself!"


Too bad, I want conversation
and too bad I want to intertwine with someone's else branches and feel the wind blow beneath us both so softly that only our hearts can hear the secret


Am I less of a woman for wanting more?
For blooming under the son (sun) of a mother I have never met?
Tell me, if I'm less than for giving more than my share?


I have never been single and somehow, sharing myself has only made me more complete

Does she do it...?

It’s safe to say you are a revolving door with skin like moonshine

I'm drunk going in circles

Detoured from my original destination of happiness and ended up on a highway of contentment

I swam in the tears of your lost dimples and got tired there

Rested my head there

Lifted my feet to the sun in homage as if to say, shine on me, I'm wide open

I guess my horizon wasn’t wide enough for you

Maybe your feet couldn’t carry you through the tunnels of me

Maybe my pyramids were a bit too Egypt for you

You always liked sky scrapers

And I never thought a building was beautiful enough to introduce itself to the clouds

How I can’t stand a man who lacks humility is how you can’t stand a woman with power

I should have taken my own advice

Even kings bleed water sometime and even queens give birth to people who are not worthy of her the throne

I wish your mother hugged you more often so that my arms didn’t feel like barbed wire to you

And I would hope that in your next lifetime your father will show you how to be a husband instead of just a hammer wielding man

I even pray that your smile is a language I won’t be understand because falling in love with you again will make me a master of linguistics but not a wife

I want to ask you

For all the women begging at your feet

Their knees dirty with desperation

I want to know if she prays for you while she is down there

If when she looks up at you, does she see God or just another man waiting to come

Tell me, do her eyes light up a room for you?

Snap the embers of her soul on fire and light fresh flames around your bed

Does her nose smell you in her dreams?

Do her hands carve strength into your back?

And are your tattoos drawn into her notebook as a reminder that some men are willing to scribble on what’s already perfect?

Show me someone who needs more than love and I’ll show you someone who will never find it

Because there is nothing greater than to love the skin of a man you did not know before yesterday

I find that too many women are haunted by the flesh

And your new girlfriend is one of them

Will she still love you when you can’t f.ck her anymore?

When your bones turn to dust and your smile crumples like chocolate chip cookies in the corner of a child’s mouth

When your knees buckle under the pressure of the Earth

When you stop looking like a King and start acting like one

Acting like the mortal you are

Acting like the mistakes you’ve made

Acting

Acting

Acting

Because nothing is real without love to make it so

The Fracture

Once upon a time, there was treasure in her smile.  Pots of gold in her veins and rainbows in the nape of her neck.  Between her legs, diamonds sprinkled out from the fountain of her virtue.  Who knew true love could be so visual?  Painted like clouds in the sky saying hello to the sun.  He found her sitting on a stoop, more beautiful than anything else on that block.  She wore poverty like it was couture.  She spoke ebonics like it was a romance language and somehow the hood did not leave cracks in her foundation like it had done to its pavements. 

“Excuse me, do you know which way Broad street is?

“Well, hello to you too,” Chrissy replied brazenly.  She did not like rude people nor did she help them.

“My bad, good afternoon,” he spoke as he reached out his hand.  “I’m Jamie and you are?”

“I’m the person who may or may not tell you which way Broad street is, otherwise known as Chrissy.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well.  Just go up two more blocks and you’ll hit Broad street.” 

Chrissy scanned him from head to toe as their hands shook.  His suit was tailored, his fingernails were clean and he looked as if he just stepped out of the barber’s chair. But he didn’t know where he was which meant he wasn’t from there.  She knew all too well that lost men were the most dangerous kind.  As he thanked her and continued up the street, she watched him get smaller and smaller as he got farther away.   Something inside told her that she would see him again and catching her reflection in a passing car, her smile told her that she wanted to.

The mix

From my earlier works, writing something like this is not my preference. The mixxy world, in my opinion should never receive more praise than examination. With each and every day that passes, it is more and more evident that my peers are absolutely delusional. I can say that because once upon a time, I was delusional as well. It takes one to know one. I’m not judging you but I am pressing you and you know exactly who you are. People often call the “in crowd” the college graduates in New York City. (I’m only focusing on graduates because the mix is cute when you’re in undergrad. If you still have credits, live your life, enjoy and learn. For now, you are spared.) The “in crowd” consists of those who are easily and most often recognizable by people THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW! Now how does one get such acclaim? There are several different ways and it is WHY you’re known that makes all the difference.
1. You’re Greek. It comes with the territory. In order to represent an organization, you have to reach out to an audience.
2. You were involved in plenty of things on campus because you genuinely have a great personality. Those two go hand in hand because there are tons of people that help run campus life but most of us can only recall a select few.
3. You throw/host events. That is self explanatory.
4. You’re following your dreams. You have a clothing line, a blog, you sing – anything that requires the general population to know you and like you because your livelihood depends on it.
5. You’re loose. Be it a man or a female. If you’re the joint that’s always drunk amongst a group of men that are conveniently your “brothers,” we see you ma. If you’re the guy who’s in the inbox of ALL my homegirls, we see you bruh.
6. You put your entire life on twitter. Your timeline knows how many tattoos you have, what’s your technique when it comes to giving Becky and why you and your man are not speaking this week. You retweet all the people you don’t know and then tweet to get to know them. You can’t wait to meet them in real life so you can justifiably call them a “friend.” You advertise your “friendships” with a thousand pictures, tweets, and tweegrams, i.e. “Look how much we love each other! Xoxo [but I met him/her last week]”

I'm sure there are more ways to become ‘known’ or mixxy but these are the most common. Notice I said, known OR mixxy. There is a distinct difference. You can be known without being mixxy but you can’t be mixxy without being known. For instance, I know a lot of people. Sometimes we catch up at an event or make a joke with each other on twitter but that’s where the party stops! I have a social life and a personal life and while they do cross over sometimes [especially if you date a person just like you], it’s up to me to create the distance. It’s also up to YOU. Why does everybody at the BBQ have your phone number? In your two days of “friendship,” what do y’all have to talk about? You don’t have enough to juggle on your plate? You don’t have enough friends in your SMS? What is the reason? You’re pressed. That’s it. You’re mixxy and you’re pressed. If you’re Greek and/or you throw/host events, or you’re following your dreams, you might actually need the [essential] phone numbers because you need the support. But everybody else, you’re wasting your minutes and your time. It seems cute when people say, “Yeah I know “Ms/Mr Mixxy!” But why do you know Ms/Mr Mixxy? The reason people know you will always be more important than people actually knowing you. From my own experience, I’ve been known for four things -1. My writing 2. My involvement on my campus 3. Who I’ve dated and 4. Who I’ve gotten into some kind of altercation with? Lucky for me, my name is unique so people generally don’t have to get into details when describing me BUT nonetheless they do. Those four attributes say a lot about me. I am proud of where my writing has taken me. I am honored to have served my alma mater. Even though the men I dated weren’t perfect, they were perfect for who I was at the time we were dating. Whoever I’ve gotten into an altercation with, I’ve handled. Sometimes I wasn’t ladylike, but the message is clear, I am NOT to be f.cked with. I can live with those connotations about myself. Has there been some false information that has slithered itself under my name and into my carfax? Yes I’ve heard, but I'm not worried because my truth has always been more interesting than someone else’s fiction.
The next time someone claims that they know you before you’ve ever even met, do yourself a favor and ask why? You have a right to know what your reputation looks like. If you’re not proud of their response, then you will most certainly be humbled. Everybody can be popular, everybody can be mixxy but not everybody can be respected. Some people don’t really get to choose if they’re popular or not, sometimes it just happens. But being mixxy is a choice and it’s a responsibility. A lot of ya’ll are taking the former and not the latter. When it comes to knowing a lot of people, it also requires knowing politics and being diplomatic. Popular people {politicians, celebrities, athletes, your neighborhood blogger] understand this, mixxy people do not. When I walk into an event, I have to remember every single face, every connection, and every meeting we’ve had in the past [but I can’t tell you what I wore yesterday]. In fact, picking which events I go to is a week long struggle. I know that I’m going to show support to the host because I genuinely care about them but everybody else doesn’t know that. Some people just love to talk and please believe when you walk into a place to support someone you hardly mention, people will ask, “What is she/he doing here?” Just because we don’t have a profile picture together doesn’t mean we’re not friends. Anyway, why do I have to remember every face and connection? Because that determines my next move. That determines whether or not, we say hi and bye or we’ll actually have a full conversation. By the time you’ve noticed I’ve walked through the door, I’ve been staring at you for at least five minutes. It also reinforces which connections I can make and which ones I can’t. If I’ve heard about your becky from one or more of my guy friends, I’ll be cordial to you mamita, but we will not be friends. We’re not the same kind, we’re not the same caliber. We’re in the same place but we’re not sitting at the same table. If I remember your face from Facebook because my homegirl showed me that you are the one her boyfriend was cheating on her with, I got nothing for you either. You may be a very nice girl and he may have been lying to you too, but the last thing I need is my BFF questioning our friendship if I’m seen in a picture laughing it up with you. Don’t act like ya’ll haven’t been caught out there on twitter/instagram before. The trick to knowing a lot of people is to not really know them because there will come a time when your loyalty will be tested and no one should ever be confused as to which side you are on. Popular people know how to create distance without hostility, mixxy people do not. Popular people know how to keep their mouth shut, even about trivial information, mixxy people do not. For instance, if me and one of my best friends are not on speaking terms, no one should know. At no point should anyone ask me, why am I not talking to so and so? That means someone opened their mouth, violated my space and my privacy and now I have to find my way around that question without defaming someone I care about even though I'm mad at them. That’s not an easy task. People ask me all the time about my friends, my response is always the same, no matter who you are – “you are not looking for someone if you have not called/texted them.” Now she could very well be on her way, but that’s no one’s business but hers. It may seem like trivial information at the moment, but if I give the wrong answer or too much information, that could lead to trouble in the future. Popular people think about the future, mixxy people think about themselves.
Being in the mix can be fun. That’s why they have undergrad. But we’re older now and we’re trying to have serious relationships, settle down and begin our careers. That can’t be done when you’re at every function spending money instead of making it. If you don’t value yourself as a brand, as a man and as a woman, then as your “friend,” how can I believe that you value me? For the people that act a fool and claim they don’t care what anyone says, you must not know what they’re saying. You don’t know who you are destined to become. What may be a ratchet tweet now can be a press conference later. Your name is all you have and that includes your twitter one. I will never regret my younger years because it brought me my readers, my supporters and some genuinely good friends, but the mix can take all of that away too. You are who you associate yourself with and you’re supposed to become whoever you pray to. Stop idolizing the mix. Stop praising these people. Stop carrying a cross that was never meant for you. As a woman who’s served her time in the mix, I dare you to take a seat. You’re more attractive when you hold it down.

Sustaining within the Universe

I tried to give you the world
Built constellations in the palm of your hands
Sketched the evening sky on the arches of your back
I anticipated you like the sunrise after a rainy night
I poured with loving you
Flooded the valleys of myself with your name
I became a combustion of love
I literally exploded with the potential to become a part of you
Even felt incomplete with you
As if in a sky full of stars, the moon notices when one doesn't show up for work
But you couldn't notice me in a room full of people
How can a man not smell the woman that smells like his own flesh?
We are unfamiliar, two planets rotating on an axis neither really belongs to
And maybe one day we'll crash into each other and they'll call it love
One day
Any day
Just not today

Honor thy mother and thy father

I wanted to know what would make me a woman.  Was it having a boyfriend?  Was it having a child?  Was it having a job?  I wondered, what would make me FEEL like a woman.  And I found that on my search to my womanhood, I took a lot of missteps.  I filled in too many voids with empty men.  I shed too many tears into rushing waters.  I took less than I deserved at jobs that only ended up working me instead.  


I wanted to know what would make me a woman and I discovered that being a woman first meant being an adult.  An adult makes the conscious decision to take care of their family, first beginning with their mother and father.  An adult recognizes that home must be taken care of at any cost. The 10 commandments only reference two beings - God and thy parents.   It is not until you understand the magnitude of honoring thy mother and father can you be considered an adult.  That is the true right of passage.  This is not to say pay all of their bills or go over and clean their house - this is telling you to kneel and the foot of your parents' crosses.


I was not ready to be a wife until I was ready to be a daughter first.  I could not prepare a meal for a man until I watched my father sit at the head of his table and prepare a meal for him from the rewards of his work.  I could not trust a female friend until I learned to trust my mother's instincts.  I could not forgive another human being until I first forgave my parents.  I was no good to anyone until I was good to them.  That often times means missing out on quality times with friends and significant others.  That often times means doing something they enjoy that I necessarily do not.  But if my parents could work for my whole life, then I must know that I will not have enough time of my own to repay them.  No parent is perfect but the sacrifice is the closest thing to perfection we have on Earth.  


There were times we did not speak in which now, I wish we did.  There were times when we were angry in which now I wish we weren't so destructive.  There were times we spent apart to spend time with other people and now when I look around, those people are not even there.  You owe it to your own reflection to be a better human being than your mother and father.  You owe it to your God to honor and obey as He sees fit.  You owe it to your children to teach them how to care for you by caring for your own parents.  


I say this to you, as God once did, HONOR THY MOTHER AND FATHER, even if your father puts you on a cross and your mother weeps at the base of it.

I had to teach my daughter ...

I had to teach my daughter to pray
Being her mother would not be enough
I had to be the God in her
I stood over her as she prayed calling the names of our ancestors, not even understanding her own lineage
I had to teach her that there was gold in her blood, there were diamonds in her eyes and that she was born with silk as her skin
I had to teach my daughter how to pray
How to thank God and still seek him for more
How to ask for balance and focus at six years old because this is when she will need it the least but learn it the fastest
I had to tell her to save her tears for the men and the women she can’t get back instead of the toys most children don’t even have
I had to stop being her mother for a second and let God take care of her
I had to be her witness instead
I had to be her soldier instead
I had to be her friend instead
I had to teach my daughter how to pray
Because being a mother isn’t always enough
Because my superpowers wear out sometimes
Because when she cries, I cry too
Because God has always been a better parent
And even though I’m her mother, I’m still HIS child
Sometimes I had to take a step back and go to work
She is my job
It is my duty to raise a kind, compassionate and courteous human being
It is my job to light up her path with skittles the color of the sun
It is my job to introduce her to the water of womanhood, nourish her soul with it and carry her until she can swim in it without losing her breath
I had to teach my daughter to pray
And as it required, I had to pray too.

Five months coming...

Readers!!!!!
I love you, first and foremost. I took the last five months to learn some things. I had some growing to do. I had some loving to do. It was hard y’all, really hard. You ever had to love someone you hated? Have you ever had to be kind anyway? Tell the truth anyway? Live, when you were ready to die anyway? There were some days I woke up, with pain so real, I was crying in my sleep. Agony can torture even your bones. I found myself making the ultimate sacrifices for just the possibility of things getting better or time slowing down. It got to the point where standing still felt awkward for me. Crying was normal. I cried every single day for four months. You think I would have felt purged but I just felt heavier.
I was begging God to hear me. In fact, I got real bold and banged on his front door. And if you know anything about God’s front door, it’s just your soul. I literally had to open myself up and bang on my insides, tear down the miscellaneous items, take the pictures of once lovers down, refurnish the home inside my head and stop picking at my own scars. A huge part of me died in those four months and I didn’t even bother going to my own funeral. There was more life to be had.
I say all this to say, you missed me and I don’t know how to express the gratitude I have for that. I grew up and you noticed. How kind of you. So many of you ask me about my book and I’m dumbfounded every time that you care so much. You have showed me what heaven feels like. You love me when I have nothing left to love.
You make the world turn and you remind me that no matter the weather, the moon is never late to greet the sun. The tides always bend under their love affair, they make room in a sky too small for them to be in the same place at the same time but too big for them to ever wander the universe without one another. You, the readers, the listeners, the admirers, the fans, the visitors, give artists the very breath it takes to make smoke out of love. You make me and what I do tangible. You are the reason I matter and that my friends, is the true art.
My humble apologies for being gone so long and my deepest sincerity upon my return.