F.L.O.W. (For the Love Of Words)

I write this For the Love Of Words and to pay homage to ancient rhetoric/While I blast music from speakers that talks about sneakers and the journey from rags to riches/ All this mainstream conversation about the black man’s elation about his emancipation from slavery/ has me questioning my identity as an African Beauty in the land of free booty and technology/ higher levels of consciousness met by lower planes of selfishness cause you to doubt this/ but truth is objective so know that your mind is being tainted by the nature of this beast/ we went from chains of bondage to change that binds us but we choose to call it progress/ we evolved from beatings to beats, cheatings to cheats, and the objectification of our own beings/ we took over the whips, lowered them still, and make sure that our chrome shines bright/ like the stones in our teeth that my people bled for in order to keep the peace/ now the beat that you stole from your African soul is dubbed with foul words of intention/ brothers locked up for the crime that they did, convinced they took what was owed to them/ see, we bow our heads to the kings of crunk and thank them for giving us hip hop/ while sisters lay on their backs and surrender to this opportunistic system/ freedom lost its meaning between the struggles and the hard times so we create a better definition/ based echelons of materialism, welfare and patriotism building prisons in the shape of a prism.

I write because...

...I’m scared to talk (Which explains my mute temperament). Saying things out loud only makes things more real, too real. The problem with silence though, is that it intensifies all my other senses. But just as ink from a pen gets absorbed into paper, people get absorbed into my spirit and there they remain, in an ashen guardhouse. My own Bastille. Releasing them isn’t as easy as turning a key; it’s as painful as dissociating a limb. Even after release, a sense of them still remains and I take their place in captivity. Being my own warden doesn’t justify the torture I put myself through; it makes the punishment more discerning when I break the rules…  

Eros and Thanatos

I dream of us:

Head to chest,

Lips to nape of neck

Fingers to palm,

Eyes to heaven.

Feet to moon,

Heartbeat to heartbeat,

Breath to breath,

 Song to song.

Temperament of gods,

Love of the ancients,

Impious desire,

Mutual surrender.

Perpetual pleasure,

Futile resistance,

Spirit to flesh,
Shadow to light.

Greater Expectations

I’m searching for that place between survival and living, despair and contentment, peace and peace of mind, friendship and infinite love. I’m hovering so far below my aspirations and can’t seem to abandon inertia.

When I was younger I thought life meant waking up to the smell of mom’s designer perfume lingering in the hallway tempting me to follow her, always missing my father and thinking that my brother was the coolest person I would ever know. Although my heart still has a yawning hole made larger with every passing day I don’t see my dad, and my brother is still the coolest person I know, the smell of designer perfume is now an uncomfortable reminder that I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing love in my mother’s eyes. Everything plagues the senses that I should be grateful for.

I need to go back to the source. At 16 my daydreams were laced with ignorant desires to leave the house my parents built so I could live by my own convention, standing on a street corner in high heels and a pencil skirt hailing a cab to an unknown destination in an unfamiliar place. I failed to realize that leaving that haven would mean learning how to build my own. I’ve built a lot of walls: protection, self-preservation, pride, anger and resentment, but nothing substantial enough to save my life.

I realize these words are counterproductive and pouring proverbial salt on self-inflicted wounds. I also realize how narrow my scope seems at the moment, but it’s an honest assessment. On the flip side though, failure is not an option, my best must be better and my life must be lived…

Saturnalia

Breathe me in.

I open wider to you.

Intensity heightened

by simplicity.

We speak.

Words like honey

Stick to my form.

Capacity is reached.

Breath warm on my skin.

Temporary homeostasis.

Bold of me to state this,

Intemperance.

Darkness merges with sunlight hours

Submission ends our expedition.

Longer breaths, lighter steps.

New beginnings.

Doorways

We kiss in doorways
One of us immovable, the other ready for the magnetism
To destroy our flesh and make us simple again.

I am one of us.
The one who resides in this perpetual state of union,
When the truth is:
I am me.

I reject all notions of when we became I.
This euphoria demands the respect of both,
Is diminished by one,
Yet coveted by all.

I lean further into the doorway.
Divine animal instinct nudges me to lead you further
But bare feet and cold tile remind us that once lines are crossed
We become us only when I is ready to be.

So we go back to basics:
The simpler form of us is me.
Two less one is lesser than we.
But I less you is negative me.

The Opposite of Poet

If I were a poet, I would write you on parchment,

Place you where only God could find you,

Wait a thousand years for nature to bind you

And wait a thousand more to be born again

And revise you.

If I were poet, words would be prayers

Floating to the God that made us

Praising every flaw that shapes us

Reminding us we were made for worship

And nothing more.

If I were a poet, I would take your heartbeat

Make it palpitate inside me

Let your cadence guide me

Become one with the synergy

And create perfect symmetry.

If I were a poet, I would be a martyr

For truth and the Father

Reincarnate Ma’at in your honor

Succumb to being the least of two lovers

And become your muse.