I love you
I opened myself to you
and gave you my love
I gave you:
Me
I gave you my smile
Every heart beat that my heart made
I offered up as a gift to you
The song of my soul became yours
I gave you the brown of my eyes:
both the dark brown when I'm angry
and the light brown when the sun kisses them
I gave you the warmth of my skin beneath cold fingers
I gave you hot kisses and smoldering embraces
But that didn't seem to be enough
So I gave you my joy:
I stopped my fingers from writing and I stopped my eyes from reading and I took only joy in giving you my joy
I stopped singing loudly to country music and only opened my mouth to sing your praises
but that didn't seem to be enough
So I gave you my happiness
I stopped spending time in bookstores and libraries and I gave you my time
I stopped seeing my friends and stayed with you
I spent time at home, alone, so that you would know where I was
I gave up my womb to you,
I closed it down because you don't like children
I gave up the laughter of my unborn children for your comfort
but that didn't seem enough
So I gave up my meals
I spent my time hugging my toilet, offering up my insides so that I would look like the women you talk to online when you think I'm not looking
I began to run in circles, running the fat away, running the weight away, so that you can feel my bones when we embrace
You love my bones, you love my fatless frame
But that didn't seem to be enough
So I gave you my sanity
I spend hours upon hours obsessing over who you are talking to
Who are you spending time with
Who is lying beneath you when I am not lying beneath you
Who do you give yourself to
Who are you giving ME to,
because you have me, completely
I no longer have anything, not even myself
I spend my time crying, sobbing, upset, alone,
and lonely
so lonely
so very very lonely
but that doesn't seem to be enough
So I will give you my life.
I sit here with the gun in my mouth.
There is one bullet in the chamber.
I will pull the trigger and give you the only thing I have left.
Maybe my blood, my lifeless form will be enough.
I have nothing left to give.
Why wasn't my love enough?
***What else can you give when you've given your all?***
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Might As Well Say It Part 9: The Dire State of Music
Listening to the radio pisses me off:
You hear the same beats (slight variations) and the same rappers (all 4 of them) and the same singers (all 3 of them) and the same things being repeated over and over again (I have so much money! I buy so many cars/jewelry/houses/hoes! Girls like me! Guys hate me! I hate my boyfriend! I love my life! I smoke weed! I have haters! etc)...
What happened to good music? What happened to hearing a song that moves you? Makes you nod your head or even say: "damn! that motherfucker knows just how I feel!"
What happened to music that makes you want to download it immediately (legally) or run out and **gasp!** BUY THE CD?
The answer is: that music doesn't exist mainstream anymore. Every once in a while, somebody breaks out with something awesome that touches you (think: Lady Antebellum, Melanie Fiona, 1 song off od Beyonce's album), but mostly, you get the same recycled crap over and over again. Yes, the beat is catchy and yes, the singer usually sounds acceptable, but what happened to feeling the MESSAGE, not just the beat?
I'm not putting all musicians and artists in the same bucket, because that would be unfair, but its hard for music lovers like myself to want to support some of these artists who have gone after "marketable" instead of "real".
To get real music, you have to buy a mixtape or go underground and find the artists who have yet to be discovered who are holding true to their art form. When you hear Justin Bieber's youtube videos or Lady Antebellum's early youtube stuff, you close your eyes and enjoy every part of it: voices, music, the raw talent they display. Then you go out and buy an album and you get something different: something commercialized. But if you go back and see some Erykah Badu (who almost never changes) and Meshell Ndegeocello, whose music still moves your heart, stimulates your mind and pulls at your pockets, you have hope.
But underground is where it is now. When you hear Raheem Devaughn's albums, you like him, when you cop his mixtapes, you love him. The same for Wale and Eminem and a host of others who "commercialize" for their labels but express themselves in their mixtapes for their fans.
Then you hear some of the new artists, like Legend and Kool Robb out of DMV and you have hope for the future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF4a0bjkUDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKuIee1S7SA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmR42BZGDI
It will give my heart (and ears) great joy to hear some GOOD music on the radio...Most of what you hear now (MOST, not ALL) SUCKS.
It had to be said. The truth, the whole and nuttin but...
Stay tuned.
You hear the same beats (slight variations) and the same rappers (all 4 of them) and the same singers (all 3 of them) and the same things being repeated over and over again (I have so much money! I buy so many cars/jewelry/houses/hoes! Girls like me! Guys hate me! I hate my boyfriend! I love my life! I smoke weed! I have haters! etc)...
What happened to good music? What happened to hearing a song that moves you? Makes you nod your head or even say: "damn! that motherfucker knows just how I feel!"
What happened to music that makes you want to download it immediately (legally) or run out and **gasp!** BUY THE CD?
The answer is: that music doesn't exist mainstream anymore. Every once in a while, somebody breaks out with something awesome that touches you (think: Lady Antebellum, Melanie Fiona, 1 song off od Beyonce's album), but mostly, you get the same recycled crap over and over again. Yes, the beat is catchy and yes, the singer usually sounds acceptable, but what happened to feeling the MESSAGE, not just the beat?
I'm not putting all musicians and artists in the same bucket, because that would be unfair, but its hard for music lovers like myself to want to support some of these artists who have gone after "marketable" instead of "real".
To get real music, you have to buy a mixtape or go underground and find the artists who have yet to be discovered who are holding true to their art form. When you hear Justin Bieber's youtube videos or Lady Antebellum's early youtube stuff, you close your eyes and enjoy every part of it: voices, music, the raw talent they display. Then you go out and buy an album and you get something different: something commercialized. But if you go back and see some Erykah Badu (who almost never changes) and Meshell Ndegeocello, whose music still moves your heart, stimulates your mind and pulls at your pockets, you have hope.
But underground is where it is now. When you hear Raheem Devaughn's albums, you like him, when you cop his mixtapes, you love him. The same for Wale and Eminem and a host of others who "commercialize" for their labels but express themselves in their mixtapes for their fans.
Then you hear some of the new artists, like Legend and Kool Robb out of DMV and you have hope for the future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF4a0bjkUDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKuIee1S7SA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmR42BZGDI
It will give my heart (and ears) great joy to hear some GOOD music on the radio...Most of what you hear now (MOST, not ALL) SUCKS.
It had to be said. The truth, the whole and nuttin but...
Stay tuned.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Random Acts of Poetry: The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants
To stop loving you is like telling my lungs to stop breathing
I can hold my breath for 20 secs
30 secs
60 secs
Or more
But at some point,
My lungs will stop listening to my brain
And do what they were made to do
And inhale and exhale again
I’ve tried
Its not possible
Everytime I pull my mind away from you
It goes right back
I talk to you there
In my mind
We have the most interesting conversations
Your arms hold me tight
And you kiss that spot on my neck that I like so much
And I sigh
And indulge myself in that love
I want to stop loving you
But my heart won't let me
My heart wants what it wants
Too bad it wants what it can't have
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Might As Well Say It Part 8: The Idiocy Called Hood Loyalty
While scrolling through my timeline and on my news feed, I see so many things that irritate me. One thing that tends to spill off of my online life and infiltrates my everyday existence is "hood loyalty". In my workplace, I see and hear so many things that deeply disturb me and tend to make me try to "get to the bottom of it".
Every single day, I see/hear people expressing the belief: "We all we got." "Ima rep my hood to the fullest." and similar stupid phrases that lets everyone else around them know that they believe that their hood is the greatest, strongest, most fearsome place on earth. They also seem to believe that the sun rises and sets on their "hood" and that the people in said "hood" share their same beliefs. Also, they tend to see people that leave the "hood" and do not return as traitors who have committed the unspeakable act of being "fake" or not "real".
Someone out there can explain this craziness to me, I'm sure, but it wouldn't make sense. So here is my public service announcement to all these hood fools:
1. Your hood is about 6-10 blocks of houses, apartments, schools, streets, etc. It is NOT the most important place on earth. It actually makes up so small of an area that it could be eviscerated and no one would notice or care. There is an entire world outside of your hood that continues to move, expand, and progress, even though you choose to stay the same (i.e. stay REAL)
2. Your hood probably consists of a mixture of welfare recipients who live in public housing and old people who bought their homes before it was overrun by fools like you. What this means is that there are a population of indigent people who live in your area and the older, retired people would leave if they had the means to. No one of importance will move to your area because you live there and they don't want the mentality that has poisoned you and your friends to poison their families and children. And because you live there and no people of importance (people with real jobs and money) will move there, your hood will always live in poverty as there are not enough citizens with the means to raise the bar of the neighborhood.
3. Your hood is an area that will always attract unsavory characters because they know that you will welcome them. While it may seem "cool" to brag about how rough your neighborhood is and how "hard" you and your friends "go", when it comes time to raise your children there, they will be subjected to the drug dealers, child molesters and gang bangers that you have welcomed to your area by praising their criminal ways. your children will not be able to walk home by themselves without the risk of abduction, molestation, robbery or violence. Or if they CAN make it home safely, they will see illegal activities on every corner and believe that this behavior is acceptable. Do you want your child to aspire to be a doctor, lawyer, architect or engineer? Or did you want them to aspire to be a babymama or a drug kingpin?
4. Your hood will always be just that: a hood. It will be a rundown area that everyone else avoids like the plague while you call it "home" and think its cute to brag about how unsafe it is. It will never be the community of people that help each other and uplift each other because people like you deem it acceptable to rob, steal, kill and otherwise keep each other downtrodden. People who take pride in their neighborhoods do not refer to them as "hoods" and they keep watch out for each other. They call the police at the first sign of trouble and they take strides to keep their neighborhoods safe. If they see you coming, they shut their gates and interview you to make sure you deserve to live amongst them. This is not profiling, this is keeping their people, their children and the place they choose to live safe.
5. The people in your hood are not loyal to you. They are not even loyal to themselves. They pretend to be "all about their hood" and they say that you are family, but they do not want what's best for you. Think about it: do people that love you encourage you to do bad things? Do they turn a blind eye while you endanger yourself? Do they allow you to make decisions that will ruin your life? Or do they encourage you to do better? to BE better? Every parent will tell you that they want their children to have a better life than what they had. Why wouldn't your hood family want the same for you?
6. You are loyal to a place that is not yours. Chances are, you don't own your house. You don't own any property. More than likely, you live with your parents or a relative that rents their home or gets a voucher from the government for their housing. Which means that this "hood" you are so loyal to belongs to someone else who would not DARE live there. But they WILL take your money and let you kill each other there. And the people who actually OWN their houses HATE the fact that you live there. I'm sure they would exterminate you like roaches if they could. Your mere presence brings down the value of their house and makes the area unsafe for their families. Wouldn't you get rid of something that was hurting your livelihood? your child? your family?
We as a people tend to latch on to what everyone else does and thinks, without taking time to have a mind of our own. We blindly follow whoever talks the loudest, no matter what they say. You hear on the radio that this gangbanging lifestyle is awesome and that hood loyalty trumps all. And you hear this from a rapper who gets paid to tell you these things while they live in their mansions in their gated communities as far from the "hood" as they can get. Matter of fact, they probably call security when they see you coming. They feed you an image and you break your neck to uphold that image. you hurt yourselves, your families and your children to uphold it. I bet you never ask yourself why.
Do better people. If you don't know how, ask somebody who DOESN'T live in those 10 blocks with you.
It had to be said.
The truth, the whole and nuttin but.
Every single day, I see/hear people expressing the belief: "We all we got." "Ima rep my hood to the fullest." and similar stupid phrases that lets everyone else around them know that they believe that their hood is the greatest, strongest, most fearsome place on earth. They also seem to believe that the sun rises and sets on their "hood" and that the people in said "hood" share their same beliefs. Also, they tend to see people that leave the "hood" and do not return as traitors who have committed the unspeakable act of being "fake" or not "real".
Someone out there can explain this craziness to me, I'm sure, but it wouldn't make sense. So here is my public service announcement to all these hood fools:
1. Your hood is about 6-10 blocks of houses, apartments, schools, streets, etc. It is NOT the most important place on earth. It actually makes up so small of an area that it could be eviscerated and no one would notice or care. There is an entire world outside of your hood that continues to move, expand, and progress, even though you choose to stay the same (i.e. stay REAL)
2. Your hood probably consists of a mixture of welfare recipients who live in public housing and old people who bought their homes before it was overrun by fools like you. What this means is that there are a population of indigent people who live in your area and the older, retired people would leave if they had the means to. No one of importance will move to your area because you live there and they don't want the mentality that has poisoned you and your friends to poison their families and children. And because you live there and no people of importance (people with real jobs and money) will move there, your hood will always live in poverty as there are not enough citizens with the means to raise the bar of the neighborhood.
3. Your hood is an area that will always attract unsavory characters because they know that you will welcome them. While it may seem "cool" to brag about how rough your neighborhood is and how "hard" you and your friends "go", when it comes time to raise your children there, they will be subjected to the drug dealers, child molesters and gang bangers that you have welcomed to your area by praising their criminal ways. your children will not be able to walk home by themselves without the risk of abduction, molestation, robbery or violence. Or if they CAN make it home safely, they will see illegal activities on every corner and believe that this behavior is acceptable. Do you want your child to aspire to be a doctor, lawyer, architect or engineer? Or did you want them to aspire to be a babymama or a drug kingpin?
4. Your hood will always be just that: a hood. It will be a rundown area that everyone else avoids like the plague while you call it "home" and think its cute to brag about how unsafe it is. It will never be the community of people that help each other and uplift each other because people like you deem it acceptable to rob, steal, kill and otherwise keep each other downtrodden. People who take pride in their neighborhoods do not refer to them as "hoods" and they keep watch out for each other. They call the police at the first sign of trouble and they take strides to keep their neighborhoods safe. If they see you coming, they shut their gates and interview you to make sure you deserve to live amongst them. This is not profiling, this is keeping their people, their children and the place they choose to live safe.
5. The people in your hood are not loyal to you. They are not even loyal to themselves. They pretend to be "all about their hood" and they say that you are family, but they do not want what's best for you. Think about it: do people that love you encourage you to do bad things? Do they turn a blind eye while you endanger yourself? Do they allow you to make decisions that will ruin your life? Or do they encourage you to do better? to BE better? Every parent will tell you that they want their children to have a better life than what they had. Why wouldn't your hood family want the same for you?
6. You are loyal to a place that is not yours. Chances are, you don't own your house. You don't own any property. More than likely, you live with your parents or a relative that rents their home or gets a voucher from the government for their housing. Which means that this "hood" you are so loyal to belongs to someone else who would not DARE live there. But they WILL take your money and let you kill each other there. And the people who actually OWN their houses HATE the fact that you live there. I'm sure they would exterminate you like roaches if they could. Your mere presence brings down the value of their house and makes the area unsafe for their families. Wouldn't you get rid of something that was hurting your livelihood? your child? your family?
We as a people tend to latch on to what everyone else does and thinks, without taking time to have a mind of our own. We blindly follow whoever talks the loudest, no matter what they say. You hear on the radio that this gangbanging lifestyle is awesome and that hood loyalty trumps all. And you hear this from a rapper who gets paid to tell you these things while they live in their mansions in their gated communities as far from the "hood" as they can get. Matter of fact, they probably call security when they see you coming. They feed you an image and you break your neck to uphold that image. you hurt yourselves, your families and your children to uphold it. I bet you never ask yourself why.
Do better people. If you don't know how, ask somebody who DOESN'T live in those 10 blocks with you.
It had to be said.
The truth, the whole and nuttin but.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Random Acts of Poetry: Not Forgiven
There is not a day that goes by
That I do not think of the pain
That I cannot see her face
I can’t make it go away
It’s on my mind when I first open my eyes
And it’s there all day long
Just like my favorite song
But the lyrics are all wrong
I try to rewrite them
trying to do anything that will mean that
you did not do
what i know you did
I know I told u I forgive u,
I just can’t seem to forget
even though I tried to move past it
The pain isn’t done with me yet
It follows me
prodding me
constantly with me
not letting me breathe
without blood in my lungs
my heart bleeds
I keep on crying until I think I’ve run out of tears
But I get no relief,
I can’t even sleep
I guess you’re not forgiven
It’s to the point that
I can’t even look at you
cuz when your arms are around me
I smell her perfume
and the kiss that I thought
belonged to only me
has me wondering
if it made her weak
Did her knees shake like mine do
when your lips touched her skin?
I don’t know what I was thinking by allowing you to stay
Cuz if u could do that to me, then there’s nothing to throw away
How can I move on,
when all I can see,
is your hands on her skin?
How can we ever start again?
where could we begin?
with your arms around her?
with your tongue in her mouth?
with your hips between her legs?
How can I erase that image from my memory?
I can’t erase my memories, so ur not forgiven
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Random Acts of Poetry: The Darkness
Into the darkness I go
Sometimes the light is too bright for me
It doesn’t match my demeanor
It doesn’t match what I feel inside
My blood runs black
My heart beats without moving
My eyes cry without tears
I am a never-ending fountain of pain
I retreat to my corner
I pull my knees to my chest
My head on my lap
My arms to encircle me
And I embrace my darkness
The blackness that surrounds me warms me
It comforts me
Let’s me know that it’s ok that I need it
That it’s ok for me to stay a while
I stay still and quiet
I don’t move
I don’t breathe
I don’t think
I just am
Nothing permeates my shell
I am at home in the dark
At some point
The darkness lifts and the sunlight touches my face
And I welcome it
This one was a bad one, and I welcome the light
I get to live here
In the light
For a while
Until I feel the heaviness again
Until I see the shadows creeping at the corner of my eyes
Then back into the darkness I go
Maybe the next time it will take me
And keep me
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