being with beauty - Princess

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8.14.14

my body is at work

my mind is in Ferguson

my heart is under my shoe -- between her teeth

my body is at work

my mind is on standby

my heart is in fragments echoing different voices off the walls of

my body is in Ferguson -- tear gas and rubber bullets

my mind is with the children unlearning the Constitution

my heart is in the half written poems I can’t sew together

my body hangs by a belt

shares the same three wishes in my skin as the Genie I grew up with

my mind is heat-seeking safe & familiar

my heart knows those places don’t exist for my people from the sun

my body is onstage for as long as I can breathe

my mind is in the hands of a woman who can’t believe I’m still alive

my heart cries because I don’t get to make that decision

my body is at work

choking on the stares of old white men

my mind hears them thirst and salivate for everything but

my heart is in the streets – people weary of feet

losing family to concrete and tin badges folks wear like licenses for target practice

my body is a target

my mind is a target

my heart is a hollowed out bull’s-eye empty from the truth of my existence in this country

my body has a malfunctioning self-destruct button

my mind can’t bring itself to see what you see

my heart wants to believe in something about America that doesn’t involve the death of my every demographic

my body is at work

my mind is hiding from the shotgun blast of my own self-loathing

my heart breaks

my body wears a straight face

my mind wants to be selfish today

my heart is in Ferguson

my body is a shell

my mind is a formless hermit crab outgrowing my heart

is too sizes too small for my mind

is too revolutionary for my body

is at work

my mind is in Ferguson

my heart wants it to all be over

my body aches at the injustice

my mind searches for resolution

my heart can’t stomach

my body is at work

my mind is a heart pumping life into my beaten body

it’s all connected

it’s all too real

it’s all here in this body of me

dear home

dear home
dear sweet peace
i still remember the sunflowers that grew on our balcony
how the sun always felt so strong through the sliding doors
the heat never overwhelming but
enough to let me know you were here
i was home
i've been so mashed up
abbreviated
can't complete a full anything lately just
half poems
half posts
half arguments
half outbursts
each dividing me against myself
i know she cries
i saw the day coming that tears wouldn't move me and yet
it hurts just the same
the world's words always been enough tide to move my oceans
i feel it in my bones and then
nothing but drowning
dear home
i don't know if i'm drowning
maybe that's not the thought when you swallowing water
may be you think about all the shortcomings
the spaces between who you supposed to be and who you are
that's what i think
i always thought myself a revolutionary
people call me hero
that's what i hear when they say my name
what can a princess do but save?
reign sovereign and just
do the right
i've tried to
loved whole and true to the best of my ability
see folk for what they are
but this a cold keep following me
every time i think i feel your sun
clouds, huh
dear sweet, sweet peace
remember the ivy?
the playful altar and the green
remember how hard days soften on a couch you paid for?
beautiful thing
the world you create
never the same as the one you in
this world full of vultures and vampires
full of regrets and i'm sorrys
full of not enough and too much
equal parts unequal
i'm just trying to be someone to be proud of
not a good enough case
i was never bottom rung
never will be
the weights in my mind, they heavy
i don't too much mind that they switch around
take shifts different hours
i just don't know if they get how much time i'm actually not here
how i'm always there
in my hamster wheel darkness
when i'd rather be with you, dear home
just with you

to the white men on the train

do your ancestors visit you?

do they tuck you in at night?
do they lullaby cradle you into sound sleep
with European dreams of the country they stole for you?

do you search for them?

do you branch by branch back in time to see how strong your nose is?
if your chin arches true?
do you wonder how pure your bloodline is?
are you as scared as me?
I know we fear different things
you, finding the man with a whip that’s been whispering from under your pillow
me, finding the brick
the mortar
the dirt road 100 times over with no tracks or trace of where I really come from
I know
there is technology to find a cousin in Cameroon
but who has money to spend crossing an ocean where they may not welcome you back home?

did they tell you you got the wrong last name?

no, you’re not jewish
no, you’re not irish
no, there ain’t a drop of oppressed in you
you are the fruit of puritan ancestry
you son of a misguided outlaw
you daughter of a scorned wife
great great grandson of a businessman
dealing in flesh
trading melanin for green

how easy is it?

to walk around and feel that false power
to feel nothing
leaning against rhetoric like my great great grandmother didn’t raise you right
even without bedsheets
we still lying on the same straw bed hoping the moon stay a little bit longer

do your ancestors visit you?

do they remind you of why you’re here?
do they tell you of the way it’s supposed to be?
do they show you pictures of the black animals you’re supposed to fear
even though you’ve only seen black men cower to you and fight themselves?

do you search for them?

do you google scrapbook open records request diagram genealogy?
do you hope your family tree turns crest before the papers have yellowed beyond recognition?
are you as scared me?
I know we fear different things
you, finding a relative who renamed all his property
me, finding truth in the words “I don’t know who I am anymore”
I know
there is power in defining yourself
but everyone likes to have a place to start

did they tell you you got a famous last name?

that there’s a town
a marker
a winning lottery ticket under your tongue every time folk call you sir
that you could never be royal
cause America ain’t for kings and queens
they made sure of that
you come from a line of businessmen
of fast guns and faster deals
of life as usual
of don’t rock a boat you’ve never been on

how easy is it?

to see with eyes and not with heart
to see us as so different even when the harvest takes both our crops
knowing either way the odds are still stacked in your favor
that it was set up that way
it’s called the American dream

do you search for them?

do you stop before 1860?

or do you look?
do they tell you?
do you know?

grapefruit juice

in the long list of do's and don'ts while on my first anti-psychotic medication

printed next to 'DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY' and

'MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS' read the words

'DO NOT CONSUME GRAPEFRUIT'

do not drink your happiness personified

do not indulge in the one fruit you aren't allergic to

do not flashback to the days of sugar and spoons and bowls on the couch watching cartoons and PBS

do not wash your sorrows in the bittersweet, ruby red glow of the sun

those words to me were sadder than the days I'd spent feigning sanity inside pastel prison

planning my escape into the arms of my former self

my true self

i obsessively researched 

the why

the cause

the how come i can't

does grapefruit release a hormone that makes love and reality obsolete?

does it cloud judgment?

does it water irrational creativity n' action

holdin' root in your brain?

grapefruit is not my first choice

but on the days when other juices sound like second class concentrate

taste like the easy way out

grapefruit makes me feel rebel

risperdal isn't synonymous with individual

free-thinking

me

two months and i stopped taking it

i wasn't sure how i'd operate in the world clear-eyed

when it was so scary before

but, sitting here

belly full of delicious childhood concoctions

glass full of forbidden fruit

i'm reminded that the cure for life's weight and 

its unexpected dark

is beautiful memories both made and remembered

*written while in Austin, Texas, and eating PB&J french toast :)

Snow Day

*freestyled while on the way to work, February 6.

I let the six-year-old me go out and play today.

She woke up to a wintry wonderland and though the snow hadn’t hardened enough to make cannonball, she was still able to make a pretty good splat on the concrete next to the stairs.

 I let the 21-year-old me come out and play today.

She woke up to a wintry wonderland. She opened all the blinds on her balcony and set a beautiful backdrop to dance to Michael Jackson with her girlfriend in the living room. She didn’t mind that instead, they just held each other and talked about when her seven-year-old self made her first snow angel with LaNell in the back of a trailer park.

I let the 30-year-old me come out and play today.

I let the 25-year-old me come out and play today.

She awoke to another end routine, X amount of hours before work. Read a book written by a man considered genius who considers himself a regular man. She ended her chapter where he described how he made his house into sanctuary, into safe space for budding musicians that eventually made up a family. They now call themselves the Soulquarians. She tried to hold back the tears, but they fell because all she’s ever wanted was a family of peers who will challenge her in the open. They would duel fight with their belief systems and cut each other with evidence. But it was ok, cause they were just kendo sticks and we’re just sparring together, readying for the next battle.

I let the nine-year-old me come out and play today.

She woke up to a wintry wonderland with enough fire and bristle in her toes that she just washes the dirt off of her reality. She balled up her fist and got all ready to fight Stephanie on the front steps of her apartment building but let the rage subside when she realized that her moon cycle had begun.

I went out to play today. There was snow and it was cold. But I laughed like God kept the machine going for me. I’ve never experienced a winter like this. I’m not completely mad at it. I just wish that I could always be as happy about the sunshine.

i have a son

I have a son
one apple-headed boy ready to run face first into any and everything if you fix your fingers to tickle
when he sleeps
his feet are in my back no matter how I reposition him
my girl packs us snacks and we listen to good Kanye West and drink Capri Suns like a bawse
I have two sons
another
long-limbed and thin who will talk your face off about Iron Man, Tron and Michael Jackson
the first time we met
he climbed into my lap like my arms will always be the safety net he needs
both boys
who can’t say my name
but I don’t mind little voices calling me Pwin-cess
either wanted to walk like me
or wear their hair like me
who both asked me
whether I was a boy or a girl
my first son
was a little boy we babysitted while his mother went to school and work
part-time parents
we taught him Kemet and ankh and
I can’t remember how old he is now
my second son
was born to a woman who loves like supernova explosions
he taught me discipline and patience and
his birth father will always have a say
what they don’t tell you about loving women
is that you will eventually love their kids
even if you’ve never had one
even if you don’t want one
even if you share no blood ties just
shoe ties too tired to sleep so you watch Finding Nemo til dawn
read him his favorite book til he memorizes every word and wants another next bedtime
combined
I’ve spent about two years with my son and it’s hard
not to feel like a deadbeat dad cause you can’t convince his real mother to let you visit
I see his face in the little boys who walk past
when me and her split
I heard him call my name echo in my brain but I can’t block it out
sometimes he appears in my dreams and he’s still holding my hand as we cross the street
still smiling full teeth
men who sow seeds and leave will always draw ire from me
what they don’t tell you about loving women with kids
Is that if you give it time
you will want to be both mother and father to this diamond precious jewel pillar
you will want to help carve a better man than your father so your life will gain meaning
your parenting instincts will kick in and you're ready to fight for a little kid
who will grow to love Raja cause in Aladdin
the princess leaves and that ain't no fairy tale
I have two sons
my biggest fear is that they will grow to be men who don't recognize me
who blame me for their mother's cold
young kings picky-eating, loud-talking, buckle-seating futures
who'll see me as another soul who chose the world over his mother and their home
who will think of me as "that one girl"
when my close friend got pregnant
I read pregnancy books and
learned to swaddle make bottles and promised to hand sew a blanket for my new son
I have to remind myself that
he is not my son
they are not my sons
breaking over the horizon with a new chance to be a parent again
in my head, I have two sons
growing up in a trap-door world
without my extra safety net