Voicemail

I wished that you answered but its OK, I'll leave this message. It may have been a few hours since we spoke that was a few hours too long and I'm longing. Just a gentle hello from you makes this storm of existence ease, I need that from you right now. My bow is breaking with only one solution; that strength in you.

textaship

Wake up, wondering if I got just One from you. From that moment I wonder If I mean a thing to you? And then it comes, so vague. Not sure how to behave but my feelings soaring like a raging wave and all I can muster up is "hey". A million times I've asked, "How are things present and past?". Same old predictable words while what I was to say occurs as: All day I think of you, no one else but you. If I could be so distracted from anything else? I would. Do you know your affect, just how much you interject? In thoughts I felt were absent of YOU, but yet you're present. Not sure how to assume or move because all of this we are not immune, but yet we talk and laugh as if when we reach our rooms it isn't each other we bay at the moon..for? What to do, where do we go, what do we say? How do we grow? Our hearts beat simultaneous to the beat of an irreplaceable tune that is specific to you, if you hear.

Hello Shadow

Hello Shadow, how have you been? Hello shadow, since I last saw you when? Composing the lines of the great Lena Hardaway yet her words so many years later rock me like a surprise every. single time.

And Then

Sorry to wake you.
But did I shake you? Of all things to manifest...to go bump in the night it's my thoughts that rake you?

I am (a challenge)

Me and my cousin were having an indept discussion on individuality and decided to challenge each other to an "I am" writing contest. My entry:

I am earnestly quite strange but I don't mind it.
I am a woman who struggles ambiguously with real life demons everyday and everyday.. I win.
I am kind, brokenhearted and observant of the menace that is society to our marginalized people; the ones that swim up-stream to escape a reality that they wish wasn't real.
I am useless. Because I fear the unknown like any other human. And because of my own wall of unpredictable behavior I stunt my growth therefore I stunt my purpose. Without effective purpose what else will you be?
I am a misfit. I don't like to be backed into a corner or told I can't do something so I will do just what you said cannot be done. Maybe I'm just stubborn.
Stubborn because I'm confident. Yes, the unknown is scary but when you are confident there is nothing "unknown" about what you are capable of. Regardless of what is said, it will be DONE.
I am a victim. The scars on my soul run deep and unanswered and I would be a fool to lie and say "I'm okay" when asked the arbitrary "How Are You?" on the eve of a day of loss.
So I guess I am a Liar. I bottle up the bad and foam out the good when it should be the opposite. But the bad always finds a long-term home.

I don't believe you

Trends or fads, which ever you feel, come and go but not without consequence. As does the notion of change and the fear that maybe we aren't ready to face it. The endless quotes and songs that guide our woes to and from that place of despair YET we always reroute to find ourselves just where we don't want to be. What is it about the culture of doom and gloom that is so popular and alluring to even the most Socratic of poets and musicians? Is the shadowy places that lure us in with pity so deep that we never actually leave them, just get eternally lost within them? Are the comforts of conformity comforting you comfortably? Or has the danger of possibility broken that fragile spirit of hope. None of us can stand here and pretend to have the answers to amend the cracked facades but through gentle support, we can all stay together.

Earnest

Earnest conversation. I like that. When I dial a number that would hopefully be yours and can express everything on my mind and heart without reserve. I like that. Not worried about the receiving end of how and whys or why-nots and how comes. I like that. The conversation is just honest. The conversation just flows. Because my words feel safe with you. In their purest form. I like that. That, which can flow in ebbs and bows without skipping a single beat of mines or yours in our speech and emotional capacity. We don't have to worry about misinterpretation, we don't have to worry about rumors spreading, we don't have to worry about what each other thinks of this dance of ideas and manifestations of the soul because there is trust. Our nouns bounce off our lips and meet with verbs that form predication of a story meant for our discussion verbatim, and in action. Ad hominem when speaking of that which makes us afraid of our own voice but when speaking with you, fear has no place. And the only place for peace is between us. I like that.

Labels.

I hate labels.
I grew up of immigrant parents from a color-concerned 3rd world country in the Caribbean. They worked hard to send me to a catholic school where for the first three years of academia no one else looked like me; luckily I didn't notice until the third grade. That was when the comments about my hair were made. They were cute, I suppose.. "What beautiful bows, how does your hair stay like that?" I probably had an innocent accent from saying words I thought were English only to be received with confused laughter. It was that moment where I realized I cannot fit in physically because I was not meant to.

"Don't hang out with those black Americans! They are the people that don't go to school and never work!" which was the narrative of the old man, often met with eye rolls. I used to believe him, not because there was any fact but because it was fun to not have actually earned a status and feel entitled to it. Because daddy said so obviously, but I digress. So I was told to forever speak proper (I knew no other way?) appear neat and clean, polite, never talk back and be above the cut academically. My grandfather would lecture "Girls should be like beautiful flowers, always look and smell good". Well OK then.

Time goes on and I sprout my mothers hips and ass to my classmates slender frames with breast. A few more brown classmates have joined and together we faced (and conquered!) the tired politics of the old world. Sr. Francine may you rest in the peace that you denied us. Questioning my fathers reasoning about black Americans as it so clearly was ignorant; we were treated the same no matter what our GPA was. As a "flower" I was boxed long before as something else. Defined before allowing definition, when my entity was still unknown even to myself. However these strangers knew me? My friends knew me? Or what they expected because of complexion and/or grades? Goal of my teen years 1) Break the glass ceiling, 2) Get to college. 

"Girls should be like flowers, always look good and smell good". No denying the proximal affect of a beautiful bouquet. In a week those flowers and stems have wilted but still pretty, nothing more attractive than a downward spiral. And in another week they are trashed and maybe replaced. Maybe not.

Beauty gets old and boring and surely replaceable. But a beautiful spirit never expires. It's full of love, adventure, compassion, and wanton jubilee. I've never strived to be simply beautiful, a facade of good genes and makeup. I hope my spirit never dies, even when my "Beauty" does. Grandpa will understand.
I hate Labels.

Whoever

I don't need light to view you.
The glimmer of your effortless aura gives me the right amount of shine to smile in your direction.
I can feel you in every sense of emotion that I'm allowing myself to currently succumb to. To finally feel you the way I am meant to.
I'm so stubborn. The walls around me, placed undeniably by me, have cheated me of knowing how completely infected by you I've become...
So I guess I'll just continue to deny it.

Bitterness

Bitterness is a reaction. And when that reaction bears it's ugly head it is met with equally scathing sentiment. Bitterness has many causes but without asking the right questions or any questions at all, how would bitterness be resolved? Judgment is so last year, I'd rather we as a people become just *that* much more engaging with each other.
I am so sorry.
I'm so many things but the last thing I am is sad.
I could give a name to my sorrow but I refuse because she does not exsist. Tommorw will come and I will be. Just. Fine

2014

In some form of defense against my perpetual possibilities I would ALWAYS downplay certain compliments. Now my friends, as honest and powerful as they are (and I'm lucky to have them), they never shy from teasing me about my physical vanity. However, personality compliments always enacted the "Be Humble" alarm and I end up playing off the kind dialogue with some humor (my defence mechanism). I fooled myself into thinking that my comfort zone in empathic-mediocrity/automatic humility meant for me to never accept genuine accolade and instead laugh it off like some potty trained puppy. What the hell was I thinking? A little pride in who I am would have probably gone a long way in life. Hm. "New Year New Me" or nah?