tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42536255008517406122023-11-16T10:57:15.110-08:00a dyke of a certain caliberthese are: prayers, rants, questions, waking dreams, conversation, verses, curses, verbal wordplay and chu'ch. when you read this, we are community, please holla back.daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-55097959381360642072012-06-13T16:04:00.002-07:002012-06-13T16:04:44.180-07:00orchard of me<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrBXExqguHbz4FVA2sbU1pBvpLSyfc0a7wSekUwFQ_NfyChCnqkmHiglNnKo4zd-d4Dc2z_x7Yh5t35gRK0jO8gA6scFJWwNdejwnFVN6pUjCRhFXym0hb4d1_fUqq5BxPPiMUaBZ-ppO/s1600/Sugarcane+Photo+WKSHP+2+on+6-7-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrBXExqguHbz4FVA2sbU1pBvpLSyfc0a7wSekUwFQ_NfyChCnqkmHiglNnKo4zd-d4Dc2z_x7Yh5t35gRK0jO8gA6scFJWwNdejwnFVN6pUjCRhFXym0hb4d1_fUqq5BxPPiMUaBZ-ppO/s400/Sugarcane+Photo+WKSHP+2+on+6-7-12.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sugarcane Writers. <br /><b>Sugarcane</b> is a weekly LGBTQ Of Color Writing Workshop I facilitate in Oakland, CA. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">there
is a field with lavender and tiger lilies.
open sky. wooden barn full of
tools to make precious things, gifts for family: chosen, blood, created. everywhere is an altar. candles ignite when my gaze touches
them. poetry is everyone’s first
language. my cat cooks me dinner
sometimes. the sky rains glitter and
love notes. dawn is a good friend. moon and I play patty cake with ocean
waves. my bathroom floor is a
beach. the door is always open. my neighbors and I hold hands on our way to
the grocery store. laughter is a
given. before the apology, all is
forgiven. best intentions and deep
affections intertwined vines all over this house of mine. I move with the wind, we prance together,
choreograph rapid-fire Congolese dances together—then bake cookies. we: orchard, field, waking reverie, lovely
melody, multi-layered harmony. fire and
I love each other so much we feed each other water when we need it. in this orchard of redwoods and roses, soft
as the inside of my own thoughts, I am tender with myself. rainbows in my tea cup kiss me good morning
and plant sonnets on my lips. this is
home, no need to run from all we ever asked for. family in my arms, so close they live in my
skin/my skin not a division between me and the world/a world within me full of
lip-locked love stories and all I love about my own self. an orchard field of my own me. a bliss of my own me. a quiet of my own me. all the running I’ve done into my own me,
running across this orchard into my own arms: home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">(This poem was written during a free write at </span><b style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Sugarcane</b><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">, a weekly LGBTQ Of Color Writing Workshop I facilitate in Oakland, CA. </span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> The beautiful words "an orchard of you" is lovingly credited to Sugarcane Writer </span><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Aima the Dreamer <a href="http://www.aimathedreamer.com/">www.aimathedreamer.com</a>)</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
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<!--EndFragment-->daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-23685287284464910782012-05-13T20:36:00.003-07:002012-05-13T20:37:46.870-07:00for people who (a mother's day poem)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilArfdL5yN9XKbBcq7ZBxy8CvYGvOfHXioHtIkrEzd5dey2lASnRq49Dd0WKF-wtktD_H93SeYTxutqIi1TH3nILuWo8tFMM3v4gM6p6DAYqIUmAIiRj-opclZs3giJ9hESwGbysx1rvvN/s1600/IMG_0385.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilArfdL5yN9XKbBcq7ZBxy8CvYGvOfHXioHtIkrEzd5dey2lASnRq49Dd0WKF-wtktD_H93SeYTxutqIi1TH3nILuWo8tFMM3v4gM6p6DAYqIUmAIiRj-opclZs3giJ9hESwGbysx1rvvN/s320/IMG_0385.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I suppose I should write something,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">being a writer and all,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">about this day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">many people celebrate this day<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">with flowers & flowery declarations<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">am silent<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">watch this day<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">from sidelines, silently<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am not bitter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I know that most people that say they aren’t bitter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">are bitter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">but I am not. I’m just<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">silent<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">there are many things that come between parents and children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">that replace umbilical cords with<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">words held hostage in throat<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">sometimes home feels farther away <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">than the most distant memory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I don’t want to feed you clichés. I’m just being vague<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">truth is, I don’t want to tell you the truth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">if I did then you would know all the words I edit out of all
the poems<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and therein is the rest of me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the me you don’t see<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am writing this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">not to tell an incredibly specific truth about my story<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am writing this because I have to do something on this day<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I want to shout out everybody with complicated relationships
with their mothers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">mothers who it hurts to love up close<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">hurts to love from a distance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am writing this for people who did not post beautiful
pictures of their mamas <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">on facebook, twitter and instagram today<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">folks who never know how to answer “how’s your mum?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am writing this for those who feel an ache when they see
people in happy relationships with their mamas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">me too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I still believe in healing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I still believe in loving through all the things we don’t
know how to love through<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and today, if mother’s day is making you feel like an orphan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">out of place <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">or forgotten,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I feel you.</span><o:p></o:p></div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-73658508902719005832011-09-25T23:16:00.000-07:002011-09-25T23:21:19.987-07:00letters and words and paragraphs.<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I wasn’t expecting that I’d write you.<span> </span>I’m not all those others.<span> </span>with the names picked out already.<span> </span>I’m the eccentric auntie who comes and goes as she pleases.<span> </span>not the hold you after your nightmares one.<span> </span>not that one.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">my body has betrayed me.<span> </span>cultivating cravings for children I swore I’d never bear.<span> </span>I don’t know what to do with these desires to have and raise them.<span> </span>my body making choices for me my mind never consented to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I like heels.<span> </span>I love my purses.<span> </span>I don’t want to carry those diaper bags and strollers and baby car seats and this wasn’t supposed to happen.<span> </span>I’m not supposed to feel this way.<span> </span>feel like you and I are supposed to know each other.<span> </span>like I’m supposed to teach you things and hold you.<span> </span>and tell you your other mother loves you, she’s just being stubborn right now.<span> </span>I’m not supposed to see us all around the dinner table.<span> </span>all the sun shining.<span> </span>all the beautiful meals.<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">and I can’t understand why this is happening.<span> </span>why I want them now when I knew I wouldn’t.<span> </span>this is too much.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">she doesn’t know I want to have her babies and I don’t know how to tell her.<span> </span>all these tears.<span> </span>I can’t.<span> </span>I’m not supposed to be a mother.<span> </span>I’m not supposed to arrange playdates, pick the best schools, baby-proof my house, teach them about gender and twist their hair.<span> </span>this is not the life I’ve seen for myself.<span> </span>I’m not supposed to be a grandmother someday.<span> </span>I can’t feel this way.<span> </span>and I do.<span> </span>and there’s nothing you can do when your body has made up her own mind about who she wants to carry.<span> </span>and what have I been carrying all these years?<span> </span>the belief that I don’t know how to be a good mother?<span> </span>maybe somewhere I gave up on family.<span> </span>real family.<span> </span>family that is always there.<span> </span>that shares meals and teaches you things and forgives.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I want to understand what’s happening to me.<span> </span>but I don’t.<span> </span>I feel like the things I knew are changing.<span> </span>I thought I’d spend my always in New York and now I’m leaving.<span> </span>thought my heart would stay broken forever and it didn’t.<span> </span>thought I’d never have babies but my body wants them.<span> </span>my minds says no and my body says what she says.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">what am I supposed to say or do?<span> </span>my body wants to be pregnant.<span> </span>I’m a dyke who doesn’t want babies.<span> </span>tell me what to do about that.<span> </span>tell me how to move through my day with the children inside me singing so strong I can feel the vibrations on my skin.<span> </span>I just want to lay here and cry.<span> </span>I don’t know what’s happening to my own body.<span> </span>I’m confused.<span> </span>before we even talk about the logistics of babymaking (sperm, the role and level of involvement of the father and and and…), I am confused.<span> </span>who am I?<span> </span>I know I’m a poet and a sister and a daughter and a cousin and a niece and an auntie.<span> </span>I never thought I’d be a mother.<span> </span>ever.<span> </span>never.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I meant this as a letter to you.<span> </span>all you.<span> </span>singing in me songs so strong I feel vibrations on my skin.<span> </span>how do you know this song?<span> </span>that I haven’t taught you yet?<span> </span>songs we made up one Sunday.<span> </span>songs you taught me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I can’t.<span> </span>I cannot do this.<span> </span>I cannot change everything about my life.<span> </span>I can’t.<span> </span>the world will not drastically drop in population if I don’t have babies.<span> </span>and then…I so tired of resisting my body’s desire to have you.<span> </span>I don’t know what will be.<span> </span>or if we will be.<span> </span>but I’m tired of resisting even considering you.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I don’t know what to say to you.<span> </span>this is not the most heartwarming welcome you could have received, I know.<span> </span>I’m sorry.<span> </span>I guess I just want you to know beforehand.<span> </span>where I’m coming from.<span> </span>and incase we never meet I guess we’ll always have these letters and words and paragraphs.</p> <!--EndFragment-->daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-63057542669120873022011-07-24T15:27:00.000-07:002011-07-24T15:48:12.638-07:00i used to be a poet<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PkuCjqiYCuIBmJq8so9v3pPG_s8H-EZJaAnda8R1LCPRuS2cG1ghEVK3L9_G6uenOCUyOYINUhA6UxuI0diZImOfkTrZ6aSlkaHHo7H6L38HHbU3cPGHVVDcEjFBBgGiLzWKRInLFsV-/s1600/kissing+flower+bliss.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PkuCjqiYCuIBmJq8so9v3pPG_s8H-EZJaAnda8R1LCPRuS2cG1ghEVK3L9_G6uenOCUyOYINUhA6UxuI0diZImOfkTrZ6aSlkaHHo7H6L38HHbU3cPGHVVDcEjFBBgGiLzWKRInLFsV-/s400/kissing+flower+bliss.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633049521638556594" /></a><div><br /></div><div> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to be a poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to know how to do this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>didn’t even need to walk up to the mic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">rocked that shit from my seat, off stage, from the doorway, on the train, wherever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">now I question everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to be a poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">too much of a poet to be self-conscious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>validation irrelevant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>compliments unnecessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I knew what I said was the truth so I ain’t need anyone to agree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>things were simpler when I was younger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I went on tour because I felt it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t market anything, I just showed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">now flyers and list servs and.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to be a poet. with the fury and the love, the tenderness was implied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the love amplified.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">now I feel intellectual, almost theoretical, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">been in this so long, the memories of where I been take over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the supposed to, the what ifs take over my mind, demand attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">insecurities center stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>shaking and tears near.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>tears in me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">unclear. why am I saying this again?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>are you hearing me this time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve said this so long, been performing this poem so long, it’s who I am now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">but that’s not who I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">it takes so much to perform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>it never used to take this much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>it was just what I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">it was all so simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t think about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t want to think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just want to make art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>without thinking and wondering and making sense of and figuring out and strategizing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I just want to rock shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>that’s all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>late shows, early shows, sweaty, dark shows, outdoor shows, freestyle poems in the middle of dance parties, rhyme with djs, let the beatbox move me to move me to move you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>that’s all I want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">all this “I should do it like this…or that.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">shit is oppressing me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to rock the poem about my father and leave it on the stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t want to carry it anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">my mother leaving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">my father leaving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">my whole family leaving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>is fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">really. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">naw, son, for real, I’m good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I just want to write about it, dance about it, rock shows about it and leave it on the stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t need to carry that. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">carrying that is what feels heavy on my back, has me doubting my own gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">and I’m gifted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t have time to doubt my own gift, only time to feel it, be it, give it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m wasting time with these insecurities. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">they trying to take over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I feel them creeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>they hungry for my smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>want to eat my peace of mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I won’t feed them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I won’t set the table and make a plate for them with my thoughts, my wringing hands, my doubting the love of everyone loving me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">insecurities creeping everywhere overrunning the garden of my life with plants I never planted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>whose fuckin seeds are these?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t want this shit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to be a poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to do it so pure my voice cried words onto the mic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">it was so pure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>too pure for there to be room for all the pain of what if and I should and I’m done with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m done with what if and I should.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to rock pure like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>step up to the mic with the words trembling from my chest,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">freshly memorized, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">soul still shaking in my chest and holding me up tall to share this fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">love rocking me steady.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">that’s why I love poetry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>when the poetry is raw and roots are tumbling out of your mouth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that’s what I love.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">when I was a poet, I was a poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">if I am poet, then I will be a poet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>without all the bullshit.</p> <!--EndFragment--></div><div> <!--EndFragment--> </div><div> <!--EndFragment--> </div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-38615179025959361862011-06-24T10:40:00.000-07:002011-08-19T09:35:14.084-07:00sacred/scared<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNxW3oulVEynb5x4vTUpzOk648XZhG_FRlQuFinPEfLN0RrVjm663FwQGVJGu7ZVZBF62YkyRnwLRh4jdSwRxg4eJMZgfW3lid_y21b6kxdrMn894bP9LuyV-B_4aycp_T0LU6A0-4cR6q/s1600/Utah+Etaghene+by+Emmanuelle.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 392px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNxW3oulVEynb5x4vTUpzOk648XZhG_FRlQuFinPEfLN0RrVjm663FwQGVJGu7ZVZBF62YkyRnwLRh4jdSwRxg4eJMZgfW3lid_y21b6kxdrMn894bP9LuyV-B_4aycp_T0LU6A0-4cR6q/s400/Utah+Etaghene+by+Emmanuelle.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621842919091943378" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: Rebecca Emmanuelle</div><div style="text-align: center;">Pictured: Etaghene + Adaku Utah</div><div>
<br /></div><div>
<br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">the tears are persistent so I’ll write.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>I’m performing my one woman show for the first time in 2 years in 14 days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>in it is so much that scares me and moves me, that holds me and makes me want to run, so much tenderness, anger, joy, wonder, discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>the show is me offering all I am to all of you. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>that’s some scary shit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m scared. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>why do I do this?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>why do I write all this sacred down?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>why do I write all the fears down then insist on sharing? <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I want to be confident.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>but I’m not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>it’s not like I haven’t rocked shows before, traveled before, shared this work before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>but the show is different now than it’s ever been.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m different now than I’ve ever been.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I want you to get it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>to get me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I want to be able to relax.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m not relaxed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>it’s the kind of day that you need India.Arie to sing to you and tell you it’ll be okay.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>I don’t know what reassuring words I need to hear or that there are any.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I spoke to Adaku and she gave me that still wise earth love that she always brings me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I think I feel better.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>but I am all kinds of scared and the tears are insistent today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>quiet like rain that sneaks up on you.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>at rehearsal last night with my director there were tears and laughter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I love that woman—a sister, a comrade, an amazing artist.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>she is so loving, so dope, so insightful.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>it’s deep to look in the face of your own life and see for the first time what you didn’t know was there reflected back at you in and amongst your words, your verses, your paragraphs, your pages.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>words you wrote revealing a you you didn’t even know about.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and then figure out how to share those truths with hella people.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I know why I do this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I do this because I was born to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t second-guess that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>but this shit it hard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I want to be ready.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I want to do right by the truths of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I want more time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and I need a vacation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>a retreat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>to sleep in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I want pancakes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and—</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>the tears are like a lake in my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>still as summer in the middle of somewhere that people only visit when they want reflective solitude.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>still as that.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">it’s deep because the only difference between “sacred” and “scared” is the placement of 2 letters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>okay then.</p></div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-52779399790347224942011-03-21T12:56:00.000-07:002011-03-21T13:13:43.604-07:00!!!!!!! {tour diary}<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoGl75Iq19g4_4EQcQl17QgsxTKPlYNL9it5Th6_sWgZnNrtlp0MMDIsD_aL3FmzoStZA7eawiT4KH8vhIaeDHG6OgpxQx47jE4y493pTgX9WJgC4AQiPW5iSfh-E2hkvUg2H073dJRBYt/s1600/IMG_0875.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoGl75Iq19g4_4EQcQl17QgsxTKPlYNL9it5Th6_sWgZnNrtlp0MMDIsD_aL3FmzoStZA7eawiT4KH8vhIaeDHG6OgpxQx47jE4y493pTgX9WJgC4AQiPW5iSfh-E2hkvUg2H073dJRBYt/s400/IMG_0875.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5586625052138825026" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Photo Credit: An Xiao</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /><br />I’ve been busy. I’m starting my tour diary now before I hit the road because let me tell you, everyday is planning for then. and what I do now is just as much a part of the tour as being on stage in Johannesburg. incase you ain’t heard, I’m in the midst of booking my one woman show, <b>Volcano’s Birthright{s}</b>, alllll ovvvverrrr the worllldddddddd! this is so exciting! and so much work, lordess, lordess, it’s a lot of work. my days are: wake up, check email, brush teeth, get dressed, respond to emails during commute to work, go to work, call venues/folks, respond to emails during lunch break, come home, write/respond to emails, make calls, schedule in-person and phone meetings around tour-related ish that happen during lunch and before and after work. somewhere in there I eat and sleep. I love booking in different time zones because I can call them at all kinds of hours and they’re still open. booking is a detailed, annoying, fulfilling process. there are days I want to call someone and yell: “WE GOT THE VENUE!!!” but I don’t know anyone else will get what that means. you have to be in it, day to day, to get the significance of finally booking a venue after a month of: “what about/well maybe/I’m not sure/I’ll get back to you/what are the dimensions of the stage again?” if you had that back story, you’d know why I’m so fuckin excited to have that venue locked in. that’s kind of why I want to write this—to take you on this journey with me, to show you the inside of it.<br /><br />what’s what as of right now: we got the tour launch booked. the tour begins in June in BROOKLYN!!! (celebratory shot fired)—I’ll be giving a talk about my one woman show and performing excerpts of the show at Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays. I am BEYOND excited about this! the west coast premiere is also booked, the show will be in San Francisco in July. I am so happy to be returning to the Bay! I’m in conversations about Philly, LA, Malibu, Boston, South Africa and my beloved Nigeria. I’m also working on a fundraising campaign for the tour, more info on how you can support the dream coming soon!<br /><br />in the midst of all this, what sustains my spirit is the understanding that every show I’m booking has already happened. I already performed in Jo’burg. I already shook my soul in Edo, I already performed a soulful, sold out show in San Francisco. that future already happened. all I have to do is get from here to there. the dream is guaranteed. this sustains me. re-understanding time in this way and moving in the world AS IF—as if everything I dream is so. as if it is so. this takes most of the pressure off. and I keep moving. everyday I re-inspire myself, remind myself of why I’m doing this, trust my gut and know that the desire to share my story comes from a beautiful place. a place so beautiful the universe can’t resist conspiring with me to bring that dream to fruition.<br /><br />I heart this quote: <b>“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” ~ Paulo Coehlo</b><br /><br />my days are hella full. <i>like hella full</i>. I mean the seams of my days are busting. and I love it. I still make time to dance. I still make time for friends. I still make time to watch netflix and chill and eat good food. self-care is wo/mandatory.<br /><br />I haven’t even started rehearsals yet. yooo……!!!<br /><br />more soon, xxxo.</span>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-47473971001796722202011-03-14T23:43:00.000-07:002011-03-15T00:05:03.312-07:00mental illness has never been my problem<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_oPHB3gL9EZRKwoiU-uHyeIFpDNWrg-8EVcdsehZd_NVozSKBF9Gbp496EwZJgAiQduXycFdoaRmGJ3xKQnZntsqU-e4XM1P4G3Zhv-pP32TJmAIbwLN1L4AOBBBiRC5zWU5SwAoImGj/s1600/DSC_0073.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 364px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG_oPHB3gL9EZRKwoiU-uHyeIFpDNWrg-8EVcdsehZd_NVozSKBF9Gbp496EwZJgAiQduXycFdoaRmGJ3xKQnZntsqU-e4XM1P4G3Zhv-pP32TJmAIbwLN1L4AOBBBiRC5zWU5SwAoImGj/s400/DSC_0073.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584194634326794434" border="0" /></a>
<br />photo credit: al janae hamilton
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<br /></div> <meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/Onakeme/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>799</o:Words> <o:characters>4555</o:Characters> <o:lines>37</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>9</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>5593</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1287</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">mental illness has never been my problem.<span style=""> </span>I’m mentally stable to the point of being emotionally logical—I could write a thesis about my feelings for any given person in my life complete with bibliographies and case studies.<span style=""> </span>I’m not trying to be funny.<span style=""> </span>it’s true.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I’ve been depressed.<span style=""> </span>there have been times when I was so depressed I fuckin worried myself, wanted to tell someone to come watch over me and make sure I was okay.<span style=""> </span>(I’m okay.)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">it’s the most heartbreaking thing to watch your mother lose herself in her own depression.<span style=""> </span>it’s a pain I can’t put words to.<span style=""> </span>it hurts so much, I’ve stopped feeling.<span style=""> </span>I’ve just shut my feelings off, sent them to go shudder and huddle into themselves in a faraway country.<span style=""> </span>she says really mean things to me.<span style=""> </span>and doesn’t remember.<span style=""> </span>she disowned me a week before Christmas.<span style=""> </span>told me she never wanted to speak to me again.<span style=""> </span>then she called me from Nebraska, thousands of miles from home, wanting me to bring her back home.<span style=""> </span>she didn’t remember telling me the things she told me that hurt me so deep I was walking around like a zombie for a week.<span style=""> </span>she didn’t fuckin remember the words that devastated my soul.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">she calls me—crying.<span style=""> </span>angry.<span style=""> </span>happy.<span style=""> </span>regretful.<span style=""> </span>depressed.<span style=""> </span>yelling.<span style=""> </span>whispering.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she goes through all these emotions in one conversation.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she hangs up on me.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she cries.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she blames me.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she wants me to forgive her.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she thinks I’m her perfect daughter.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she blames me for everything.<span style=""> </span>sometimes she thinks I’m her savior.<span style=""> </span>but never is she my mother.<span style=""> </span>she hasn’t been my mother in years.<span style=""> </span>I’ve been mothering my mother for years.<span style=""> </span>she’s someone else.<span style=""> </span>my mother is gone.<span style=""> </span><i>you know her?</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style=""> </span>you don’t know her.<span style=""> </span>the things my mama taught me…that woman, who taught me how to sew, who held me when Aymi died, who always made sure I knew I was Nigerian, knew where we came from and was proud, that woman who used to make the best egusi soup on either side of the Atlantic, that woman who taught me how to be funny, that woman.<span style=""> </span>my mama.<span style=""> </span>my mother.<span style=""> </span></span><i>she’s gone.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style=""> </span>so fuckin gone.<span style=""> </span>depression took her.<span style=""> </span>paranoia took her.<span style=""> </span>the pain of losing everyone she ever loved, except me, took her.<span style=""> </span>the whoever and their army that she’s convinced is after her took her.<span style=""> </span>maybe her soul is buried with her mother.<span style=""> </span>or with her dead son, my brother.<span style=""> </span>or maybe the pain of being apart from Naija done broke her heart proper.<span style=""> </span>she won’t listen to me.<span style=""> </span>I’ve tried to save her more times than I’ve tried to save myself.<span style=""> </span>cape with the s on my chest.<span style=""> </span>I’ve ran relay races passing the baton to myself, running and running, trying—and I can’t.<span style=""> </span>I can’t give her mind and pride and laughter and joy and life and will to believe in herself back to her.<span style=""> </span>someone stole her from her.<span style=""> </span>if I knew where to go to get her back, I’d go get her back so I could give her back to herself.<span style=""> </span>and have my mama again.<span style=""> </span>do you know how much I need a mother?<span style=""> </span>how many times I want to call a woman who knows me, from breast feeding to baby pictures to puberty to high school dances to college admissions essays to graduation day, and say “mama, tell me why she broke my heart?”<span style=""> </span>and have her comfort me and tell me my wife is somewhere looking for me.<span style=""> </span>do you know how much I want to go home and have her make me a plate of my favorites and not have to tell her how to cook anything because she knows?<span style=""> </span>because her hands making that meal for me my whole life is why it’s my favorite, is why I can’t have it any other way?<span style=""> </span>do you know how much I miss home?<span style=""> </span>I mean the home we made in this country—our home away from home.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I miss our plates and silverware—<i>is that weird?<span style=""> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">I miss my mama’s silverware and that small kitchen with the blue carpet and delicate little curtain, brown cabinets and old stove.<span style=""> </span>I miss our broken old school 1980s tv, on top of which our new school (well, now it’s old school too) tv sat.<span style=""> </span>the tv we watched benny hill and eastenders and guiding light and the young and the restless on.<span style=""> </span>I miss the glass dining room table where we ate every dinner together everyday of my entire childhood, except the years I was in Nigeria.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">do you know what it’s like to watch your own mother disintegrate before your eyes?<span style=""> </span>lose herself and lose so much weight she makes a dandelion seem heavy in comparison?<span style=""> </span>as I write this, the tears are coming and I refuse to let them fall.<span style=""> </span>not again.<span style=""> </span>I’ve cried so many tears, I just won’t anymore.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">and then they wonder why I’m hard.<span style=""> </span>they do—the women I love.<span style=""> </span>they call me hard, say I won’t open up.<span style=""> </span>of course I am and of course I won’t.<span style=""> </span>if I love you and you break, like I loved my mama and she broke, how the fuck am I supposed to survive that?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">mental illness, depression, paranoia.<span style=""> </span>none of these things are my problem.<span style=""> </span>none of these things effects me.<span style=""> </span>I’m mentally stable.<span style=""> </span>to the point of being emotionally logical.<span style=""> </span>no matter how angry I am, I’m like a lawyer with my emotions—organized and eloquent.<span style=""> </span>I could take any argument to the supreme court and I would win.<span style=""> </span>I’m not like her.<span style=""> </span>they tell you about mental illness and depression.<span style=""> </span>in commercials and in magazine advertisements.<span style=""> </span>they don’t talk about how much it fucks you up to watch the person you love vanish before your eyes, swallowed by a world you can’t see and can’t change.<span style=""> </span>no matter what anyone says, I’ll always feel I haven’t and didn’t do enough.<span style=""> </span>I’m not depressed.<span style=""> </span>but I have plenty of sadness.<span style=""> </span>I carry my own sadness and guilt that I can’t save her from her suffering.</p> <!--EndFragment-->
<br />daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-3246107646196420612011-03-10T16:31:00.000-08:002011-03-10T16:53:10.336-08:00this is a dangerous poem<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOnTks1wgtTont4XFgOZddyuoPHaKYXUtQKRsgt9C-9xnpz8cuobh3VRggLp4YqF9ohcPLYj7xg2IEsLoFIjkkTFZL4vrIBT2Kay8yWRs95olurZLonrvtPAlxfRcr40fOjxQyl3H_gch/s1600/IMG_9776.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyOnTks1wgtTont4XFgOZddyuoPHaKYXUtQKRsgt9C-9xnpz8cuobh3VRggLp4YqF9ohcPLYj7xg2IEsLoFIjkkTFZL4vrIBT2Kay8yWRs95olurZLonrvtPAlxfRcr40fOjxQyl3H_gch/s400/IMG_9776.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582614075796434546" border="0" /></a>Photo Credit: Charla Harlow
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<br /><meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/Onakeme/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:template>Normal</o:Template> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>502</o:Words> <o:characters>2863</o:Characters> <o:lines>23</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>5</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>3515</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>11.1287</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:donotshowrevisions/> <w:donotprintrevisions/> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:usemarginsfordrawinggridorigin/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; tab-stops:center 3.0in right 6.0in; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter {margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; tab-stops:center 3.0in right 6.0in; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">the kind I promise to keep to myself so I can be more honest with the page</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve opened up</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>(this sounded better in my head, in the shower, free styling, hold up, let me just fin—)<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I saw your name today</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I saw the place on the piece of paper </p> <p class="MsoNormal">with my poem on it </p> <p class="MsoNormal">where you wrote your phone # and name down</p> <p class="MsoNormal">for the first time all those years ago.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I adore you still and it tears me apart still</p> <p class="MsoNormal">this loneliness is so lonely because no one understands and no comfort comforts me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have more eulogies to write</p> <p class="MsoNormal">for my dead friendships and relationships </p> <p class="MsoNormal">than there are grains </p> <p class="MsoNormal">of jollof rice </p> <p class="MsoNormal">in all of the Naija Delta</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">when they come to my funeral, </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>if</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> they come to my funeral, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">they will whisper bad things about me inside the paper thin walls of their skulls</p> <p class="MsoNormal">they will call me a bitch</p> <p class="MsoNormal">uncompromising,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">they will call me stubborn and unforgiving</p> <p class="MsoNormal">it will be true.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">there are only so many cliffs you can jump off of on faith</p> <p class="MsoNormal">fall</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and walk away from unscarred</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that shit makes you hard</p> <p class="MsoNormal">bitchy</p> <p class="MsoNormal">uncompromising</p> <p class="MsoNormal">stubborn</p> <p class="MsoNormal">unforgiving </p> <p class="MsoNormal">especially </p> <p class="MsoNormal">if you promised to jump with me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">but I look up from the bottom of the cliff </p> <p class="MsoNormal">and see you </p> <p class="MsoNormal">at the edge of the precipice</p> <p class="MsoNormal">walking inland</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not who I used to be, I don’t know where she went</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I used to be nice.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">this is a dangerous poem because I have to write it and I don’t know how to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">all this pain churning in me, I articulate and narrate the intricacies of this ache to friends,<span style=""> </span>they’re sympathetic, some: empathetic, some: deeply compassionate, some: politely</p> <p class="MsoNormal">offer me their best “it will get better” speech</p> <p class="MsoNormal">but it doesn’t, my love</p> <p class="MsoNormal">we just forget</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that’s not better.<span style=""> </span>that’s forgetfulness.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know what to say and I don’t know what I want you to say to make this better </p> <p class="MsoNormal">when you’ve loved one person</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and then they’re gone</p> <p class="MsoNormal">there’s nothing to say</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">this poem is so dangerous it says frightening things, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">causes racial poem profiling, makes you shiver and </p> <p class="MsoNormal">clutch your imitation Louis Vuitton clutch </p> <p class="MsoNormal">as each word inches closer into your personal space.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">this poem is socially awkward </p> <p class="MsoNormal">and bad with boundaries</p> <p class="MsoNormal">walks away without making the first move</p> <p class="MsoNormal">this poem won’t call you the next morning or listen to your stories</p> <p class="MsoNormal">this poem is dangerous cuz she treats you as well as you’ve treated your worst</p> <p class="MsoNormal">mistake</p> <p class="MsoNormal">this poem shares secrets:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">like missing your mother, I miss her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t believe in happy endings and I don’t think it gets better</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t pray and I don’t feel me anymore</p> <p class="MsoNormal">sometimes I don’t believe in God</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to be held and can never find the words to say that</p> <p class="MsoNormal">except in dangerous poems and on stage</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t have peace, I’m not patient</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not self-centered enough and I’m too ill-mannered</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I lost something somewhere,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know what and I don’t know where</p> <p class="MsoNormal">but I’m pretty sure it’s everything</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to run away</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to Paris</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to Harare</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to London</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I won’t let you in.<span style=""> </span>I’ll let you think I did </p> <p class="MsoNormal">but I won’t.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t trust you and I never will.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I only like you half the time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want a big wedding but I don’t believe in love anymore</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want kids but I don’t want to give birth or raise them.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">maybe I could just parent for 10 key life-changing moments—</p> <p class="MsoNormal">okay: 11.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think some men are cute.<span style=""> </span>seriously.<span style=""> </span>if they could fuck like a dyke, I’d holla.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">this is a dangerous poem because you should know better </p> <p class="MsoNormal">than to expect me to ever </p> <p class="MsoNormal">write down the worst of it.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have more to say but my homemade granola is sitting in my yogurt beside me, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">side eyeing me, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">getting soggy.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m gonna go watch cartoons.</p> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-46450312852745916742011-01-17T23:33:00.000-08:002011-01-17T23:40:46.252-08:00the hard part<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh47tC-CfZkCBQ5Zy4aIIQ7zve1rzYPpSSIo4I_UqiIDTtjTaIgvTFgFu8uIJKkUv7trVUOEnt8nKBnZK7udbmJC0UT2J_caE8_JTyY-rRVGx3JyGupkSZdLjdsLJrKTtC74pxeRTI86oHA/s1600/DSCF3182.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh47tC-CfZkCBQ5Zy4aIIQ7zve1rzYPpSSIo4I_UqiIDTtjTaIgvTFgFu8uIJKkUv7trVUOEnt8nKBnZK7udbmJC0UT2J_caE8_JTyY-rRVGx3JyGupkSZdLjdsLJrKTtC74pxeRTI86oHA/s400/DSCF3182.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5563426383041939490" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">photo credit: y. etaghene</div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">I still believe in you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>maybe it’s foolish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I feel foolish, because of the two of us, I’m the only one who believes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>when did love become so transient?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>when did our love become so fickle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t care about all the fucked up ways a heart can break, all I care about is the love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>our love.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">this is why I stay up, waiting for one song to say something to me that I can respond to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>with a musing, wondering poem like this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I listen to this song like I would your breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not mad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It would be easier if I had anger in me.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">there are days like this where I laugh with a friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I watch how in love my friends are with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>love is everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>a friend is getting married, another just let herself love again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and I look at myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>my heart, broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the nights aren’t the loneliest, they’re just when I’m my most still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the days are the hardest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>people ask me how I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t want to lie, but beloved, I don’t have the energy to tell the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the truth is without you, something is missing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>ever since I met you, whenever I’m without you, something is missing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">I don’t understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I still believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t understand why or how I still believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>even now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>even after you’ve disappeared, even after you’ve walked away, even after you’ve left in every possible way, over and over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>broken your promises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and acted so selfish I can’t even recognize your name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>even after you’ve taken every beautiful word you’ve murmured, proclaimed and written to me and twisted it into a lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>even now.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">I feel foolish and I don’t understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I will never understand how you could walk away from our love and not even leave me a post-it note explaining why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t say your name the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know you anymore.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">I will love another woman, that’s not the hard part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the hard part is she won’t be you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>but maybe the best part is that she won’t be you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--></div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-70276014454486256782010-12-22T11:47:00.000-08:002010-12-22T12:09:23.740-08:00I’d Rather Be On Stage<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU0RSShtcsvC3PMQD-vzsoz5zuNHnvIaFr2_bnJpUKjIkko5EePm0m0m-Dy9r3wRgHbZ9WLVO5jlvqF3Ltngsj0gMMVWw0PdthtzDr4VpOesjD9zbWJO7mcD3As-nRW7OzW16DIfD4DDqE/s1600/SAS+Scream+Face.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU0RSShtcsvC3PMQD-vzsoz5zuNHnvIaFr2_bnJpUKjIkko5EePm0m0m-Dy9r3wRgHbZ9WLVO5jlvqF3Ltngsj0gMMVWw0PdthtzDr4VpOesjD9zbWJO7mcD3As-nRW7OzW16DIfD4DDqE/s400/SAS+Scream+Face.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553597578558574818" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >photo credit: Laura Waterbury</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" >I’m without a mother and father the week of Christmas,<br />my mother says I’m a bad daughter and that she’ll never speak to me again.<br />I told my father I’m a dyke & it’s been crickets ever since.<br />with this weight on my chest and on my back, I’m missing Naija soil,<br />chasing my parents’ approval and I’m never gonna get it.<br />I’ve been watching my mother slowly die for years<br />but it feels like my name on the tombstone<br /><br />how many ways are there to love a person?<br />I feel my lover slipping from my grasp so I want to let go<br />I will not hold you here, it no be by force.<br />if you wanna go, abeg GO.<br />I make pilgrimages to what we could be everyday,<br />crying holy water tears as I watch today bleed and writhe in the bed beside me<br />she doesn’t know how many times she breaks my heart with her words and distance<br />I look at her, kiss her, lay in her arms and wonder<br />if today<br />will be the day<br />she shatters my heart.<br /><br />I’d rather be on stage than dealing with any of this in my everyday,<br />I can deal with all this<br />on stage,<br />in a place where I know everyone came to listen,<br />where I know I can make you understand,<br />where I feel more like myself with everyone watching than alone in my room,<br />where I can be everything I don’t think I’m brave enough to be offstage<br />I’d rather be on stage than be your confused, insecure lover<br />Or your unappreciated, guilt-stricken daughter<br />Or your estranged friend<br />Or your angry activist<br />Or who you flirt with<br />wanna fuck<br />don’t understand<br />misunderstand<br />make assumptions about<br />categorize<br />treasure then discard<br />blame<br />run from<br />come to then walk away from<br />hide from<br />accuse<br />break promises to<br />scapegoat<br />I’d rather be on stage<br />sharing journal entries<br />that somehow turned into<br />“performance pieces”,<br />I’d rather find the emotional arch of this narrative and spill the intricate inner-workings of my spirit<br />for you, my audience,<br />I’d rather<br />sculpt a monologue out of this pain,<br />rather figure out if I should use this tone: (angry) or this one tone: (hurt),<br />rather experiment with movement then choose how I should hold my body in order to further illuminate this work<br />I would rather cry for you, here, upstage, center<br />than cry at 5am in a darkened kitchen alone searching for meaning that never comes.<br />I find myself up so late it’s early morning, carving words into air, plopping words onto computer, stringing thoughts together to share something<br />and still feel I like I’m missing something in these lines.<br />I search for what’s huddled in between these lines<br />and I can’t find it<br />asking Meaning to come home to me, wanted dead or alive<br />and shit is dead on arrival—bodybag.<br />I’m clutched between the arms of friends,<br />my tears soak orange sweatshirt,<br />they rock me,<br />every other thing makes me cry,<br />I have to go to work in the morning,<br />it’s already morning and I haven’t slept yet.<br /><br />I’m the ultimate emotional exhibitionist. there are things I tell you that I don’t tell the woman I let inside me. and that’s real. the stage and me, we been in this for 11 years. we rock solid, so yes I trust this stage with my broken bits I hide from everyone else. cuz I know she got me<br /><br />let me edit this poem right quick,<br /><i>cuz I’d rather</i><br />let me run to rehearsal right quick,<br /><i>cuz I’d rather<br /></i>I discard that rhyme, rewrite that line, cross that out, extend that metaphor, let the fury quiver, let the sadness swell,<br /><i>cuz I’d rather</i><br />I want to check my phone and see her name,<br />it’s not there.<br />I watch the Misfits.<br />in her arms I feel less and less beautiful and more and more like the needy bitch I can't stand,<br />my sex drive snuck out my panties and fled the country,<br />my smile jumped off the Manhattan bridge and dey resurrect like Jesus for special occasions,<br />I wonder what I’ll wear to her funeral,<br />maybe I’ll climb in the coffin with her, make sure she gets where she’s going okay<br />then come back to this stage to tell all y’all all about it.<br /><i>I promise.</i><br /><br />the character I’m playing is me,<br />I’d rather be on stage than watch my love for you disintegrate with each insult you toss at me, while you tear away at me, bit by bit each day<br />with the fucked up things you say.<br />If I have to lose you, I’d rather lose you on stage,<br />if you’re going to die, I’d rather you die on stage beside me<br />so I can turn your funeral into a show interrogating mother-daughter dynamics from the grave<br />if you insist on misunderstanding me, let me respond via poem, via monologue, via choreopoembiomythography.<br />I can’t answer your questions in standard English, my feet waka, my heart tire. wetin I go do? I give you blood, I no have blood, I give you my heart, I lay my skeleton for road for you. peace of mind no dey, your satisfaction no dey.<br /><br />you think I’m scientific with my emotions. you’re right. I analyze emotions like there’s a hypothesis to prove or disprove, gather evidence, write poems to articulate my findings and recommendations. then I perform them. this is who I am. who I am is wrong? really? not on this stage it’s not. and that’s why I fuckin love this fuckin stage.<br />that’s why I’d rather be on stage, because it’s my stage when I’m on it and even when I’m not.<br />stage be callin my name, sending me emails askin me when I’m comin back.<br />on this stage, I’m the point of reference for everything, not you, so if I wanna get scientific with it, that’s cool. I never feel too much or say the wrong thing, I’m perfect here. even my fuck ups make sense. my rage and insecurity are all okay. everyone here loves me. even when they don’t agree, they love me. if I don’t know what to say, I make a joke and people laugh. they get me. I can make my lines up as I go. I can lose control and this stage ain’t gonna judge me, I know this stage got me.<br /><br />my heart,<br />my heart,<br /><i>this heart, </i><br />if you go break am,<br />make you break am for stage, so everyone go see,<br />make I have witness this time.</span>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-86582116182178709632010-09-29T11:23:00.000-07:002010-09-29T13:02:35.130-07:00It’s Not Black vs. African: CHECK YOURSELF<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaQiBvz59zjRTkftWO44gDHnTXP8KZIhQ4DaammUpi3EbN_-cndcg_ubjhwoIXWVtR0hoI33edxdn3f4OLHibVhABTVoqWHk_ievn_-Kc4TpoMOTke9t6qTWSHMpt7xw43LA1GfXRVlpVI/s1600/VBhandup+by+An+Xiao.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaQiBvz59zjRTkftWO44gDHnTXP8KZIhQ4DaammUpi3EbN_-cndcg_ubjhwoIXWVtR0hoI33edxdn3f4OLHibVhABTVoqWHk_ievn_-Kc4TpoMOTke9t6qTWSHMpt7xw43LA1GfXRVlpVI/s400/VBhandup+by+An+Xiao.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522402977047901586" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:Garamond;">{photo credit: An Xiao}</span></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"></span></p> <div style="text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family:Garamond;"></span></u></div><p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><u><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I wrote an article about how Black people sometimes appropriate Nigerian and African culture (<a href="http://www.myloveisaverb.com/2010/09/naija-essay-rhapsodizing-on-black.html">http://www.myloveisaverb.com/2010/09/naija-essay-rhapsodizing-on-black.html</a>) and below in black you can see one of the responses I got.<span style=""> </span>my responses to that response is below in <span style="color:fuchsia;">pink</span>.<span style=""> </span>I responded point by point and inserted my responses into their response.<span style=""> </span>I’m YE.<span style=""> </span>SKelly is the person who responded to my article and is SK below.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">SK: # 1 - you can't have both. you can't "claim soul music, hip hop", etc., & maintain your elitist african-ness @ a distance from all us heathen american blacks.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I’m not elitist and neither is my article.<span style=""> </span>I can and do claim hip hop and soul music and many other forms of music.<span style=""> </span>I live in the States and I’m African.<span style=""> </span>hip hop is based on African music, as are most forms of music in the States.<span style=""> </span>I claim hip hop like I claim soca, the blues, calypso, etc, because these are a wo/manifestions of African music and rhythms throughout the world. I did not create hip hop and I never said I did.<span style=""> </span>I also never called anyone a heathen.<span style=""> </span>that sounds like your self-hate talking.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: 2 - if she was born here then that makes her a true african american.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: nope. I’m Nigerian.<span style=""> </span>#labelfail. also, why are you now speaking to me in the 3<sup>rd</sup> person when you were just speaking to me in the </span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:12pt;color:fuchsia;" >2<sup>nd</sup></span><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" > person?<span style=""> </span>#grammarlesson.<span style=""> </span>you can talk directly to me, my assistant did not write the article, I did.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: it seems as though many of our kin from the continent think of us as 'slaves' - when mainland africans were part & parcel of our becoming slaves, & NO accountability is taken for that. my mother's ghanaian significant other mentioned that the slave trade is never mentioned in african schools - the party line is that we just 'went away' as if on vacation. talk about a sideye.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I don’t think of Blacks in the u.s. as slaves, once again, sounds like your self-hate talking.<span style=""> </span>if some Africans sold Blacks into slavery…how is that my fault or even relevant to this conversation?<span style=""> </span>who said I was ignoring that?<span style=""> </span>this article is not about that.<span style=""> </span>your mother’s Ghanaian significant other is an expert on every single African school in all 54 countries and what’s taught by all the teachers not only today but for the past 400 years during and after slavery?<span style=""> </span>unless this person has extensively studied this topic, that individual can speak to THEIR experience, not that of an entire continent.<span style=""> </span>but thanks for that tokenizing. #sarcasm.<span style=""> </span>“the party line”?<span style=""> </span>and you know what “the party line” is because you went to school in Africa?<span style=""> </span>#sideeye<span style=""> </span>or you THINK you know this because of a comment someone made about THEIR experience that you are now GENERALIZING and TOKENIZING to make an EXAGGERATION about an entire continent?<span style=""> </span>#sitdown</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: 3 - hate to bring this up, but as many good nigerian private citizens as there are out there doing real work, it may take more work on an activists part to discern them from those who run the myriad scams that nigerians are famous for - so why is she hating on ppl who help set up schools in third world countries? - wierd.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: you’re right.<span style=""> </span>#sarcasm.<span style=""> </span>we should all thank the missionaries who brought their white god to Africa. many racist whites have claimed that they should be thanked for saving Africans from the “uncivilized” African continent via slavery.<span style=""> </span>by these racist, white imperialist standards, they were “helping” and “improving” the lives of Africans by enslaving and raping them.<span style=""> </span>should they be thanked as well?<span style=""> </span>the NYPD thinks they’re bettering the streets by brutalizing people of color daily. should they be thanked for their hard work?<span style=""> </span>how about the KKK that made it their business to eliminate the supposed threat of Black men to white women by lynching them—should they be thanked?<span style=""> </span>also, how can one distinguish between all those dangerous Black criminals and the “good, Black private citizens” just working to support their families?<span style=""> </span>this is your internalized racism talking. <span style=""> </span>are you seated?<span style=""> </span>get up so you can #sitdown</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: we have been divorced from our culture, & are fascinated by it why is she so scornful of that?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I don’t scorn fascination with a lost culture.<span style=""> </span>I just don’t tolerate the disrespectful appropriation of my culture.</span><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /><br />SK: if she's SO nigerian, then maybe that's where she should live. but she won't do that b/c by her own admission, she will get treated with the same snotty 'tude that she bestows upon black americans, & doesn't want THAT.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I never said any of that.<span style=""> </span>I travel back and forth between the States and Nigeria.<span style=""> </span>um, you don’t know me.<span style=""> </span>#sitdown.<span style=""> </span>I actually get lots of snotty, ignorant attitudes in the States.<span style=""> </span>Case and point: this dialogue right here.<span style=""> </span>if I were to go back to Nigeria to live permanently, I’d like to take my oil with me, is that okay with you?<span style=""> </span>since the u.s. in the 3<sup>rd</sup> largest exporter of Nigerian oil, I’m pretty sure that whatever car, bus, train or airplane you are a passenger in is partly or completely running on my fuel. <span style=""> </span>from my country.<span style=""> </span>which you just “suggested” I go live in because you disagree with me. since I’m leaving, I’m gonna take all the blood diamonds with me, the gold, cacoa and rubber exported from Africa to the States.<span style=""> </span>I’m also gonna take with me the coltan and tantalite with me; these 2 minerals are used to manufacture many things including DVD players, video games, cell phones and the computer you typed this ignorant response to me on.<span style=""> </span>I’m gonna take hip hop, soul, the blues, allll that with me too.<span style=""> </span>it might be a bad look for you if I were to take myself and all my resources with me.</span><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /><br />SK: is she trying to claim that africans don't travel? let's talk bourgoise - not only do they travel - extensively, but most mainland africans TO THIS DAY keep a servant or two - still haven't learned about that little iron-clad class system of theirs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I’m not TRYING to say anything.<span style=""> </span>I said that Africans aren’t tourists in the first world and don’t co-opt culture <i style="">in the way westerners do.</i><span style=""> </span>yes Africans travel.<span style=""> </span>of course, if we didn’t travel, how did I get to New York?<span style=""> </span>#logicfail.<span style=""> </span>yes some (very few) Africans have maids.<span style=""> </span>what point does that prove?<span style=""> </span>there’s a very select number of people who have maids.<span style=""> </span>hella people around the world have maids or “servants” as you refer to them. Africans often travel to first world countries to attain some of the privileges that have been denied our countries because the wealth of the first world is not only built on our third world backs but exists <i style="">because our resources have/are stolen and/or exported.<span style=""> </span></i>that’s why we travel most of the time—to come use the resources that the first world took, stole and/or bought at the lowest of prices.<span style=""> </span>and…what’s a mainland African?<span style=""> </span>I’ve never heard that term in my life.<span style=""> </span>and I’m pretty sure no African has either.</span><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /><br />SK: now here's where i get really confused: she claims to be 100% nigerian, just BORN here... & in another breath, that her great grandmother is trinidadian - but she isn't. so which one is it? b/c that type of mix makes her patently afro-american.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I don’t think people say “Afro-American” anymore.<span style=""> </span>I think it disappeared along with “Negro” awhile ago.<span style=""> </span>I’m not Trinidadian.<span style=""> </span>#shrug.<span style=""> </span>#labelfailAGAIN</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: & then in the end, she wants to talk global community. my senegalese SISTER, who has walked the catwalks of paris, & keeps a DOPE apartment on gold st. while she lives part of the year in dakar, NEVER tried to sell me a load of bull like this.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: um okay.<span style=""> </span>yaaaaay tokenization!<span style=""> </span>does this make your point more valid because you throw in the behavior of an African woman?<span style=""> </span>do you want a cookie for that one?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: methinks the author is plagued with issues, & may need to do a little research of her own; specifically w/regard to her own persona. she seems to fully identify w/hip hop culture & yet divorce herself from the people who created it/fought for its/our freedoms.<br /><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I have never and will never divorce myself from Blacks in the States—that would be impossible.<span style=""> </span>to divorce someone, one has to get married.<span style=""> </span>to get married, one has to be separate and seeking a union.<span style=""> </span>I am not separating myself from Black people, we are linked forever.<span style=""> </span>there are <i style="">distinctions </i>between our cultures and experiences, yes, but we are part of a global Black community.<span style=""> </span>of course I have issues.<span style=""> </span>having issues is inherent to being a human being.<span style=""> </span>me having issues does not take away from the validity of what I’ve written.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: this is disrespectful, patronizing, callous, & soulless much of the things we accuse white colonists of being.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I think that’s an extreme and inaccurate assessment of my article and is a more accurate description of what you wrote than what I did.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br />SK: the author needs to check herself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >YE: I check myself on the regular as part of my practice of being a loving, revolutionary, tender human being.<span style=""> </span>Do you?<span style=""> </span>it’s fine to disagree with me, but it’s not necessary to personally attack me, be deliberately rude, tokenize the Africans in your life to make a point or make vast generalizations that are based on no research and no experience.<span style=""> </span>I have no problem whatsoever with people disagreeing with me—let’s talk and share perspectives.<span style=""> </span>what I do take issue with is having people project their issues with their own ethnicity, race or with Africa and Africans onto me.<span style=""> </span>it’s not my fault that Blacks were kidnapped from Africa and enslaved nor do I reinforce or benefit from any of the ideologies that disrespect and degrade Blacks in the States.<span style=""> </span>given this, to hurl insults at me is unnecessary and irresponsible.<span style=""> </span>clearly, you’re speaking from a place of deep pain, anger, ignorance and, at times, stupidity.<span style=""> </span>CHECK YOURSELF.<span style=""> </span>and sit down.</span></p>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-89665344486428558352010-09-22T16:09:00.000-07:002010-09-29T11:32:38.224-07:00THE NAIJA ESSAY: Rhapsodizing on Black Americans’ Cultural Appropriation of Nigerian & African Cultures<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgudpIt-EsTQMWLP8sVpKjPDmL9Sm46lwt3UqMcWfoWBY1mFfV_4cQLdmHXk2Lk-iagmSWawcs-03MCIpJOmtJ5xEw5Yz-sEyjNVUkjNiUIkqQRvP0Elu2TKoMi9hcMWYJIS4azjzx73uar/s1600/wrappa+pic+smaller+image.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 326px; height: 384px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgudpIt-EsTQMWLP8sVpKjPDmL9Sm46lwt3UqMcWfoWBY1mFfV_4cQLdmHXk2Lk-iagmSWawcs-03MCIpJOmtJ5xEw5Yz-sEyjNVUkjNiUIkqQRvP0Elu2TKoMi9hcMWYJIS4azjzx73uar/s400/wrappa+pic+smaller+image.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519879115283229202" border="0" /></a><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >{photo credit An Xiao} </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >I’m not Black.<span style=""> </span>Black is not my ethnicity.<span style=""> </span>In fact, Black <i style="">isn’t</i> an ethnicity, it’s a race.<span style=""> </span>And race isn’t real.<span style=""> </span>Race, Blackness, whiteness, these categories were created by white people in order to define who they were oppressing and who was doing the oppressing.<span style=""> </span>Check your history y’all.<span style=""> </span>Despite this, Black <i style="">is</i> something I identify with politically and socially given that I’ve spent so much of my life in the States and I do see myself as part of a global Black community of people—some of whom are/were immigrants to Europe, the States and other parts of the world and others who are descendants of the Africans kidnapped from Africa in order to be enslaved in the States, South America, the Caribbean and so on.<span style=""> </span>Blackness is not a monolithic identify.<span style=""> </span>It’s an umbrella term like Queer.<span style=""> </span>I’m a dyke but identify with a Queer community politically and socially.<span style=""> </span>Countless times, people, Blacks in America mostly, tell me I’m American.<span style=""> </span>“Oh well you were born here so you’re American.”<span style=""> </span>#labelfail.<span style=""> </span>No I’m not.<span style=""> </span>I’m a Nigerian who happened to have been born here and I will be Nigerian until the day I die and in my next lifetime too.<span style=""> </span>It’s that serious.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >I’m not Black.<span style=""> </span>I am Nigerian.<span style=""> </span>Period.<span style=""> </span>I am not Nigerian American.<span style=""> </span>I am Nigerian.<span style=""> </span>To be specific, I am an Ijaw and Urhobo Nigerian.<span style=""> </span>(DELTA STAND UP!!!) </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><-- </span><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >had to do it.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t even know what soul food was till college.<span style=""> </span>I fetched water as a child.<span style=""> </span>I have a long ass Nigerian name with mad vowels up in it.<span style=""> </span>On the census, I wrote in Nigerian.<span style=""> </span>(We have an African prez and the Census can’t be more inclusive?<span style=""> </span>#sideeye.)<span style=""> </span>After being baptized as a baby, I didn’t go to an American church until college.<span style=""> </span>I’ve learned to be a part of Black American culture and given that I live in the States and contribute to the evolution of Black art forms with the art I create, yes, I claim hip hop, soul music, Black American dance styles and the performance arts.<span style=""> </span>I’m still a Nigerian within all that.<span style=""> </span>Whenever anyone asks me where I’m from, I say Nigeria.<span style=""> </span>Because na so.<span style=""> </span>When I answer in this way, I sometimes get confused looks from people because they want to place me into a category that makes sense for them.<span style=""> </span>They want to either tell me I’m someone else than who I just said or let me know they <i style="">know</i> who I am.<span style=""> </span>I’ve heard more nonsensical facts about people’s relationship to Nigeria than I can list here.<span style=""> </span>It is okay—to not know.<span style=""> </span>Just admit it.<span style=""> </span>Don’t try to create a familial bond with me and/or my culture where there is none by spewing random facts about Nigeria.<span style=""> </span>You ain’t know about Nigerian heat or suya or NEPA (now PHCN) or pyoowatah or the go-slow or red soil or roasted groundnut.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >During a twitter tag team rant session with Zara Emezi, I wrote:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >what the fuck i look like meeting a Chinese person & telling them how much i enjoy wonton soup? you think they give a fifth of a fuck? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >(Wednesday, September 08, 2010 10:36:07 PM)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >people tell me all their random thoughts & experiences re: Nigeria when they meet me. i'm serious--eg: i like Nigerian food. #uhokay </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >(Wednesday, September 08, 2010 10:35:24 PM)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >what the fuck i care you gave your son a Nigerian name? there are over 150 million Africans with Nigerian names. #perspective </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >(Wednesday, September 08, 2010 10:34:29 PM)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >These conversations are tiring.<span style=""> </span>From the woman who, upon finding out I’m Nigerian, takes pride in informing me that she works to set up schools in 3<sup>rd</sup> world countries, of which Nigeria is one.<span style=""> </span><i style="">Do you want a cookie?</i><span style=""> </span>Fuck you and your NGO.<span style=""> </span>If you really cared, you’d find NIGERIANS doing good work (there are millions), give them that first world loot (which by the way is built on third world backs) and LEAVE.<span style=""> </span>That’s revolution.<span style=""> </span>That’s being an ally.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >So many Black people challenge my Africanness.<span style=""> </span>Black people who, by the way, claim the African identity they attempt to deny me.<span style=""> </span>So many Africans challenge my Africanness.<span style=""> </span>All around, my authenticity as an African gets questioned, judged and minimized.<span style=""> </span>It’s not my life’s work to make the world see me as I see me.<span style=""> </span>It’s my life’s work to <i style="">be me as I see me</i> and let the world do what the world will do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >Me: "I'm Nigerian." Her: "You speak really good English." Me: "We were colonized by the British." Can't make this stuff up.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >(Thursday, August 12, 2010 6:56:40 PM)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >Every moment is an opportunity to decolonize our spirits and I seize these moments.<span style=""> </span>Part of that decolonization is to never allow my identity to be defined for me by anyone.<span style=""> </span>There are times when ironically, Africans place me in the same category as Blacks in the States and look down on me because to them, I sound American and have lived here for an amount of time that means I’m Americanized now.<span style=""> </span>I let them know a.) there’s no need to look down on Blacks in the States and b.) I’m so Nigerian my blood is made of palm oil.<span style=""> </span>I love you but sit down.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >It annoys me greatly the ease with which Blacks take on an African identity while doing little to no research/reading whatsoever.<span style=""> </span>Spending a semester in Ghana does not equate with my life as an African.<span style=""> </span>People still ask me if I’m Yoruba and pride themselves on knowing that one ethnicity.<span style=""> </span>*Blank stare*<span style=""> </span>Asking me if I’m Yoruba when you find out I’m Nigerian is like me asking you if your name is Keisha because you’re Black and live in the States.<span style=""> </span>Yes, it is that ridiculous.<span style=""> </span>I’m not Yoruba.<span style=""> </span>I’m not Igbo.<span style=""> </span>Abeg, please stop asking.<span style=""> </span>Going to see Fela on Broadway does not qualify as an education on my country.<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t even qualify as an education on him, given there’s only so much a two-hour performance can contain of a person’s life.<span style=""> </span>We all love Chinua Achebe and Ben Okri and Fela but Naija done produced more brilliance than the likes of them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >Can we please be accountable to the way in which Blacks travel the world as tourists with the same or similar kinds of destructive manners/patterns as rich white people?<span style=""> </span>Tourism in third world countries is another form of colonization.<span style=""> </span>Beautiful portions of the country are often off limits to people indigenous to that country in order for hotels and resorts to be made available for tourists and the tourism economy.<span style=""> </span>Traveling to someone else’s <i style="">home</i> in search of peace of mind, relaxation or a deeper sense of self is the most colonial bullshit on the planet.<span style=""> </span>Black Americans do this in Africa and the Caribbean, looking for a rugged, vacation lover to help them forget the woes of their lives.<span style=""> </span>Please, please read Jamaica Kincaid’s <u>A Small Place</u> for an amazing analysis of what tourism has done to Antigua.<span style=""> </span>I don’t travel to other people’s countries to get free.<span style=""> </span>I would never be so arrogant or disgustingly first world.<span style=""> </span>I go home.<span style=""> </span>Or I travel because I want to partner to make art and/or partake in activism that is led by those indigenous to the place I’m traveling to.<span style=""> </span>Any Black person with the privilege and resources to travel to another country to find themselves, and who does this, is feeding into a racist and violent tourist economy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >South Africa</span><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >, Kenya, Ghana are some of the chosen countries that everyone outside of Africa wants to travel to, specifically Black people.<span style=""> </span>The sexiness and allure of Yoruba culture is due, in my opinion, to how far it’s traveled (Brasil, Cuba, the States) and the exotification of Brasilian and Cuban cultures/languages continues to feed into the way in which Yoruba is a commodity and a spiritual practice laden with inaccuracies (as it is practiced in the States by those initiated into it) and commerce.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >It can be strange to talk about my culture to Blacks in the States.<span style=""> </span>One of or a combination of things happens: they can’t relate at all or they make weird statements that highlight their ignorance of my culture or try to make me see how much they know (asking if I’m Yoruba or Igbo) or there’s a sadness that they don’t have the same linkage to their culture that I do to mine.<span style=""> </span>At times, there’s a visible resentment that wo/manifests in challenging my choices, eg: asking me why I hang with so many Nigerians.<span style=""> </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">< ---</span><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > Um reeeally?!<span style=""> </span>Why do <i style="">you</i> have so many Black friends?<span style=""> </span>So many gay friends?<span style=""> </span>Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?<span style=""> </span>I guess the same reasons why all the Nigerian queers are eating jollof rice in the park.<span style=""> </span>Sanity dey with family sometimes.<span style=""> </span>And there are all types of family.<span style=""> </span>A lot of my chosen family are queer Nigerians and I’m blessed to have such a beautiful community.<span style=""> </span>I also rock hard with Caribbean folks, Africans from other parts of the continent, South Asians, Latinas and so on.<span style=""> </span>My family wide.<span style=""> </span>I will not apologize for loving my Naija folk and anyone that asks that is selfish and just weird.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >I’m surprised that folks sometimes are surprised that I miss home and the extent to which I miss home:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >people wonder why i talk about Naija so much & hang w/ Nigerians so hard... Wednesday, September 08, 2010 10:27:16 PM via web</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >...dude--you know i ain't from here, right? you know every breath i take away from my country breaks my heart right? #dontgetittwisted. Wednesday, September 08, 2010 10:27:41 PM via web</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >All Black people are not the same.<span style=""> </span>The reason I do not identify as Pan Africanist is because so much of its application (from my perspective) of the ideology is about making Black people everywhere the same.<span style=""> </span>We aren’t the same.<span style=""> </span>I live here but I am not from here.<span style=""> </span>First world privilege, third world blood.<span style=""> </span>Na serious.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >So many people want to say we were kings and queens before the white man came to Africa—yeah, like 10 of us, and the rest of us were just regular folks.<span style=""> </span>This hyper-romanticization of Africa is terribly aggravating and completely ahistorical.<span style=""> </span>Nigeria is hella modern, is hella rural, is hella lots of thangs.<span style=""> </span>It ain’t full of “nubian kings and queens.” #realityfail.<span style=""> </span>Africa today is not some fantasy, nor has it ever been.<span style=""> </span>It’s a real place, filled with 54 countries, thousands of ethnicities and languages, countless hairstyles, clothing styles, culinary magic and so on.<span style=""> </span>Africans are real people, not mythological fodder for folks’ fantasies about what they’d like Africa to be for them.<span style=""> </span>When I hear there are ethnic conflicts in Nigeria, I call home to make sure my family is okay.<span style=""> </span>I don’t shake my head and keep sipping on my coffee.<span style=""> </span>That is the difference.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >I am from the Delta and I am proud.<span style=""> </span>If ever I choose to have babies, they will know <i style="">exactly</i> where they are from because we will live there and there will be no English spoken in my household, besides Pidgin of course.<span style=""> </span>I’m a Naija elitist in this way.<span style=""> </span>And that is as it should be.<span style=""> </span>Allowing anyone with wide eyes into African culture is part of the reason our land was haphazardly partitioned for colonization by Europeans in the first place—abeg our heart bigger than the universe we dey in, sef.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >Black people are descendants of Africans.<span style=""> </span>Of course.<span style=""> </span>But they aren’t African.<span style=""> </span>My great grand mama is from Trinidad.<span style=""> </span>I am not Trinidadian just because she was.<span style=""> </span>Na difference, you see?<span style=""> </span>To ignore these differences, to gloss over them is to pretend mac and cheese is fufu.<span style=""> </span>Na lie.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" >I am intensely patriotic and deeply proud to be a Nigerian.<span style=""> </span>I can’t even explain it, it’s mad intense.<span style=""> </span>I love Black people.<span style=""> </span>I be marching, writing poems, mouth behind bull horn, loving hard, soft, tender and fierce for the sake of ALL our COLLECTIVE freedoms <i style="">regardless</i> of what continent we were born onto.<span style=""> </span>We are a global community and we are connected.<span style=""> </span>Let’s respect who we be and who we ain’t.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">“It’s not that I’m heartless.<span style=""> </span>You don’t understand, my heart is buried in Nigeria.”</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">~Yagazie Emezi.</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:100%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><i style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">My bodi dey here.<span style=""> </span></span></i></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><i style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">My heart dey in Naija.<span style=""> </span></span></i></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><i style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">Forever.</span></i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b style=""><i style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><br /></span></i></b></p>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-57710997427829686802010-09-21T23:11:00.000-07:002010-09-22T06:33:50.762-07:00RIBCAGE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiqff5I5Q6V1LNBCbYaRCSHoFQY2kR4gXlEVWQqZPaNzvHcViMMGqM1BSkJKcZRD_WTWYtKtbtjTL6-5SAGD6luQu8RygVSjPG6_CHUcTLqBmBur71Fy8qpDI9lhcgPibVyqwXwhZF4jy/s1600/DSC_0109.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 290px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiqff5I5Q6V1LNBCbYaRCSHoFQY2kR4gXlEVWQqZPaNzvHcViMMGqM1BSkJKcZRD_WTWYtKtbtjTL6-5SAGD6luQu8RygVSjPG6_CHUcTLqBmBur71Fy8qpDI9lhcgPibVyqwXwhZF4jy/s400/DSC_0109.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519616843215762450" /></a><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family:Garamond;color:black">{photo by Laura Waterbury}</span></span><span style="font-family:Garamond"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">I want your arms around me and I could make this about missing you but it’s not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">At the hospital today, the nurse answered my mother’s question without looking at her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She looked at me instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How does that make sense to anyone with a brain or manners or home training?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wanted to slap her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I asked her to address my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Since my mother asked the question.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is not the DMV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These are people’s lives you’re dealing with.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She has an accent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She speaks English numbnuts.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">I’d like to give myself permission to be imperfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you see a flaw it’s probably because I didn’t know you could see it or because I let you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">The pressure is so much my neck hurts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My throat has hurt for weeks and I keep forgetting to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who has time to crumble?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have shit to do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">By the way, I’m coming out to my father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wrote the letter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just have to send it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">But that’s not why I started writing this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m writing this because I’m sleepy but don’t want to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Want to let go and hold on.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Want to let someone in without feeling like I have to hold it all together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Me letting people see my pain is like trying to tidy a messy house for an unexpected visitor waiting on your stoop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Disconcerting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Awkward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I knew you were coming, I would’ve done the laundry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I knew you were gonna come inside my ribcage, I would’ve cried over this last week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Instead of now.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">Maybe I should run off from my life for a little while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do what rich white people do—travel to Southeast Asia to go find themselves in the cultures their forefathers desecrated and whitewashed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I don’t want to go to Southeast Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I want to lay in my bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I want to be able to love you from the love in my chest, instead of lashing out with the pain in my chest, pushing you away because I can’t imagine letting you see the dirty dishes and dusty shelves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I love you too much to let you love me.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">Isn’t that the most fucked up something you’ve read today?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">My hair and head have been wrapped for 2 weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like a band-aid on my subconscious.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond; "> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond">Sometimes I have to forget about my individual life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I were to focus on my problems, I would stop writing and cry myself into a dehydrated state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Instead I think of the heartbroken, the unsure all over the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So you know you’re not alone<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond; ">Here, have this.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--><div><br /></div></div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-42921996351435543832010-09-10T13:33:00.000-07:002010-09-23T23:01:27.101-07:00all them words up in me is for you/you listenin?<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzS6XdQcYnptpFuu39QhyphenhyphenM9QAxAg2_54bzlxtNQUb-OSfU9U-B5_XUM4hydrGj2R1-UycHm3uUZT8Tn4dg5NNXxICgtchMxMGghojrBVz7ShhKjfQgIHQMGjYsUwd_9Lw-AzigS3SCZOu/s1600/roaring+SOON+COME+by+al+janae+hamilton.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCzS6XdQcYnptpFuu39QhyphenhyphenM9QAxAg2_54bzlxtNQUb-OSfU9U-B5_XUM4hydrGj2R1-UycHm3uUZT8Tn4dg5NNXxICgtchMxMGghojrBVz7ShhKjfQgIHQMGjYsUwd_9Lw-AzigS3SCZOu/s400/roaring+SOON+COME+by+al+janae+hamilton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515386671829894498" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">{photo by t'ai freedom ford}<br /></span></div><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"></span> <div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">the bridge to my heart is on fire</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">you is a firefighter</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">tumbling bricks </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">comin out my mouth</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">smoldering diary pages with my secrets on them</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">if this was a song—</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">serious bass line that ain’t never stop</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">drums and drums</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">electric guitar</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">the baddest bridge</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">the tightest melody</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I don’t wanna dance tonight</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I wanna scream and shit</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">hit that high ass chaka note </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">and hold it</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">fuck a microphone</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">this amplified by my heartbeat</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">you wanna be close to me</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I wanna be on the mountaintop with wireless internet writing poems like this</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">sometimes I’m not warm and fuzzy and I won’t let you love me</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">not up close</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">you gonna have to send that love via smoke signals, hummingbirds and tight ass melodies</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">rain is my express carrier</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">she takes the syllables in the bass of my throat & tips of my toes </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">and delivers them to you when I’m ready to face you, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">knowing you gonna know the truth in me</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">in me is every bruise we’ve all had</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">{sore}</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">we never settle the score</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">ever</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">forgive the ones who hurt you if you want</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">none of us is going to hell, holding onto the pain is lucifer enough</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I don’t wanna kiss or do sweet shit</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I’m not sweet</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I’m the kind of sweet that taste like chewing stick</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">good for you</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">but not like sugarcane</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">come untold tell it</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">check it? no?</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">let me explain: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">come on untold, I want you to tell it. got it?</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I had it, gave it away, took it back, kept it, buried it, unearthed it, planted it, grew it, then baby I gave it away</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">these poems is my babies</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I give em to you,</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">treat em right</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">every fight I have with you</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">is my crying for you to stay</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">and love me</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">yes, for real.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I am suddenly a hard butch, happened last Sunday, baby I ain’t the same no more.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I sexy and shit. don’t talk a lot.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">talk sometimes</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">do shit to show you I love you</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">no gushing</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I’ma hush you if you wanna ask about the ins and outs and hows and wheres and alla that</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">feel this if you can feel it</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I was born feelin it</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">born with extra heartbeats in my chest</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I got enough heartbeats for you—</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">if you missin some</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">be hustling heartbeats on tha corner</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">if you wanna feel it</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I can show you how</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I’m a professional feeler</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">emotional aficionado</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">expert on this particular sense</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">empath superheroine</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">I was born with more estrogen than your average woman</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;">yes ma’am. sho nuff. yes indeed.</span><br /></div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-71182027714342253422010-09-09T10:12:00.000-07:002010-09-09T10:22:05.667-07:001 thru 25<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ExHqzEZb-_2pkahitWwHsup4rz9xsLRMHSHy15lLC8NXcKO0OCjkPCtpbU-mp1Z1tTqUO0zxboienHhtMF0BUY_DERU_LVl7ZrqUsaKPfdMyTaDgCiMILCMGHir6QAWhvudPs9LzS8ri/s1600/IMG_0721.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ExHqzEZb-_2pkahitWwHsup4rz9xsLRMHSHy15lLC8NXcKO0OCjkPCtpbU-mp1Z1tTqUO0zxboienHhtMF0BUY_DERU_LVl7ZrqUsaKPfdMyTaDgCiMILCMGHir6QAWhvudPs9LzS8ri/s400/IMG_0721.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514964371194636370" border="0" /></a>
<br /><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:1575314050; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:1670444324 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715;} @list l0:level1 {mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">
<br /><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <ol style="margin-top: 0in;" start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want you to hold me.<span style=""> </span>I’m not good at askin so I’ll only say it once.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want someone else to handle everything.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">hospitals make me think of surgery and grey’s anatomy, my heartbeat and visiting hours.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I seem strong. I’m tired.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">there’s laundry to do.<span style=""> </span>I need to clean the house.<span style=""> </span>and make a dentist appt.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">my dreams want to come true.<span style=""> </span>this happens via one task at a time.<span style=""> </span>I have several ongoing to-do lists.<span style=""> </span>somewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want to look across the room and see my daddy.<span style=""> </span>have my brothers and sisters besides me.<span style=""> </span>cousins laughing with me.<span style=""> </span>all of this is an ocean away.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">by the way, I have absolutely no memories of my mama and daddy in the same room.<span style=""> </span>none.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">somehow I always want everything I do to be bigger.<span style=""> </span>never satisfied.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I haven’t cried since Sunday.<span style=""> </span>overdue.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">this isn’t a poem.<span style=""> </span>it’s another to-do list.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want to have keys to your house.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’m on a fast.<span style=""> </span>might not last.<span style=""> </span>don’t feel committed.<span style=""> </span>need to do something with my body.<span style=""> </span>tattoo?<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">love seems grand.<span style=""> </span>it’s really a bunch of little things that hold my bricks together.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">love is grand.<span style=""> </span>like good chocolate.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I need new sheets.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want a rainy day in bed. with movies.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">don’t touch me, I’ve got it handled.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">except that I don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">was this supposed to be poetry?<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I am a chest.<span style=""> </span>wooden.<span style=""> </span>pretty metal handles.<span style=""> </span>secret compartments.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I haven’t prayed in awhile.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">sometimes I don’t feel appreciated.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">my friends worry.<span style=""> </span>I let them.<span style=""> </span>it’s easier than opening up.<span style=""> </span>I never knew I was such an emotional top until now.<span style=""> </span>I keep my clothes on during conversation like the hardest butch top.<span style=""> </span>no I’m good, what you need?<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family:Garamond;">my poems don’t end these days, they just stop.<span style=""> </span>unfinished, like life be.<span style=""> </span>until it is.<span style=""> </span>and there you are.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ol> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-11716848745393644902010-08-24T09:24:00.000-07:002010-08-24T09:41:02.539-07:00mama<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZTJMUfKYBFYOI5cZp-6RpiftDRgB60K0VDIu-qoKPgqC4xEC5Nw80iAU7GqnB5bp1JzEBGq0S45QUC4rMJKQWiqNez9Mywls6aHxKYqngisLt4oFVhkZE-GhJ-LOYEsT8GRGH9GalLJl/s1600/soul+summit+YE+back.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMZTJMUfKYBFYOI5cZp-6RpiftDRgB60K0VDIu-qoKPgqC4xEC5Nw80iAU7GqnB5bp1JzEBGq0S45QUC4rMJKQWiqNez9Mywls6aHxKYqngisLt4oFVhkZE-GhJ-LOYEsT8GRGH9GalLJl/s400/soul+summit+YE+back.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509013113378673138" border="0" /></a>
<br />
<br /><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I can’t concentrate<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">or I do a bunch of other things to not think about you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’m harder than I think, find it easier to cry over a lover than my mother<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but the women I date remind me of her<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">in some way or another</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if I had the money, I would take you away from all of this.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I would.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I listen to myself talk to you and I sound like a mechanical, emotionless version of myself<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">have to detach my heart from my throat<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">so when my words come out of my mouth, they’re not drenched in blood.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I love you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">more than my life<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’ve given you my life<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it isn’t enough<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if there is anything African women know a lot about it’s taking care of people<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and guilt<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">because we should be doing a better job<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">of taking care of people<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">or maybe that’s just me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it’s not that I’m angry<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’m not angry<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">or that I want anything.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">just once though, I’d like to be able to call someone in my family for help<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">instead of always being the one that is supposed to help everyone.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">this poem is a waste of time<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and I never say shit like that<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you hurt so much and I can’t fix it<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the heartache of missing home, a broken heart that hasn’t healed<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">like the wound that has infected your leg<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and that the doctors want to amputate<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the pain will go away if they amputate<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but what of the heartache?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if they amputated your heart<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">would the heartache go away?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I don’t mean to be morbid<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want to know what it would take<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">love letters to you don’t matter<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the degrees I earn then leave the diplomas with you don’t matter<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the books I’ve written & dedicated to you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the shows, the reverent way I speak of you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the prayer the prayer the prayers<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the believing, the working and working to take care of you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it doesn’t matter.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">your pain trumps it all<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">like an anvil dropped on an ant<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">or a butterfly set on fire<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and I believe in love<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">more than your average human<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I invite love in, take off her clothes, run her a coconut-scented bath, write to her, cook for her<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">in love’s name and wherever I see her in another, I reach for me, I mean I reach for the me I see in her, <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">open palms, full of believing</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I should cry now.<span style=""> </span>my mother is in the hospital.<span style=""> </span>I am a hard rock.<span style=""> </span>I am surprised at myself.<span style=""> </span>I am not crying<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">my tears have so much company inside of myself<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">there’s a water park in my chest<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">this poem walks away from the crux of what brought me here <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">to these words<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">people who love me want to hold & comfort me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I act like I don’t need comfort, <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">swallow what feels like the beginning of falling water inside my nostrils<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and the corners of my eyes,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">into my brain<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">thinking myself into not feeling</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I write poems for strangers and lick their day<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">leaving syllables sticking to their armpits, spine, fingertips.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I like to write uplifting poems<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">we can get through this poems<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">strong Naija woman poems<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I do<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I like to write poems that make goosehumps all over you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">remind you of what’s in your chest<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I like to write poems that illuminate the point<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">of all this<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I don’t think this is uplifting<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I don’t feel particularly sad or depressed, not distraught<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">like you’d expect one to feel when their mother is in the hospital<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I don’t feel much actually, now that we’re talking about feelings<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">feelings are dangerous you know<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">especially mine<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I have more feelings than opinions and trust me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’m opinionated.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
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<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">{this is unfinished<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but I will stop here.}<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<br />daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-44322620896896254172010-08-16T14:11:00.000-07:002010-08-16T14:21:20.579-07:00I have loved you for millions of years<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAvXj1m8yxWyZybk5dup7UU4OSCEBe3QBUfhvcy7E9clkCrFZV0vWqNXMBd5fdyq_YkGz9XCFy82Tg2MiGSjl4aGrAg4k7poJ0v8U1oJ8asMBgVQkEP3NnpL9PLLLf-NNcMu7E3MoLKXP8/s1600/WE+LOVE.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAvXj1m8yxWyZybk5dup7UU4OSCEBe3QBUfhvcy7E9clkCrFZV0vWqNXMBd5fdyq_YkGz9XCFy82Tg2MiGSjl4aGrAg4k7poJ0v8U1oJ8asMBgVQkEP3NnpL9PLLLf-NNcMu7E3MoLKXP8/s400/WE+LOVE.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506118584523323602" border="0" /></a>
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<br /><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C03%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I wanna write this to say goodbye to you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if I write you a million poems, there’ll still be that one thing I <span style=""> </span>wanna say<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I can’t lay beside you without wanting to make love to you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">your nature and mine make sense together but sometimes you just irritate the fuck out of me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I break my word a million times to be beside you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I can’t and I won’t and then I do<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I don’t want to miss you when you’re right beside me and I do<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’ve seen this all unfold before, I know what I’ll do<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I should stop
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<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want to write an epic goodbye poem<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’ve started two and neither are done<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want to write a poem that’s beyond all this<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but I don’t have those words<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I have half-verses and a church in my chest that praises and curses your name everyday<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want to run away to somewhere inside myself that makes all this angst seem outside myself and I’m untying myself <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">from you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it hurts, chrysalis hurts<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">in unison we’re out of sync, haven’t been in tandem for I don’t know how long yet we always find a way here to this in between<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">this is the same<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">as before, different, mostly the same<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I have loved you for a million years, painted your face with my eyelashes, ran 100 yard dashes into your arms, I’ve held you for millions of minutes, placed words together like a jigsaw puzzle in a million different ways to render poempictures of you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I have, yes I have<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">this is ruining me but I’m not ruins, I’m not mad at you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if there’s something I’m supposed to forgive you for, I forgive you, I love you, goodbye<o:p></o:p></span></p> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-81912647094255183982010-07-28T12:45:00.000-07:002010-07-28T13:31:52.871-07:00where i is, how i feel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0U03WjudwlfnXAhz4MTqIQ2YN7QcPyQZpkDLX15pUFwokz4pWw8u0aqbJs_AEj-CSoViYXLdyu6kM5LH8L5XG_1J2hoU2zKo0i4-5FGo5e2VqBgJSPHak4Er6vTE8rMo_Ls-HIIXDO-_7/s1600/mighty2006+843.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 264px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0U03WjudwlfnXAhz4MTqIQ2YN7QcPyQZpkDLX15pUFwokz4pWw8u0aqbJs_AEj-CSoViYXLdyu6kM5LH8L5XG_1J2hoU2zKo0i4-5FGo5e2VqBgJSPHak4Er6vTE8rMo_Ls-HIIXDO-_7/s400/mighty2006+843.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499046788545252178" border="0" /></a>
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<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C02%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I asked you to hold me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">a long time ago<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you didn’t or you didn’t the way I wanted to,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it hurt<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I remember these things randomly, unexpected memories traipse through my day that I shrug off,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">make a joke about,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">no bitterness<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">a part of me still shivers when I remember the love we made<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but that doesn’t mean I want you back<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it means you knew how to fuck.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">a friend said today that I look so content<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I work at this<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I don’t chase butches no more.<span style=""> </span>I don’t chase no one no more.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">just working on making my dreams come true <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and laughing <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and being a good person<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and being honest <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and saying stop when I mean stop<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">no when I mean no<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">yes when it feels right</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">that’s it</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it ain’t fancy<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it’s hella simple<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I still love you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I just won’t let that love kill or define me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">that’s what done changed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> </div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-54049248111083412322010-07-15T21:16:00.000-07:002010-07-15T21:21:36.010-07:00lettin go, bein FREE<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><object width="500" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cr4EN7rwFhQ&hl=en_US&fs=1?color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cr4EN7rwFhQ&hl=en_US&fs=1?color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="315"></embed></object></div></div>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-47676651312437328112010-07-07T15:02:00.000-07:002010-07-07T15:38:44.215-07:00i love you so much<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">i love you so much<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">so much more than you love that pain in your chest you’ve made the love of your life<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you keep your failures closer to you than you do me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I revel in all that we could be<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you tell me with your actions and your silences<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">all we won’t be<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and what can I do but pine and write this poem and shake my head?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">baby it’s a shame you don’t know your own name<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">or the colors we could create with our dancing<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if we were to dance with our heartbeats as the drumbeat<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">baby<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you know I love you so much you make my flow<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">sound so thorough<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you make me giddy<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I made me steady though and I know that<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you want me sometime, later, later<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you don’t believe in now<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you believe in what’s hurt you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want you to fly with me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you want to cry without me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">baby<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I can’t be the martyr who holds heartache in my arms in lieu of you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">the breath in your chest<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">is enough to stop a monsoon in its tracks<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but you don’t hear me though<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">that smile you got locked away smoldering in the back of your throat<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">could make last month’s eclipse come back to catch a glimpse of <i style="">you</i><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if you just believed it<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">but you don’t believe it<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you’re twisted over all the things we can’t change<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">refusing to understand all that we can<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">we can.<span style=""> </span>we could.<span style=""> </span>we would if you opened up<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if you could be bigger than your swag and all the sexy braggadocio you roll with<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">we could unfold potential<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and BE<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">potential is the excuse we use to hide from this moment<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">making love to potential is like kissing smoke<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I want lips and arms and laughter and faith and to make it happen.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">give your word and move with it in your chest<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I’ve loved you for so long already <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and you still ain’t ready<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and I don’t know when you gonna be ready<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">or if you ever gonna be ready<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">hiding from your own brilliance<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">it hurts to see your shine when you think you’re in the dark asking to borrow a flashlight when you are the sun<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I love you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">more than you know, more than you realize you deserve<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">and I have to let you go<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">because you’re holding me back<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">baby<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">if only you knew what’s in me for you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">you run so much, so far, so fast<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I feel you on another continent of feeling when you beside me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I see the you you think nobody could love and I love you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">I love you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">baby<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;">baby…<o:p></o:p></span></p> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-53556012551577021882010-06-16T12:59:00.000-07:002010-06-16T13:08:26.104-07:00SOON COME: Poems Painted & Spoken {Wed, June 23 @ 6pm}<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7BurOSj_0wbZJYaV3NFPBQL2u8A3ocCxFvM6Szi7EAu8f32YyZ7V4SuHsa6QQMiRiYIZVD09KkoPYUeST9cyCoYUiUCww5eTheNHcdzr-2qP8xKF-mqwpJCx-01yjQs61vSJTo9iVVI-/s1600/Rhapsody+Painting.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7BurOSj_0wbZJYaV3NFPBQL2u8A3ocCxFvM6Szi7EAu8f32YyZ7V4SuHsa6QQMiRiYIZVD09KkoPYUeST9cyCoYUiUCww5eTheNHcdzr-2qP8xKF-mqwpJCx-01yjQs61vSJTo9iVVI-/s400/Rhapsody+Painting.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483465641047128338" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIR-ueGGTTff9o30Z9EZmPNFyYpcp_lmr0J1tvoLeCcSYrHGN69d3vjvd6U7z_oNODb3QuKQB8p5YytrhSoKbEIZpKe8GGULkuRygFovRgrfmKfFWmmjr5IlBK-vl5L2IH3JWTS8g0C2x/s1600/Rhapsody+Painting.JPG"><br /></a><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><b style="font-family: verdana;">Wednesday, June 23, 2010<br />Reception 6PM, Program 6:30PM<br />Poets & Playwrights presents<br /><div class="im"> <span class="il">Soon</span> <span class="il">Come</span>: Poems Painted & Spoken<br /></div> by Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene</b></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-family:verdana;">The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual &</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"> Transgender Community Center</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"> 208 West 13th Street (btwen 7th & 8th aves)</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"> New York, NY 10011</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">$8 online (</span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.gaycenter.org/node/5226" target="_blank">http://www.gaycenter.org/<wbr>node/5226</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">)</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">$10 at the door</span><br /><br /><strong style="font-family: verdana;">Soon Come: Poems Painted & Spoken</strong><span style="font-family:verdana;"> is a multi-media art exhibit and poetry performance by Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene and will debut Etaghene's visual art. Her art is acrylic and spray painted visual poems passionately splashed on canvas and wood surfaces in order to share the colors of her soul. The space will have life-size poetry hanging around you, video art as well as a loving, tender, soul-deep performance of Etaghene's poetry spanning the last decade of her career. The poems shared will be about the revelry, magic, heartache and angst of love. Etaghene gives you these poems and paintings with open palms and heart, reaching to love you, ever more, ever deeper.</span></span>daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-41786519466821677322010-05-03T15:22:00.000-07:002010-05-03T15:24:06.735-07:00like dawn, like dew{ love poem to my friends}<br /><br />i love you like the breath i was born with, you are the song i move with.<br />this poem in my bones is for you<br />you make me feel like sky, like honey, like red soil in my homeland feels on my feet<br />i love you like dawn loves to yawn good morning<br />like dew loves the blades of grass she always returns to<br />the moment you enter my arms, i feel at home, i feel like who i always was but needed you to remind me, you give me hallelujah and amen all day<br />you bring me bliss without even trying and i love you<br />with a tremendous tenderness these words don't do justice.daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-85618458841822239282010-04-23T08:43:00.001-07:002010-04-23T08:46:27.056-07:00Performing @ Wesleyan Univ, April 23rd & 24th!<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="State"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="City"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="Street"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="address"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="PlaceType"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="PlaceName"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} h3 {mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-outline-level:3; font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <h3><span style=";font-family:Garamond;font-size:12pt;" ><a href="http://www.myloveisaverb.com/2010/04/performing-wesleyan-univ-april-23rd.html">Performing @ Wesleyan Univ, April 23rd & 24th!</a> <o:p></o:p></span></h3> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:blue;" >FYI: I'm performing tonight and tomorrow! Roll thru if you're in the vicinity and/or spread the good word!
<br />
<br /></span></b><b><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >Friday, April 23, 2010, 8pm to 10:30pm
<br /><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">WESLEYAN</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">UNIVERSITY</st1:placetype></st1:place></span></b><b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Garamond;" >
<br />April (Asian, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern & Queer) Awareness Month
<br />200 Church Lounge (at <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">200 Church St</st1:address></st1:street>.)
<br /><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Middletown</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">Connecticut</st1:state></st1:place>
<br />(Please email <a href="mailto:cawkwardrich@wesleyan.edu" target="_blank">cawkwardrich@wesleyan.edu</a> if you're interested in performing, before Thursday night.)
<br />***FREE
<br />
<br /></span></b><b><span style=";font-family:Garamond;color:fuchsia;" >Saturday, April 24, 2010, 8pm
<br /><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">WESLEYAN</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">UNIVERSITY</st1:placetype></st1:place></span></b><b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Garamond;" >
<br />Solo Performance
<br />200 Church Lounge (at <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">200 Church St</st1:address></st1:street>.)
<br /><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Middletown</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">Connecticut</st1:state></st1:place>
<br />***FREE</span></b><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Garamond;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-11979758258311944502010-04-16T14:16:00.000-07:002010-04-16T14:17:27.177-07:00in my bones<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">you wiggle into me like a monsoon with attitude</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the sweetest kind</p> <p class="MsoNormal">like a waterfall falling upward into my brain</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you hacked into me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">love geek</p> <p class="MsoNormal">with computer keys and marmalade and breakfast</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you bring me to the brink</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you make me believe</p> <p class="MsoNormal">this is how it starts</p> <p class="MsoNormal">with the songs I hear making me think of you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">like they were written for you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you whirl into me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">no joke</p> <p class="MsoNormal">like bluegrass</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the blues</p> <p class="MsoNormal">afrobeat and jimi’s electric guitar</p> <p class="MsoNormal">your voice all raspy and baritone with your lips closed</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">got me wrapped in you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you sing to me with your toes</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you look at me and you make me believe in the dead</p> <p class="MsoNormal">baby you could make an atheist a believer</p> <p class="MsoNormal">in fairydust and poems</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the way you say my name</p> <p class="MsoNormal">sounds like poems you wrote for me and</p> <p class="MsoNormal">your poems move mountains in me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">my yes to anything you want from me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">falls from my eyes</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’d be lying</p> <p class="MsoNormal">if I said I don’t want you here</p> <p class="MsoNormal">all these broken promises wrapped up in my bedsheets</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">I will burn the bed and sleep on the floor with you<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">because from the emptiness, there’s room for you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">for all of this</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I write you poems like this</p> <p class="MsoNormal">trying to figure out if I like you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">when I know I love you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you make me rock and twirl and whine my hips</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t even breathe without looking into all I see us being next year</p> <p class="MsoNormal">it’s so</p> <p class="MsoNormal">far past what I’m used to, what I’m used to, I used to stand still, I feel my feet running with my head turned back looking to you, looking for you, expecting you here</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and you’re here</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you rock me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">when I was done with stones</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you wrap me up in egusi and I can’t even—</p> <p class="MsoNormal">say—you—you take the words out of my throat </p> <p class="MsoNormal">and they sit on the floor between us</p> <p class="MsoNormal">stretching and slithering away</p> <p class="MsoNormal">giving us privacy</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to blow glass for you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I do, and make you a house out of whatever you want—verses? brick? dance? kisses? my breath?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m at a loss</p> <p class="MsoNormal">for words.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t lose words</p> <p class="MsoNormal">words find me when I’m lost</p> <p class="MsoNormal">but I’m at a loss for words </p> <p class="MsoNormal">all the ones I find still feel absent of what’s between the two of us</p> <p class="MsoNormal">can you understand what I’m saying?<span style=""> </span>I’m saying nothing</p> <p class="MsoNormal">nothing gets said in poems like this, you have to feel it like a raging beat tearing your chest open</p> <p class="MsoNormal">how can I confess what’s all over my face?<span style=""> </span>how can you not know I want to have your babies?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">do you want me to say it? <span style=""> </span>do you need me to tell you?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I am telling you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">in front of strangers, the birds, my past can bear witness</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the priestess in me I be know I know no other way</p> <p class="MsoNormal">but to give it all up to you</p> <p class="MsoNormal">step aside and let the love crawl through my bones and stamp the beat out</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">can you hear it?<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">tell me you can hear it so we can dance to it</p> <p class="MsoNormal">tell me you can feel it so we can rock to it</p> <p class="MsoNormal">tell me this, tell me, tell me, tell me, please tell me you are here with me</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I need you, I need you to—just breathe here with me right now</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you give me shivers and little fireflies in my belly</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and I want to hold your smile in my navel</p> <p class="MsoNormal">this feeling in me strong enough to lift an anvil with my thoughts from across the room.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">you take me home across an ocean with your arms</p> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253625500851740612.post-24022272790161940222010-04-08T11:22:00.000-07:002010-04-08T11:23:20.159-07:00do you remember that I love you?<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CGRANTS%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C07%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><o:p>(for my friends)</o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love the way you smell<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">and how you walk and the jokes you make<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love the way you love and the way you are<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love the things you say and how you think and the reasons you breathe<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love your dance <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love the way you are a new miracle every moment<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love the way you look at me and know me and hold me when I need you to but don’t know I need you to<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love how you make me laugh, how you understand about me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">what I don’t understand about me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that you hold me in the highest regard<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">that you are home<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">that you speak my language<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">that we create languages<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that you read my poems<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">that you write poems<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">that you are a poem<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">that our poems make poems with words, without words<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">with gazes and breath<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that you are here for me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that I can be all of me with all of you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that you’re loud<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that you love me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that I didn’t see you coming<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love you in this place in my chest<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I loved you from before we met<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">in my last lifetime on another continent with different names and faces<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">the same eyes<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love your eyes<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love your love<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that the bigger my spirit spreads, the deeper you love me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that you’re proud of me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I am proud of you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that I see me in you<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that we love like this<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">I love that this poem could go on for another ten thousand words<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond;">and I’d still have more to love about you<o:p></o:p></span></p> daughter of my mamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971201336774540940noreply@blogger.com3