Resting

I understand your dilemma -
to comment or not to comment.

A girl walks by
completely un-phased by your attention,

and you want recognition for your effort,
so you put on your shining armor

and resuscitate chivalry with the one statement
that boils her blood -

"You too pretty to be so mean, sweetheart."

Actually...

I'm not mean,

I'm thinking.

Not about anything particularly,
but everything simultaneously. 

That's what happens when I'm left to my own devices.

I'm Alice
tumbling down the rabbit hole,

grabbing at bubbling elixirs
on my way to the hatter's tea party.
Every possibility in the world is open to me,
and I'm happy
hurling through mind space,
no regard for anything
but wonderland.

I grow and shrink at my own whim,
a warrior and a wee one
whenever I please,
all to rejuvenate my spirit,
heaps more than your eyes
or comments ever could.

You see me walking,
but I'm on a journey
for which a smile is not required.

Besides...
Don't you know it's the smiles you can't trust?
Resting bitch is the world's last sincere expression.
That's a personality with layers,

each one rich and spilling over into the next.

Meaningful...not mean,

guess my pretty just takes more effort to be seen.

In Memoriam (for my niece and her new baby)

My brother was killed when hashtags were pound signs,

so there was no online outrage,

none offline either…

He just got shot.

A black finger pulled the trigger

and nobody did anything “constructive”

but put his face on a goddamn t-shirt

that I’ve been wearing (once a week)

for the last 18 years.

You see…I’ve known that Black lives matter for some time now.

I didn’t expect a march or anything…

I got it.

He was nothing special –

no innocent juvenile face to splatter across the news,

Al Sharpton would never speak on his behalf.

In fact, we were halves –

different moms,

same fatal father though,

junkie blood coursing through our veins making us both sick.

At some point he got a girl pregnant

and didn’t marry her,

at another he moved dope to support the baby,

no surprise that no one batted an eye when they saw

Twenty-four…Black…Male…Homicide…

Guess a bullet was the only cure for his social disease.

Guess that’s why no one panicked.

Guess that’s why I can’t get with this new movement.

I panicked 18 years ago,

When the phone rang during the “bad-news” hours

and I had to take a trip uptown

to see roses haphazardly thrown on the pavement where his body fell,

and my DNA daddy hung his head

and acted as if he ever gave more of a damn about either of us

than he did his drugs and women.

I panicked cause I knew no one thought about my niece enough

to work to change the direction of yet another fatherless girl.

When I realized the rest of her life

would be littered with lies

about a man she was too young to know,

but would always wonder about.

And how can any of us girls ever have

a fighting chance to change our stars

unless we know and accept the truth about our daddies.

I panicked when I accepted the truth about mine…

When I realized the best and worst of him war in me,

And that I walk a tightrope between revolutionary and reject

when I stand in front of children and tell them

to forgive their parents everyday

because they did the best with what they had.

When I insist they focus on the future

because that’s all they can really own,

and all they can ask me is how much I money I make.

Keep your hashtag heroes

and other online bullshit.

I haven’t been able to breath for 18 years.

My hands have been up in surrender for 34.

And unless you’re prepared to live your protest,

your hashtag might as well be another goddamn t-shirt

with a nondescript face,

sunrise and sunset dates too close together,

passed out to the family in memory

of the lives we put on the back burner for 140 characters of self-righteousness

White Rum

You running around in my head makes me sleepy,

so I go to bed where you run around in my dreams,

then in my brain,

then out my ears onto my pillow,

right down my arm to my fingertips...

I dial your number and there you are

not thinking about me.

My Hands

Rougher than I'd like to admit - 

mishandling the important things with

my clumsy dexterity.

They often ache with want,

reaching for what they can't have,

trying to wring the nervous out when they

come up empty.

I blame them for my habit of hurting myself on others.

My hands -

greedy for validation that

they belong to someone worthy enough 

or lucky enough

or smart enough

to make sound decisions.

And when they look up and see they belong to me,

they're so ashamed that they cover my face,

like I don't know their motive.

All I can do is apologize (over and over)

for fucking up (over and over)

for bad judgement (over and over)

and promise them I won't do it anymore...

Then pray I won't.

And they forgive me time and again,

letting me off the hook

for illogical romanticism

or uneven reciprocity 

and my tendency toward victim hood

when I get what I knew I would

from #loveagainsorta - 

not enough.

They forgive me,

but vow not to wipe my tears if I break my own heart again.

Lucky for me...

all three of us are promise-breakers.

Girl Hands

I used to pray for girl hands -

soft ones that would look good with red polish,

and a big diamond ring.

Or in a picture on top of a man's hand,

on top of a "just-married" white pillow.

Soft hands that weren't chapped since birth,

dainty ones that a boy would want to hold

instead of punch.

Where the lines on the palm would connect

and give me a good future

full of normal things that normal girls want.

I prayed but never got them.

Then one day they came - 

Walked right up to me and grabbed my breasts,

pulled at my heart just beneath the surface,

nicknamed me and held me at night.

Played with my hair.

Played with my feelings.

Left me missing them.

Left me exposed.

I'm careful what I ask for now.

The End

Moving.

Mooooving...

Moooving...forward

Foooor-ward

Fooor-ward

For-ward

Four words...

All love; no regrets.

[period.]

12:01 am (for me) (Haiku)

I did all I could

yesterday...some things I

thought I couldn't too.

Tyler Durden

Can't find the words...help me...

(As long as you look okay, you're ok. Smile. No one questions a smile.)

Wish I knew what to say...

(Just don't cry. Tears will be the only thing remembered.)

But...

(Don't argue with common sense. Strength wins every time.)

Okay. I'll say what you told me.

(Good girl!)

"Goodbye!"

(Good girl...)

Robert Glasper

He said, "You're so beautiful right now,
in the music,
here with me."

"Maybe you're here with me.
Maybe I'm the music.
Maybe I'm in you," I said.

I was the woman I wanted to be -
boldy seductive,
a moment,
an experience.

"Say my name..."

"You first."

She Asked

"What's it like?"

Big eyes wide open and curious.

I searched for a simile, but a metaphor would do.

I smiled to myself.

"It's waking up and learning to walk again 

with feet a size smaller or larger 

than when you went to sleep.

You'll embarrass yourself at first because

you're not used to them.

Then you realize,

you've had feet your whole life.

Do what comes naturally...

WALK!"

- For ARH

If You Can (Haiku)

Tomorrow ain't lost,

no matter if it feels so...

outrun your fear and find it!

Love Me (for liltunechi) (Haiku)

Maybe they all thought

they'd have the baby that would 

promote his "bigness..."

Go! (Haiku)

Toyota's Slogan -

"Let's go places!" I own one...

Why am I waiting?

...with Benefits

I understand the pillows in the bed,

there for comfort

from bad choices.

The staying too long or leaving too soon

that felt right because you were wronged.

...I walked away often, too,

hoping all I gave would (somehow) amount

to all the love they didn't give,

and (somehow) they would give little more than a shit

about the "good" one.

Yeah.

We breathed the same bullshit

at different times, from different asses.

Felt we were special because the world isn't,

and the world ain't us.

Both suckers for love-like feelings,

victims of love-less times,

then the illusion.

You had a friend in me.

And then a place to hide the hurt.

And then a place to hide your face.

Humpty Dumpty

That thing loved bread

       and sauce,

made my top half thick  immediately,

       made me dizzy and sleepy,

made me sick...

That thing loved to make me sick.

I felt nothing for it,

       pain from it,

judged because I made a quick decision once I found out.

I don't look back unless someone else reminisces.

Then I remember it and me,

       then it...then me...separated...

Then I remember me!

It wasn't a mistake nor a sin to choose life - 

mine...

Harmonica Haiku (for my friend)

"You're in my heart," she 

said with pretty, empty eyes.

"What Heart?" I replied.

                                             

That Love Shit...

He's like that shit I wrote
when I believed in shit like that.
That love shit...

That can't sleep shit
cuz I'm thinkin bout him shit,
even though he ain't thinkin
bout me shit.

That love shit...
Or...that "you think it's love" shit...
but it's really
some other shit we call love because it
sounds better than "I don't know."

Well...I know...
I don't believe in that shit no more
I sleep. I eat. I live.

Throw him in my backpack for safekeeping.

Love is a bad tenent here now -
she breaks things,
don't pay rent on time,
disturbs my peace of mind.

I'd evict her but there are no vacancies anywhere
and the God in me won't send her to a manger
to birth her bastardized effects into the world...

Like him,
the one who came too late to the orgy,
who believes I was made for him
and he was made to heal me,
and our particular symbiosis
makes sense in this parasitic world.

[I'm rolling my eyes.]

THAT  love shit...

Abstract

Lying on my back I saw you floating,
just above my head.

Wondered what you were doing up there
as I searched up for my peace of mind...

(I wish I wasn't so terrible at choosing bedfellows.)

Looking up instead of looking forward,

always doing that

always daydream-perfect

always reality-wrong 

always never enough

The Way We Left It...

Gratitude should be as real as God
and sincere as sin,
revisited as often as each morning's first conscious breath,
when our brains are trying to reorganize life

and put the world back the way we left it before we slept.

Recalled at the most irrelevant times,
especially when we really mean it,
and realize all gratitude

is pulled from the same pot,
sincere or not,
and in its place goes the sentiment.

Poison or prescription becomes the question...
Did it injure or heal,
and who will have to drink it down after you?

And being that this world is incredibly small,
our times to sip from the pot will come often.

Russian roulette with karma
hoping for a CLICK or a blank or a gun jam

You always get the bullet though,
That's what they mean when they say you reap what you sow.
Was the "thank you" to appreciate or obligate?

Did you take because you need or because you could?
And did the supplication you assumed was from above really amount to any good?

Most people miss that part,
That even to receive you must have a clean heart.
And we wonder why the world only makes sense when we're indebted and owe,
We leave it that way - we take our gifts to go!

Daily Devotional

When Jesus calls me,
He'll use His cell
to call my house phone
(Yeah, I still have one...)
and the number will look vaguely familiar,
(like it belongs to someone who almost loved me, but stopped calling before he knew for sure)
and my mind will race to recall the disappointment,
so I won't be thinking straight, and I'll answer the phone like,
"hell-uh"
and He'll be like,
"Yes, ma'am. Just calling to see whether you have a church home..."
and because the red type in the Bible doesn't include audio,

I won't recognize his voice,

and I'll laugh

and hang up.

I'll be running late for something,
rush out my house, and he'll be sitting on the steps of my building

beneath the "NO LOITERING" sign,
With a hoodie on,
back to me,
head hanging low like a corner dope head.

And I'll give him a disarming, "Good Morning,"
as I always do when people rest on my steps,
and He'll look up and be gorgeous,
kinda like every race in the world -
the most attractive characteristics of each
in a configuration only God could make.

His eyes of fire will stare for a minute before he says,
"You have a blessed day,"
and I'll say,

"You make good choices too!"
and He'll overexaggerate a laugh before asking for my number.

I'll ignore the request.

Then somehow He'll cut me off on 295 with his sportscar
(that must be overcompensating for something else),
and I'll sit on my horn and call him an "m-fer" with every adjective I know in front of it,
throw my middle finger at Him with the ease of a deuce chuck,
and He'll wave back in His rearview like Miss America.

When Jesus calls me,

He'll yell up my block in the hood,

give ethnic handshakes and call everybody "Son"

(ironically).

He'll be the man who holds the door open for me at the bank,

the man who undresses me with his eyes

before he notices me noticing and corrects himself.

He'll get my attention and hold it,

pay me a compliment and mean it.

I'll hear Him,

while everyone else sounds like noise.

My response will be music to His ears,

and He'll give the same enduring faith he expects...

When Jesus calls...he'll dial direct.