Wrecking Brain

I can tell when a particular best friend of mine is up to something, just like she can tell without seeing me when and if I've been crying. So, when she called me the other day, asking a million plus one questions about a particular someone, I knew, with no proof, that either she was up to something, or, she knew something or some things that I didn't. And when I say asking a million plus one questions, this was like a police interrogation - but not as intimidating. And in between our laughs and my not being able to stay still, I knew what it was all about and where it was coming from. Without her saying so, I was given an outside view of what I've always kind of wanted to know.

And when she asked the question I've quietly asked and answered for myself, I cheerfully answered yes. If asked, the answer is and would be yes. For a long time, the answer has always been yes without a shadow of doubt.

Sitting on the phone with her, I wrecked my brain while trying to pick hers to no avail. And as much as I figured that I had it figured out, I just wasn't sure - and still am not.

She said to me, as if I didn't know, "you know sometimes we look and it's been sitting there right in front of us all along". I know just who she was talking about and what she was saying, but, I wanted to know why? And where was it all suddenly coming from is what I couldn't figure out. Were there truth to her questions? Had she heard it all from the horse's mouth and was just encoding it so I couldn't repeat it verbatim? Hopefully, this won't end in the world may never know like the age old question of "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?"

I hope, for my own sanity that I'll be able to get to the center of it all because by all means, it's been a long time and all sorts of emotions are bound up like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

If I took my own advice I wouldn't be wrecking my brain over my best friend's hidden messages or your sometimes cloudy disposition. If I took my own advice, I'd be at the center of the tootsie roll pop already. But clearly I'm not.

It's been said that good things come to those who wait. And I hope, this, is a classic example of such. I don't expect a fairy tale ending because in the world we live and function in, fairy tales don't exist. But the sheer feeling of a love so transparent that it becomes contagious will do. 

Anthony Hamilton Do You Feel Me

American Gangster soundtrack

love jonesing love

i think he thought or thinks he has me all figured out. and in figured out, i mean, knowing the reasoning and logic behind the things i do, the way i act, how i've become who i am - why i am the way i am.

i guess.

i am a romantic. i intentionally left hopeless out because i'm not hopeless in this realm. nor unrealistic or bitter, twisted, confused, mixed up, unsure, indecisive, flustered. least not when it comes to romanticism in what i think it is and what i want it to be.

my mother raised me. i was placed into her womb at 15 and she gave birth at 16 but was told no sooner than the moment my umbilical cord was cut, it was said i would die within 24 hours. at 16. i've always viewed her as a single mother though my then step-father was indeed around, present, and in the picture, even with him, she had to defend why she was the type of mother she was. she gave us what she never received. she cushioned our lives so that we would never entail the bumps and bruises that she and her siblings endured in their childhoods. she set us up to be our own individuals before we knew that we were individuals.

a city girl from the projects with teenaged parents, one absent and would be by all means, forever. my father figures were my big black grandfather whose laughter always rolled and bellowed from his belly, an uncle who spoiled me rotten with whatever i wanted and whenever i wanted it, and a great-grandfather who was the smoothest man ever to walk the block, it's from him i inherited the importance of smelling just as good as you look. by the time i was nine, all three of these men were absent from my day-to-day life. one incarcerated and two dead.


but before any of these men seemingly disappeared, they taught me how a girl ought to be treated. they taught me what it meant and what it felt like to be wined, dined and spoiled. big wheelers, custom made gold earrings, all the cookies, cakes and ice creams a girl could ever desire. the only times i cried or do cry over these men is at the thought of them not being around in my day-to-day life. the sheer moment of reading and re-reading these lines bring tears to my shorelines.

and to think of this man who assumes or feels as though he has me "figured out" from printed words from a book full of assumptions, misconceptions, and generalizations, i question if the point and purpose behind this piece is even legitimate or worth my own time.

i was raised by women who were focused more on survival and independence than they were about love and making a man feel happy, wanted, or needed. life growing up was about staying out the way and letting your work speak for you. better to be seen than to be heard because once you open your mouth, you remove all doubt. so i worked. hardly played. i read books and indulged from time-to-time in girly games: hop scotch, jump rope, numbers, down down baby, and so forth. but my comfort was in the words on pages in binded books that took me away from my reality. my comfort was in things that allowed me to imagine worlds that as a nine year old girl, i knew i would have to work endlessly for me to see in my lifetime. i wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. nothing was given. but anything could be taken.

love had never become a factor until discussions of the future came into play. wanting the children after the marriage and school and world travels. to conquer my world first before creating a world for my future. but then you grow up. you get older. you live and experience life through the cards that were dealt to you long before you learned that you were even playing a game.

i read books for the vocabulary. to expand my imagination. to give my own writing the umph it has now. it was never for the attempt to reach what was read; i didn't read fairy-tales to paste my face there and pray on little crossed fingers for my prince charming. as much as it was for the escape aspect, it was to become a better me than to become a better second you.


even as a child, i was too much of a realist to want the dreams i read about or the fairy-tales i watched or the movies about the childhood loves who grew into lifetime loves.

yes, i love love. i love what love is supposed to be. i love how love is supposed to feel and what its lovers are supposed to go thru. i love jonesing over love by myself and imagining how my idea of love would feel if another loved me with the same amount of love, passion, and empathy; the respect, that love really ought to have.


but then life fucks shit up. that and the people in it. you realize that love is an idea, a concept, an emotion that needs action to nudge its body up against it for it to get the human qualities that we people place upon it. it's not love that makes love suck. it's the people who don't know how to make it move and talk the way it ought to.

by all means, love, is not about infidelity (cheating if you didn't know) or abuse or tears of pain from fighting for the attention we desire. yes, people do things that go against what we want love to be. people make all the mistakes in this world. but it's up to those same people whether or not they will learn from those mistakes, or say fuck it, and continue doing what satisfies their warm flesh.

love, is feeling the butterflies you thought had died. it's looking into that man or that woman's face and seeing your future glimmer thru their pupils. it's the uneasy feeling of walking out on faith for what you know you want and deserve. it's about jonesing for this person who when the world thinks it knows what you're capable of, they know for a fact as they've seen you in action. it's that person wanting and yearning to be there when they can't.

it's you loving them when they're torn and battered; loving them thru their growth, their highs and lows, insecurities, and in-sensitivities. loving the love in them while realizing they're human and function 100% of the time as humans while what you see 100% of the time is a lover.


love is just as much about the falling and getting up as it is about it thru what was thought to be impossible.

Kem featuring Chrisette Michele

If It's Love

re-discovering me

I feel like I'm always "rediscovering me". Like I'm always lost or something goes awry and I'm left clueless and confused. Left to pick up the pieces just to realize that the pieces don't paint the picture I last remember. Not a good look, and an even worst feeling. But life goes on right? 

Of course, it has to.

Life is the one and only thing that allows us to transform ourselves more times than we can keep count. Transformations and changes that exceed the number of fingers that we're born with. Who we are now, will not be who we are in six months, let alone one or 20 years from now. And that, is a tad bit frightening, but equally exciting. 

In the past year, I've been broke without a complete dollar to my name, gotten out of, back in, and back out of a relationship, changed jobs and fields, I've given up my apartment for a new beginning, stopped relaxing hair and exchanged my long flowing tresses for a tight curly puff while seesawing back and forth on whether I should return to relaxed hair. I've been lied to, cheated on, threatened, and have felt angrier at myself than I ever have in this life of mine.

One of the worst feelings in this world, is to know you're lied to, or done wrong, because another didn't feel as though you were worthy of the truth. Or worth the honesty you duly deserve. You're left to morph into Inspector Gadget to seek answers to questions you've verbally asked. And you're left to pick up the pieces of such ill-fated decisions. There aren't enough words I don't believe that can really pinpoint just how I feel, as there are times when I don't have a clue just what I feel.

One day at a time. As simple as this statement sounds and looks, it's probably one of the hardest set of words to put into action. To put into motion and practice. I'm used to constantly moving and making life happen. But how do you get un-used to such a thing? How do you get accustomed to things, life, being different from what you remember?

So as a dedication and promise to myself and my mother, this upcoming 4th of July weekend, I'm going to live life like it should be lived. And as much as I look forward to the most poppin'est weekend I've had in some time, there is a bit of apprehension because it's been so long since I've done something for me or put me first to take care of me. This upcoming weekend, I plan to be a floater and a wearer of many hats, pumps, flip-flops, dresses, capris, tanks, and swimsuits. Living life bar, yacht, restaurant, beach, museum, movie, mall hopping. Living life like it ought to be. All while laying my many loads down for a few days to allow myself to smile and breathe freely and comfortably.

I take now to shed what's left of my old self, so that the new me can emerge and immerse herself into a new life that she's waited oh so patiently for.

am's inspiration

I started this nearly 3 years ago and am JUST finishing. Nonetheless, it means more today than it did then. Hope you enjoy!

this reminds me of timeless novels named after the main character - simple titles. charlotte's web. selah's bed. song of Solomon. resurrecting mingus. sula. assata. you get the drift. but this isn't even about amity, more so for her and me and any other woman who may read this and understand the joys and pains. the frustrations of adulthood, livelihood, and trying to be and achieve something in life without much guidance. it's hard. and most days, it hurts.

the inspiration. the love. the passion. most of it has left me again so I can do me again and search and find me again. to look at me and change me again into a new me again. find a joyous me that has found a lot that I can say I love you in front of my mother type of again - again,

this is about the life of a girl turned lady who's still fighting to become the woman her mother so eagerly hopes shes trained and raised her to become. this is about the heart that has been through some things but keeps going. keeps searching. keeps trying. keeps praying humbly for change and honesty and consistent love.

I hope this inspires you to do more. to be more. to understand more. to want more and therefore, achieve more.

so am called my bluff without her even knowing it. I've been trying for a while to write something with the same umph my past writings had. something striking and poignant. but I failed to realize that words written with truth are poignant and prolific alone. they stand on their own like a persistent toddler who insists on learning to walk but to stand on its own. without help and guidance - only inspiration. even more so, I fought with myself to do this and still am because there's nothing I can find in the obvious, nothing that sits directly in front of me that screams pain and therefore begs for me to etch its existence and my memory of it on paper. It's said that writers write best when in pain. Or upset. Or angry. Yet, none of these apply to me.

when creativity takes a break, life happens because life has to go on and it has to get things done. accomplish a goal. teach lessons. change the lives of other people. it inspires. it sees and feels and tastes and hears and smells new things to inspire and build and create something new.

many, most, if not all of my writings have been mere exhibitions of what it was and felt like to be hurt and pained. to have been wronged and left to lick wounds that originally werent there - wounds that we tell ourselves shouldn't be there. but in all honesty, they need to exist and need to live in order for us to learn. I've learned this and still am learning that my body, heart included, is nothing less of an open, blank, plain picture, sitting silently and still, on an easel, waiting to be scribbled and written all over on, to be negated and loved, to be hurt and healed, to learn and be miseducated - to be painted on with blood stained hands and lips.

I know I'm a woman. I was born with a vagina. raised as a girl. grew breasts. learned about sex in-between my mother and I going to the movies to see Waiting to Exhale as a little girl and that night she sat me on her bed to have "the talk". as a woman now, but specifically as a girl then, and many of us, once as girls, we learned about our sexuality and sex organs in correlation with the difference from a "girls" privates and a "boys" privates. everything we know, we learned by accident. many of us, learned about sex far before our parents told us that god awful Birds & the Bees tale. many of us, learned that fire is hot and ice is cold not because someone repeatedly repeated it to us, but because we had to find out on our own.

for me, it's only recently, in the last few years that I've realized that I am a woman. that my struggles and pains, joys and triumphs, my dreams, are all shaped around and by the fact that I am a woman. I pray for my unborn children and their lives because I am a woman. I want to be loved by a man with the same mustard seed that and hopefulness that I have come to love my God and spirituality because I am a woman. I have experienced many and plenty of hardships and have been knocked down in life because I am a woman! a woman who loves herself. a woman who loves her femininity but doesn't lavish in it. Call is paralyzing if you'd like, but this is beauty and sensuality all wrapped in one.

with time and patience, I've learned and have come to understand that life is shaped by experiences. Experiences can happen to us and to those who we love forever and a day that shapes who we are and who we eventually become. I use to question the validity in such a thought, but with age comes a lot of things, more specifically wisdom and understanding; and there is truth in that thought. and this realization more times than not places uncertainty into my heart as I joyfully look forward to motherhood and a life as someones wife. joyfully look forward to a life of success and limitless possibilities. but to know that what I myself have and will continue to experience in this life will shape the lives of my children and my future generations, and even, may shape the ways to which they view me. that my pain and joy will mold the lens to which my husband and children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews will view me in this harsh world. so, I secretly pray away from others but publicly in the corners of my bedroom that the lens that I will someday be viewed with will be one of strength and respect. nothing more. or less.

there's something sacred I believe in realizing who an individual is to themselves. because, if I don't know or can't tell you who I am and what I mean to me, then I can't tell you anything else. if I can't tell you about self-love, self-understanding, self-empathy, self-compromise - SELF, ME, myself, and I, then I can't tell you anything else. if I can't tell you these simple things, if I can't tell you how much I love and adore myself, then I can't explain the depth of my love for another.