Love is

For some people love is a storm,

a whirlwind of emotion,

sweeping away everything

with a thunder of beating hearts and the

lightening of charged glances across a room

For some people love is a drug,

an unquenchable thirst

a constant craving,

an insatiable desire

And for some people love is a ghost,

a mysterious mirage that is always just

a little too far, a little too soon, a little too late.

For so long I thought about love,

wrote about love,

prayed about love,

searched for love,

until I was convinced that maybe love wasn’t mine to hold.

Maybe I was a lost sailor searching for stars in an overcast sky,

a miner digging for gold only to be left a fool, which sound apyrite.

But then one day, long after I thought that maybe love had forgetten my name

And I had long stopped searching, I realized that love had found me

in quiet unspoken silences, the mundane moments filled with magic

the car conversations lasting hours, and random ice cream dates

the shopping trips and the hospital visits,

the helpless laughter and the heaving sobs,

I realized that love doesn’t march to our chosen drum beat

and when loves comes often times you aren’t ready

Quickly I realized that love was a tender thing,

a baby bird not yet ready to fly, a small sprout of possibility

an ember flickering in the night sky

But when I found love I found that I was not alone,

and so we nurtured love – feeding the flames

with shared songs and shared secrets,

open hearts and honest conversations.

And with hard work and hopeful prayers

love grew but like a fawn on trembling legs

full of awkward laughter and shy stuttering sentences

misspoken words taken back too late,

and feelings hurt from misunderstandings.

But love was resilient and unbreakable,

stretching across two continents,

oceans of grief from tears spilt.

Love deepened, rooted and solid

Weathered and tested against the storms of life.

Love became air, effortless and all encompasing.

At that moment I knew, more than I have known anything before

that love had made a home in my heart.

Though compared to the stories love was less grand

but somehow more maverlous

and that is when I knew that

for some people love is a raging sea,

but for me love is a friendship set afire,

for some people love is a storm of emotions,

but for me love is a the peace and freedom to be,

love was not some diamond dug from the depth

but simply finding the Crystal meant for me.

Black Queen

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all

Ain’t that funny? How even fairytales stanzas show

that the standards for beauty when we look in the mirror

really aren’t the fairest, where white skin means you win

where dark skins means you sin, you are evil – all disgusting and devil

stories are simply reflections of how society sees

and we know beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

and the holders, I mean hoarders of power want to tell me

that black women aren’t desirable, aren’t hireable, hair ain’t managable

their back talking, eye rolling, lip smacking, no shit taking accountability holding just ain’t agreeable

they want me to reflect this hate back to my kin

but instead I write for my mother, my sister, my fiance, my friends

even if they call you evil – they still gotta call you queen!

They want to tear you down queen, put you in the back where you can’t be seen

but don’t they know that you are the all mother, nana bukulu, supreme mother of all mother

You have been pregnant with pain and borne the brunt of a broken people with your body

and with your hands healed the hurt and made a people whole again, made a people hope again

They hate your God given crown, your tight coils strong enough to push back gravity

they cannot stand the shine of the sun of your skin as you glisten, so they sin

call you, queen, ugly, call you unworthy, tell you you are unwanted and they beat your sons,

beat them until they learn to hate you for the skin you share,

and yet, you still have love to spare.

And maybe, after hearing the litany of hate over and over you start to listen

start to think maybe you aren’t good enough,

wonder if maybe you are too loud, take up too much space

But I want you to know that you have bourne warriors who will defend you with pride

We will bleed and fight for you, we will lead and live right for you,

fill that hole and be whole with you, even when the world wants nothing but us broken

They want to tell me you are ugly? *Laugh*

When men have worshipped at your feet?

When you curves have mades God’s give way and your lips have built nations,

only for the swing of your hips to destroy them

When the lilt of your laughter and the magic of your music has swept the world like a monsoon

When your simple smile saved lives and created mundane miracles?

They cannot capture your charisma or package your perfection so they fear you,

hate you but can’t help but emulate you,

they want you to be quiet and afraid, straighten and press yourself to fit their box.

lighten your tone when you speak to them, they hate the authority in your voice

the inner excellence undefiled by the world, so that even as a slave in the mud you were soveriegn

They say angry black woman, what they mean to say is powerful truth speaker.

Fearless and fierce like flames!

I just want to say this loud and say this proud.

Black woman. Black Queen. Black Mother. Black Sister. Black Heart you are loved.

You are important. You are worthy. You are powerful.

You are rain bringer and heart healer. Truth speaker and freedom seeker.

You are power and grace, mother of the original race.

You are black girl magic, taking scraps and making soul.

You are black girl giddy, black girl glad, black girl gay, black girl gorgeous,

And I know that even with all this – it is not nearly enough.

You are tired. Weary and weathered.

So I offer to you these strong shoulders, and these out stretched arms.

When the world weighs heavy on you are unable to lift the load

come into my arms – they are wide enough to fit you in.

When the world wants to make you fear I will make keep you safe.

When they push you down I will hold you up.

When they do not hear you I will listen.

and queen when they call you ugly,

I will tell you: Wewe ni mrembo, Uri Mwiza, Wakanaka, Tu es Belle, eres hermosa, You are beautiful. You are beautiful. You are beautiful.

Words

These are words

Words spilling form my fingers

I am a man made of words

A happy accident of syntax and syllable

or maybe I’m intentional

but in this silence it doesnt matter

I matter still

even in silence.

Listen to story told by my body

there are no mistakes

only words spilling forth

forming fingers that form words

Ouroboros existense – words made substance

Even in silence I am alive

words like trees

do not need you

to be heard

Sand in Your Eyes

This is a tale as old as time and I don’t know if I’m the one to tell it,

Because my time here has been short, but the tale must be told

And so time will tell if I told it well, time to start where all tales begin

With a step, the physiological expression of intent expressed in action

Stories like journeys, they begin with decisions and so one step is all it takes

 

Because when I say a young girl is climbing the mountain she carries on her back,

You ask Why

And when I pause to think, I realize that I cannot capture her footsteps in the sand

I don’t know

But I lie

Because I know, in part, I see, the mirror darkly, I am still young and have not yet put

away my childish desire to be her knight in shining armor

and so I face against uncertainty armed only with the strength of my love

and sometimes it is enough

 

When I say a boy is drowning and the girl is now a mountain spilling lava

You laugh and say you do not understand

But you still listen when I tell you to become a bird,

You are afraid, the taste of Sisyphus’ failure on your tongue

And yet you write words into wings and sing the wind to your side and fly

And only then can you see clearly, the lava spilling into the water becomes a foundation

And the boy learns how to walk again

He wants to climb again

To conquer but then he remembers drowning and how she gave herself

You close the wings that gave you perspective and see because sometimes when you

Are in the story you cannot understand

 

 

When I tell you to taste salvation and you tell me the stars are like sand in your eyes

I understand

Well, I don’t but I know how it feels somewhere inside

So I nod my head and tell you about the time a boy thought he was drowning

But it was only his baptism

And when a girl thought she carried a mountain only to find that she was the mountain

And how one day words became wings to free something inside

And that sometimes the sun doesn’t come out for a long time

And that sometimes living is harder than dying

And that sometimes love isn’t enough

And sometimes it is

 

What if I told you that journeys, like stories never really end

And that no one reads the ending only

What if I told you that the pain is part of the journey

And it’s okay not to feel like living sometimes

As long as you keep living

That sometimes all it takes is a step

And then another

And one day you wake up

the sun is shining.

And stars

Don’t feel like sand in your eyes

You are You

In the moments when you want to die

In the moments when you want to die,

When your tongue is thick and heavy in your mouth

And your skin is a cage you need to escape

In the moments when you are only a moment of silence

A caricature of your character

When you cannot find any reason to breathe

When nothing is enough

When love is not enough

When family is not enough

When this magical mystery that is life is not enough

When God is not

Well when God might be enough but you are not enough

You are not enough to feel worthy to ask for God

In the moments when you want to slip into the silence,

Step on the cracks and break your own back.

In those moments when the universe cannot fill the emptiness

And there is nothing but broken to answer your pleas

 

In those moments cling to that fear.

That tenuous tendril that keeps you from the last step

Because sometimes one step is all it takes to end your journey

And there is still so much to see and feel

The universe cannot fill you

You might not ever feel whole

But when the clouds pass and the silence recedes like ghostly oceans

You will revel in the taste of discovery on your tongue

And the night sky will loom so large and you will feel small

And know that for a moment you are something God cannot be

You are small question in a sea with no answers

And even though sometimes this can overwhelm you and drown you

In the need to disappear

When you remember to breathe you remember how much

You love the pain of being alive

How there is beauty in a breath and peace in purpose

 

You are not enough.

But you are you and you are the only you that has been

And will ever be and that means something

Only you can be you

And you mean something.

Life is a question mark but you are a comma

So pause, ellipsis,  breathe, breathe, breathe

You are you.

And that is enough.

Rwandafully Made

 

She carries the world on her back

She is mother, she is student, she is teacher,

Both the broken and the fixer

She is woman, rwandaful in her creation.

 

She is mother, her heart a home

She is all sharp words and soft actions,

Her hands calloused and worn building a better future,

Her mind scarred and torn from an awful past

but she works so that her children, her world with be more

she bends beneath the weight of possibility, but she does not break

from the charcoal of Rwanda’s wildfire, she creates miracles

she cooks up a nation and pours out salvation for a people

her eyes cloud from the kitchen smoke and tears shed,

her hands tough from holding together the broken pieces of the hard kings

and her shoulders slump from carrying world but

there are moments, when she sits and sees the future she has birthed,

the nation she created after the terrible birth pain and she smiles.

For a moment the shadows of the past pass away and she glows

Like coals in a fireplace, she is the hearth of the home.

 

She is student, her silence shy and stuttering

But when she speaks the world quakes because she is

All black girl and dark magic, her dark past

Hidden in the brightness of teeth, intellect blinding sharp

But sheathed in the worn leather of culture and tradition

Oh but when she is free she is more beautiful than

the purple sun painting the green hills and red earth of Rwanda

When she is free the shine in her eye’s shames

moon moving across the glittering night canvas

When she is free birds are ashamed to sing, and dancers

Envy her grace. She is not yet woman but phenomenal still

She carries the promise of a more promising tomorrow

Her tears the balm to heal Africa’s ills

She is young and not yet broken, still learning how to love herself

 

She is teacher, wise beyond belief

But shackled by tradition trying to protect her but only

Holding her dreams hostage, so she takes her heart from her body

And with the blood writes dreams into existence for the forgotten ones

For the children of circumstance who the world left behind

She tries to teach them the serpents’ tongue so next time

they will be wiser to whims of the colonizer

And so, she speaks a people into existence,

Tries to resistance and revolution but she is tongue-tied tripping over her words

And so she teaches conformity with her actions

Because before she is teacher, she is all willow and willing to bend so not to be broken

But she remembers when she too was student and free

So she gives her children what she could not dream of possessing, a purpose

 

She is woman, all soft edges and bright sparks hidden in shadow

Rwandafully Made

 

Just Write

Write words

I’m looking for the right words

but I just need to write words,

Right?

Like, if I keep writing and fighting until there is nothing left

It will be all right?

Like, I’ll find the right word to not get left behind,

That’s an idea I can get behind, cause what else is left

But words on paper?

So let me write this words, to right these wrongs

But sometimes when speaking I stutter,

And I write wrong and angels become angles

But it’s all right

Maybe I’m just being obtuse

But I can’t get the right words

Pain’s starting to get acute

Stuttering, only fluttering angles in view no angels

Maybe I need to get in shape,

Eat less, lost weight till there’s nothing left

Then I’ll feel alright

But it circles back, yoyo strings twisted

So I tell myself maybe I just need to square

My shoulders and face the world

It ain’t nothing but a sphere and what’s there to fear

So I need to just write,

I mean I’m just, right?

Or maybe I just am, and this just is?

The world continues spinning,

I continue breathing

I’m Back – Maybe

One of my goals coming to Rwanda was to rediscover myself. I wanted to lose myself in a place a had never been, with people I never knew and hopefully find out who I really am.

One of the things I hoped to regain was my writing. Since before I can remember I have been in love with words. My mom describes me a chubby toddler, barely walking chasing after people asking them to read to me. In my faintest recollections, I can almost hear Ben (the man who helped on our farm and was the target of my requests) with his booming voice tell me the story of the Farmer and the Rabbit for the hundredth time.

I don’t remember learning how to read. But I do remember clutching books and hiding in secluded areas and sinking into different worlds. I would live in these worlds long after the pages of the books closed and could sit for hours just existing in these worlds. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, the pure magic of using abstract symbols to construct breathable realities was a drug to my young and impressionable brain. I developed a habit I could not kick.

And a drug it was. Most parents beg their children to read more books but for me, my parents begged me to stop reading.

“Stop reading and do the dishes!” “Go outside and play” “Moses. Mooosees. MOSES!!!”

“Turn the light off and go to sleep. You have school in the morning”

I would sink so deeply into the stories, hidden in my reading nook in the basement that I would be deaf to the calls of my parents.

As I grew older the role books played in my life also changed. They became more than mysterious worlds for me to explore. They became friends. As a young boy in an accidentally nomadic family, I spent summers in the library with my friends. Falling in love. Hating. Accompanying. These characters became not only my friends but my teachers.

Art imitates reality. And even in a book about dragons and fairies, characters interact in human ways. From this, I learned how to socialize and interact with people. But this is a story for another time.

The point of my rambling is to say that I love words. Love so deeply and intensely that few relationships I have in real life measure up. I began as a reader. It will not surprise many of you to know that I soon picked up the pen and started to try my hand at crafting these magical words.

It started with the childish parroting of stories I knew. I was writing fan fiction before the term was coined. I created stories. Simplistic, childish stories. But stories nonetheless. I then quickly started creating my own unique worlds and characters. Breathing life into beauties like the assassin monkey and the superhero motorcycle gang. I still cry thinking of how much I lost when my younger brother erased the hard drive on the computer I had all my childish doodlings saved. Though my skills were rudimentary, my ideas were brilliant and whimsical in only a way a mind unfettered by the constraints of reality can be. I sigh thinking of what could have been if I had those ideas and the skills to execute them.

Then I went to school and was blessed by God to meet with teachers who taught me to harness my creativity and did not crush it. For the first time, I realized that my mysterious love could be understood. Her mystical charms could be dissected and that I could learn to speak her language. She was no less magical for it though. I fell in love with the exploration of her plot structures and dived deep into discussions about her themes. I spent many happy days like a mad scientist examining her from every angle.

In school was also when I first tasted the most dangerous drug; external validation from success in writing. I was reading at a “college level” in elementary/middle school and winning reading competitions by margins that could not be surpassed. My score has recently been broken which is amazing! (https://www.cantondailyledger.com/news/20180524/josie-harn-breaks-accelerated-reader-record?template=ampart) I won a poetry writing competition. Was able to defeat a teacher in a bet. Yes, I am tooting the horn of my childhood self but it serves a purpose.

I became driven by external validation. I would work hard and I would be rewarded by teachers fawning over me and students being flabbergasted. I loved it. Revelled in it. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was moving away from my roots. It was no longer about the words, the characters, the magic. It became about me. The words were simply the means to an end, the end being my ego being pumped up. I look back and I realize some people tried to call my attention to it but I simply was too high on success to listen to their voices. This continued even until college. I published some poems in school magazines and won some competitions and thought I was unstoppable.

Then I stepped into the real world and everything changed. I failed. Not once. Not twice. But many times. I submitted poems and short stories to competitions and heard nothing back. I wrote and wrote but I was not getting the validation I so desperately craved. My friends still told me that my work was wonderful but now their words sounded like empty mockery. I had heard of the stories of writers writing and getting rejected but somehow in my mind, I said no, not me. I am special. I am talented. I mean wasn’t that what I had been hearing my whole life?

I was crushed. More than I think people close to me realized. I have had my heart broken before and I will honestly say that this was worse for me in terms of the effects. I stopped writing. I still wrote some few things but the passion was gone. The magic had petered out with my lack of motivation. I was no longer gripped in the throes of passion where if I didn’t write I would explode. I would go days without a pen in my pocket. I told myself I was fine. That I didn’t have a gaping hole in my life. I stopped dreaming of being the world youngest Pulitzer in Fiction winner. I gave up on the blog that had gotten me through said heartbreak (patheticwithpotential.wordpress.com) and decided that maybe writing isn’t for me. Maybe I am only meant to be an appreciator of the beauty but cannot play a role in the creation.

I gave up on dreams I had not even fully articulated at the time. Dreams of crafting writing for people that look like me. Dreams of travelling the world on the back of my poetry. Dreams of being one of those names you hear. You know the ones. The names that shaped an era solely on the power of their words. But the most painful dream to give up was one I had since before I can remember. The dream of creating a world and characters that children like me could live in and befriend. I wanted to give back something because I am the person I am because someone else gave back.

I honestly don’t know why I wrote all of this. I will not edit. I will not change anything. I will let this stand as it is.

I want to write again. I am scared because it has been so long and like any unused muscles mine have atrophied. I am afraid that I will suck. But I guess I am more afraid I will die before my story has been written.

I hope this will explain why my blog has been so empty. I hope this will be the start of something new. I hope you will join me on this journey. I hope you will be patient with me as I try to remember how to dance with my lover again.

I would apologize for the awkward stumbling that is to come but one of my teachers told me that as long as the work is yours and is true then never apologize.

Most people won’t get to this point so if you have thank you, I love and appreciate you. Also, I owe you a cookie. Message me and I will send you a gif of a cookie or meet me in real life at some point and I get you a real cookie.

Conversations

They’re easier in movies, when speaking from your heart doesn’t hurt

and complex characters are developed in moment of magic

but in real life, spitting real truths hurts deep like toothaches do

like the love is too much, too sudden, real and all too tragic

so we get playing games, laughing at character caricatures of ourselves

fake relationships with deep emotions that are dammed up

not let loose to flow and wreak havoc but contained and constrained

so that when the water breaks and the we give birth to words, they’re messed up

to its time to fess up and clear the air with the unspoken syllables

the withheld words that hit harder than emotional damage and hurt worse

than back stabbings cause sometimes the truth set you free but freedom hurts.

Like the lack of reparations of the self hate we carry around like a purse.

Let freedom ring and truth fall always from my lips, replacing lip service

with truth serving cause sometimes we get to bloated on fantasy

and the only cure is a dose of reality served by the people who care about us

so listen when I sit you down cause I’m not trying to hurt but to heal,

sometimes lancing the boils hurts more than leaving it alone

but the only way to heal is to stab it with love and hope that the negative

drains out yellow like fear and green like envy and black like hate.

Hope that the flaming needle of my words can hurt so much that you

remember to love your purpose.

Life Sucks Sometimes

Life can sometimes feel like you are drowning,

you struggle and flail until finally you break through,

your mouth open and gasping for sweet air,

only to realize you have been drowning so long

you forgot how to breathe.

It sucks, sometimes a lighting strike sinkhole

and other times inexorable and deadly as time,

the constant barrage of events

sure as rain and as fun as a flood.

Maybe something happened that warranted it,

a bad decision or simply a series of unfortunate utterances,

or in some case nothing but the oppressive pressure

so overwhelming and aching that it leaves you

spent and unable to fin

Sometimes I hate myself. 
Nothing drastic,
Or overpowering like a rushing river.
That would be a relief, if
My hate were some savage tsunami
I could accept the crashing
but my hate is the drip drip drip torture. 
If my hate were a volcanic explosion
Spewing hot lava and ash
upon the skies of my life
Then maybe I would understand
This darkness.
But my hate is a tepid teabag
from fate or just my failure. 

If my hate were a shattering spasm of
the earth shaking and quaking
I could cower in appropriate fear
My shaking shoulders and shaky heart
Merely symptoms of the hate

I hate myself sometimes
A weak shadow hate that hides
In the sun of her gaze or his words
But unlike a tsunami or volcano
Or even the quaking earth
Which are tragic, overwhelming events
That destroy foundations and lives
The shadow simply is. 
Sometimes weaker, sometimes strong
But always there. 

In the Silence, Our Souls Speak

In my writing I have always been interested in silence,

the unspoken sounds and the pregnant pauses in conversation.

Sometimes healing, like the silent rise of a loved ones chest

as they sleep or the unspoken bond of fingers laced and swinging in

the breeze. The silent crease of the lips and twinkle in the eyes.

Often silence can be dangerous and deadly like the eye of the storm.

Perfect peace in one moment only to be riotously ripped asunder,

conversation mine traps that lie dormant before exploding with force.

Silent like the soundless sighs of desperation in surrender to suicidal ideations.

Deadly like the encroaching plague of boredom and mundanity killing

the foundations of a marriage and crumbling the bedrock of society.

Sometimes silence is sacred, like the hushed moment of wordless prayer

in the secret hours of the day where we lay our pride, lust and malice on the altar

and sacrifice ourselves for a moment of peace before the Almighty.

Sacred like the pause in a preachers sermon where you can almost hear a heavenly

Amen echo the words sinking like anchors unto the tables of your heart.

And sometimes silence just is, existing beyond the realm of human comprehension

saying the wordless things we cannot bear to speak out loud.

Sometimes in the silence, our souls speak.

 

Black Enough

I was 20 years old when I had my first chicken box.

I was 22 before I could say the N word without fear of not belonging

To this day I still can not dance any of the popular dances

But by 22 I had mastered shucking and jiving for massa

smiling real pretty with my big white teeth, teeth that on

a dark night on a bus ride home from a soccer game,

were the only thing that fit in with the all white team.

My bright eyes the only thing that belonged in the all white school

as long as they weren’t looking at any of the pretty little white girls.

Cause niggers used to be killed for even looking at white girls

and we done moved on but sometimes you wonder.

So I led with my white teeth forward as a shield and my white eyes down

never achieving too much to scare anybody but just enough

that for a second everybody could forget that I am one of them.

After all I didn’t talk like them, I was eloquent and proper.

Oh I’m not calling YOU a nigger, you’re an oreo, I am talking about those people.

Imagine growing up and being taught self hate.

Raised to detest people who looked like you and love people whose parents

cannot stand the sight of you.

Making sure you weren’t too black but never being white enough.

Then breaking free and realizing that wasn’t even the worst of it.

After all you have been “raised white”, how will you ever be black enough.

I mean, you can’t dance. You can’t play basketball. You can’t even rap.

You like watermelon but prefer honeydew melons.

You speak “proper” and win speech competitions.

I mean you’re an honor roll student. You can’t be black.

The worst part is realizing that the insidious nature of racism

has painted your people into a prison of stereotypes.

I refuse that.

Blackness is not determined by actions, attitudes or culture.

Blackness is acceptance.

Blackness is becoming who you truly are.

Black is a color that contains within it all other colors.

When you are black you are free to be you.

You can be a thug or you can be a scientist or you can be both.

That’s your choice. That is what it means to be black.

I am proud to be black.

Afraid of Myself

The pen pauses on paper, the words choked back like a sun dried-

raisin, rising in my minds eye reminding me that’s the only “black” poem I know

because that’s the only one that’s taught to me, like how I was taught to apologize

taught to appreciate condescending comments about my “eloquence” as if we, black

brothers didn’t invent the word flow deeper than the Nile and as wide as denial,

cuz I denied my heritage, a casualty of white guilt even though I’m not white

but I guess when you are casually called white long enough by white and black friends

you must bear the double burden of being hated for your color

and the fact that you speak proper and say ask instead of axe.

When you are both Romeo and Juliet in this tragedy that is America,

your facebook wall the scene of countless small wars between between you call friends

you learn to be quiet. Which is ironic because you never shut up

except you learn not to say much. How to chameleon your way through every conversation

how to choke down the bitter reality that if you speak up you won’t fit.

Won’t be black enough because you can understand white people’s frustrations

because not all of them are bad. Actually most of them are pretty cool once you get

to know them and in a lot of cases they don’t even know they are being racist.

But you also will never be white enough to make palatable to bring home,

or to be able to speak up about yourself without seeming angry.

So you shut up. Chameleon yourself like you were taught because if you blend

you can’t be hurt. So you laugh. Or ignore. Or just say something like smh.

And with each missed opportunity the DREAM is dying, a slow relentless death.

I am the one killing the dream. Not the awful depraved comment sections

or the rampant political ignorance. Me. With my unique perspective and voice.

I need to speak and stop blending. I need to be brave and step on toes.

This was supposed to be a poem but it turned into a terrible ramble.

But it’s honest. And real. And true. It’s me. Finally ready to speak and be heard.

Your Love is My Drug

Does your heartbeat ever stutter to a st…stop,

when confronted with beauty too transcendent to taste?

Girl you give me diabetus with your fine self, self so fine

like spun sugar, spinning ballerina dancing through the stars.

You are the sweet that makes my tooth ache, the bitter

that makes my coffee wake my sunny heart into a rainstorm.

You are a summer storm, all sunny and rumbling depth

and sudden deluges drain oceans and drown forests fires.

Chocolate is named after the taste your lips forming hello

and sadness in the name they gave to your goodbye.

Don’t let the emptiness fool you, you are much more than a black

hole though you suck me into your presence, you are a black, whole

as in you complete me, complement me and make me king.

We are not drawn to regret but painted to be free like a canvas

still dripping feathers swaying in the breeze of an open window.

Don’t forget the sound of tomorrow but sink in the luxury

of each breath broken only by the promise of the unspoken.

You are a siren singing lost songs that gave up your voice

to climb ashore and rise with me to the skies beyond the horizon.

Sea waves foaming green and gray sprays of distilled beauty

shatter like so much glass against the insurmountable depth

of your worth. Thou art worthy or was it worthy art thou?

Or was it art thou worthy? Or thou. Art. Worthy? Art?

As in you are art, the expression of imagination across the page

stretched languid like a french model across the space of my mind,

leaving me unsettled and thirsty, craving for more

a drug addicted artist craving for completion, come for me and take me

places that I never could begin to forget never having seen.

Explode me and expose to like a meteor shattering the night sky,

cause baby you’re a firework, come and let your colors burst.

But be careful because my heart beats arrhythmic when I am near you,

like a drunken tap dancer and I am liable to stutter, I mean trip,

I mean fall, thundering like Niagara, deeply in love with you.

A Childhood of Sorts

I lay in bed and listen to my innocent self step into the night,

the low moan of the crickets and the cacophony of silence that follow oppressive.

I can taste the fear in my mouth as I glared at the darkness making monsters of my playthings,

the stunted tree I loved to fall from now a unfathomable evil.

My yammering heart beats the ngoma of my people and in that moment I am one with my ancestors.

They too stood fearful against the encroaching darkness and feared the falling skies.

I was a child then, still cradled in the bosom of my black mother, ignorant of her lush mysteries

Now I lay in bed having lost my tongue and my purpose, sick of the fear that fills my adopted mother

Sick of her oil spill fingers spilling hatred across my innocent black skin, staining it darker than coal

falling like snow on the eve of a hijacked holiday for those who never braved the fiery sun

But even now, innocence long forgotten like my childhood fantasies of building a house where we could be safe

even now the fear lingers like a sore taste in my mouth.

I am not afraid of the dark, like my ancestors I dance to the ngoma beat of my heart against the night

but there are some that cannot hear the music and that is what I fear.

I fear those who hate the darkness and the lush mysteries hidden within and I fear that I

innocent no longer am much to close to black for the ones who are afraid to forgive

So I lay in bed and dream of long forgotten moment stolen from the past when I was a boy

and the worst fear I could imagine was a shadowy tree cloaked in shadows turning into a monster.

 

How Do I Start?

I have been frustrated because I have big goals and aspirations and I am very afraid of starting so I keep pushing them off. I read this blog post and it made me look at it a bit differently: http://zenhabits.net/begin/

So here I am…starting.

I will start by simply listing what I want to accomplish.

I want to learn a new language. Either French, Spanish, Arabic or Japanese. I haven’t decided yet. Maybe all of them.

I want to get in shape. Not just functional but strong. Like One hand handstand push ups strong.

I want to learn how to code proficiently enough to build a website from scratch.

I want to get deep with my poetry. Write something that shakes the world awake.

I want to memorize the entire Bible. I want to do it quickly, but I also want to do it deeply. I am conflicted on this.

I want to learn sign language. It is an important gesture for me to complete what I promised.

This is it. This is me starting. Baby steps.

Does the Egg Fear Breaking?

Does an egg fear it’s breaking?

Shuddering at the thought of it’s shattering,

powerful walls unable to beat back the tide of becoming?

Does a seed dread it’s growth?

Helplessly shedding it’s skin to the sun’s touch

unable to control the torrent of growth rising from within?

Does the egg know that it’s walls only chain it?

Does the egg know that breaking with free it

to soar across the sky, king of aerial domain?

Or does it only think of the pain of the shattering?

Does the seed delight in the cold embrace of earth,

not knowing that the sun’s caress is warmer than life;

not knowing to grow is to marry the earth to the sky?

Does a spirit fear it’s awakening?

Clinging to walls and habits strenuously built,

Chained to a body too lax and lazy to reach for the stars?

Does the spirit know it is royalty?

Powerful beyond measure or understanding

Does the spirit know?

Or is it afraid?

Strange Things

Hearts are strange things.

Sometimes they are just so heavy that you have to let go,

but when you do they fly light like a butterfly.

Sometimes they burn so hot that you can’t breathe

for fear that if you open your mouth, you will consume the world.

And sometimes hearts are cold,

like ice–if ice could eat warmth like a ravenous piranha.

The only thing you can do then is wait, in silence, praying for tomorrow.

Heart are strange things.

Sometimes you just have to rip them out to watch them bleed,

just to remember that you are still alive.

That you still matter.

But sometimes you meet someone you can trust.

You give them your heart and they give you theirs and you can breathe again.

Life seems to beat just a little faster,

hearts are strange things.

Sometimes, you have to give them away to really understand.

Forgotten Path, Familiar Road

We have been here before, you and I.

I have promised to do better and be better but

here I am again, apologizing for leaving.

Apologizing for not being good enough or brave enough

or just too lazy to summon the strength to win.

You are my drunken nightcap and my blissful blackout,

I want to drown myself in you until I am not overeating anymore.

Until I am not see seesawing on the pendulum of I love myself

I hate myself. I love myself to much. I hate myself. I hate myself.

I hate myself for loving myself too much, too abusively.

But maybe I can remember how to forget again.

Maybe I can remember how to forgive again.

Maybe I can just breathe again.

Maybe. Just maybe.