and the cursor blinks

I had a good morning today. My meeting went well. It was rejuvenating and enlightening to feel supported by someone who barely knows me, but feels my energy and understands my truths. and the cursor blinks... I came home readhy to "tidy" up and get prepared for a joyous moment and then these feelings.... the ones way over there. They came back again and sucker punched me. and the cursor blinks... It blinked over and over again while I stared at this page and wondered what I would say.... I am irreversibly scarred... not like... not like the scar from the surgery I had this summer. That scar is a gentle reminder of how great GOD is.... it... its.... like living with a death sentence and fighting it everyday. You often choose to enslave every move forward.... those hands dig into your skin and molest every ounce of your being... over, over, and over again.... failure becomes a reminder of your useles flesh. disruptions become a reminder of how you can be overlooked. Unhealthy relationships are reminders of how dysfunctional you really are.... and the cursor blinks. It blinks. I type. It blinks. I sigh... and not want to move from this space. Shyt..... this thing is eatin at me.

Muhfugga got the nerve to call somebody...

It's been... It's been 33 years since you first loved me. Loved me in a way that was supposed to be. I was five just sleepin. To bed my mother put me... asleep I lay and your hand tugged against my leg. It's been 33 years since you first loved me. The hot semen runnin down my legs and "shhhhhhhhhh" were the words I heard you say and "come here" was an often call and I remember the closet, the one you hid me in next to the hall. It's been... It's been 33 years since you first loved me. I remember, I remember the time you asked permission for me to go to the laundromat with you. Remember? Yeah, how you got out the car after parking it next to the high school. Nevah washed clothes on the side of the street, but you washed your body against mine... I guess that counts right? Your cleansing... not mine. It's been 33 years since you first loved me and now you wanna, wanna make a phone call to daddy. Ha, ha... did you tell him how you made me suck your dick? Punk ass muthafuckka... It's been 33 years since you first loved me. Hope you bringin a condom this time, cause I can get pregnant fo real... not like the mental pregnancy you forced me into and now I gotta deal with the afterbirth. Yo punk ass relived your own misery. Was it because daddy left that you were so aroused to abuse and leave me? What was it. I'm swimmin with this feelin of fuckin yo ass up..... I cant stand you. I've murdered you in my mind long ago and now you wanna call. Please, please tell him where you use to touch me. Please tell him that you made several introductions to my body. And I heard you got five kids now.... I wonder which one got to meet you in the other room. This shit kills me thinking about it. It's been 33 years since you loved me. Was it that easy to store away thoughts of Kindergarten lips on your genitals... huh? You a sick ass muhfugga...... and yeah I'm pissed! I oughta be. Somethin gone blow... gotta figure this one out. You can't tramp around and fuck up people's lives and resurface like Robin Hood... You aint here to save nobody. You aint did shit but terrorize me and God knows who else. It's been 33 years since you loved me. But this year "nigga" it looks like I might be loving you.

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Jet-scaping across my land. You zig zag herer and therer and now you land. Down the stairwell into my soul, swole, my heart... it beats with you by its side. Closer. Closer to my dreams. Ha,ha.... just strummin.... Goapele is playin and I'm thinkin bout chu! Funny how... how my words like to run between the lines. You know the ones I'm talkin about. The phonetically, grammatically correct lines and kiss the potpourri of letters that squeeze next to eachother when I type... da ones dat soun' like dat <---- that. Yeahhhhhhh.... I just reread that post about me givin that white boy some money. That shit was serious. I was in there. Walkin with Bigger, Bessie, Mary, Jan and the Dalton's. Walking with the detectives and the raiding of all those innocent black people. I was in there. I was in there walking with my people's pain. Damn.

Death in the eyes of a bystander

When does ignorance stop being my friend? Sometimes my thoughts are fleeting and intentioned for escape. Then I, I grab hold and let them dance throughout my mind, my body, my soul. I've never witnessed such savagery. The blows to the face, the body , the stompin. Were there weapons? I'll never know. Brown and Black children clawing their lifes miseries into eachothers veins. Swinging with hope to land on new ground. Attacking the unfamiliar and striking something that they already know. Poverty. Despair. Drudgery. Dismembered bodies thrown across the crowd. Everyone wanted to be a part of this. It was a part of their something. "Like Bigger", did they now feel free? The pulse of the campus swims into mouths that ventgure in and out ofm y office. They came in to release Jonah from their scarred cave beneath their bosoms. A delivery and theiur gone. Gone to swell again and deliver more. Anger floated above the crows. The fists beat on flesh in temp as if striking a drum. Boys hit, thump, thump, thump. Girls swung, clink, clink, clink. Boys pummeled, thud, thud, thud. Girls fell. One passed out, almost trampled.

I gave a white boy five dollars today...

I had to skip my bart connection and get off a lil early. One stop before my intended destination. I made a promise to return to that second story room, knock on the door, and leave the cash behind. I felt good about payin my dues. Makin it even. Squarin out the deal. It wasn't unusual. Somethin me and her had worked out. I guess I was just a tiny bit bothered, because me and Bigger's conversation had to halt. I knew it would be disrupted, but I didn't know how to tell him. Him clinging to his own truth of how the world had caused him to murder long before. Long before he beheaded that colorless girl. Her head dangling in her own blood. Dark locks swirling in the pool of plasma. Baptizing strand after strand... It wasn't the burning of her flesh that stripped Bigger of his own dignity. It was long before and, and as I learned of who he was, is, on my campus, in the streets, in my family... I... I..I had to cease the conversation and make my departure.

When the cage door opened I walked out... Book in hand, Bigger close by, brisk air teasing my lips. I was drunken by his confession. It took a moment to gather myself and shift my body forward with each motioning step. I witnessed the world and wondered ... just wondered. My mind was still on my arranged meeting. I suppose it would be a dull encounter. Me. The door. A knock. A delivery. A brief arrangement, but warranted. I made it down the stairs and ventured in the direction of the ATM. It's almost a gurantee that I have to go 200 feet or so in the opposite direction before I head towards my destination. I often go back before moving forward. It has become an automatic response to yearning to achieve. I could prepare ahead of time knowing that I am to make this delivery and not have to go backwards, before moving forwards. Again, my mind professes the silent "A-Ha" in this mini discovery. I.. I... I went to the ATM machine and on my way I encountered a little white boy and his mother. I saw them in the distance. A table. Items on the table and an intent to solicit. I figured they would reserve their sales pitch when I walked by. I glanced as I got closer and then hurried my eyes in a different direction. 10 steps away, 9 steps, 8 steps, 7, 6, 5, 4, .... "Excuse me." The young boy blurted out. His words snatching my attention. I slowed carefully and turned my body in his direction. "Would you like to buy a brownie? I'm trying to raise money to go to France this summer and..." I jumped in and said "What school do you go to?" He was a bit puzzled by this question. He said "What school?" I said, "Yeah, what school?". He thought about it for a minute and said "St. so-and-so" and his mother quickly followed up with, "He'll be at Oakland Tech next year". I didn't think anything of that comment until now. Now, as in 1:26 a.m. on my damn couch.... Anywho, I caught a glance at the brownies and thought they looked tasty, but I couldn't have one. I also felt a small obligation to support him. I thought I would give a dollar to his cause, but found that I needed the dollars, because I had counted them as part of the money to be dropped off during my arrangement. I dug a little deeper and found a twenty-dollar bill. My mind raced, and my race raced, and my anxiety raced, as I committed to a jokingly, yet serious statement about... shedding my winter coat and not needing brownies. I gave the young man five dollars towards his cause and asked that he donate a few brownies to a person who may be homeless in the area. He and his mother thanked me repeatedly and I was off to my arrangement. It felt good leaving the money behind. It was a small contribution that could possibly lift the burden off of many black shoulders. The sagging pants and dreaded heads, and gold teeth, and loud chatter, and daunting figures... the ones that are repeatedly drawn to attention when standing in a police line up. The one's who, like Bigger Thomas, have murdered long ago... The one's who see no way out and are forced to murder, beginning with self, because selling brownies beneath the BART overpass would be a terrible fate of their double consciousness. Not a care drifted from the soul of that little white boy as he motioned towards me and swept his words around my neck. Not a worry of what I thought about him entered his mind. His innocence showed me this. Maybe my five dollars would allow an opportunity for many of the calloused white minds to conjour up Jan. The communist. The one white man who tried to empathize with Bigger. Maybe my five dollars would edge a space into the mind of this little white boy and his mother. I can't say that our interaction made me wonder what they "really" thought of me and other "dark" folks like me... but I can't help but wonder. The Oakland Tech comment was unexpected. Maybe it was her way of saying, "Hey, I am comfortable with my kid being around your kind". Maybe it was her way of saying, "Hey, I hope my kid encounters more darkies like you when he gets to Tech". Maybe it was her way of saying, "This economy has taxed my ass and we can't afford private school anymore, so I'm sending my son to a school in your neighborhood". Maybe it was her way of trying to relate in that moment. A black woman (me), someone (me) she did not know, had given her son money for a trip in the future. A black woman (me), recieved information about a black child (sarah), who was kicked out of her homeless shelter early yesterday morning (12:30 a.m.), because her mother had to sign her, sarah, and the one year old baby out of the shelter. Sarah's mother didn't alert Sarah of this and never came back for them. A black woman (me), didn't give five dollars for this cause. How do the two relate? Well, they don't. It's my own observation of the world around me. But my last piece of this is... when I passed the table one last time on our way to BART. The young man's mother smiled at me and said "There goes our friend" as I was passing. I stopped, smiled, and said "If you don't raise enough money, then you can set up a France account and go there for your senior trip." To this he looked puzzled. His mother nodded in agreement and I went on my way. I was now a friend. My five dollars earned me a small level of acceptance. I wonder what her thoughts would have been if I ignored her and her son. What biases would have flashed through her mind. How and why were they so comfortable in approaching me? The world they live in. One that caused Bigger to keep his head down and his brow aching to hold his eyes in an upward slant. A look that a dog gives you when he doesn't know how you'll respond. A look that submits weakness instead of aggression. A look that reminds the oppressor that he is law. He is master. My head slightly lowered as I walked in the direction of that little white boy. I had no intent of stopping... giving... speaking... Like bigger did with Jan and Mary, he obeyed. I too was asked for something... and I obeyed. Damn!

Comin into my own...

Thirty eight years of... (fill in the blank)

Sittin wit a feelin...

So it's 3:22 a.m. and I'm sittin wit a feelin... It's crazy how we fantasize about a life with no worries, no ills, not stress, and no muhfuggin bills... and then we wake up to the realities of wasshappenin in our streets. The realities of our past that so eagerly and forcefully greets... our presence/our presents... the gift(s). It was her. It still is a her. The gift. The shore that my tide washes upon. Each time I withdraw, I leave trails of me lingerin... trails that leave me sittin wit a feelin. Each time my ocean washes upon her shore I stretch out and push forward with a strength that inches me closer than before. The gravitational pull attaching itself to her soul. pulling. and then I retreat. I retreat and sit with this feelin.

It's funny how your mind works itself up and tries to distinguish truth from falsehood and rational from irrational, and right from wrong, and what it means to just sit wit a feelin... Sometimes I wonder if any of this shit makes sense or is it just an opportunity for me to make goulash out of words. I dunno.Maybe someday soon I'll try and frame my communication.

Hmmmmm?