for a second there

just a second

i was starting to think i made a mistake
starting to to think letting you in was not the smartest move

but now?
after yesterday?

i’m sure this was the right path
positive you were the right choice
i know i haven’t picked someone who was wrong for me
i know i haven’t deluded myself into another adventure with unavailability

and to think i wandered into this thinking
this was short term fun.
rather than a slow, easy journey to a new joy.

If only i could explain what you’ve done for me
just by being you
if only i could find a way to reciprocate for everything you do
at the moment, the only thing i think of
is to maintain an oral recognition
of the regal manner in which you’re fulfilling all my wishes
especially the ones I didn’t know I had.
you’re a genuine diamond
your sparkle blinds me

and from my heart to yours my lion
your shine will never go unappreciated.

picture she black
she bring steel spine like winnie cries
but they couldn’t break her spirit w/vicious lies

picture she black
she bring love And power like Cleopatra
but scorn her and there’ll be War coming atcha
she bring victory and muscle like Nzingha queen
what stands short can haunt your dreams fierce and make you scream
she bring thought like assata- it aint free
but if things was right they
oughta be
picture she black

picture she black
reborn
warn torn
free form
picture she black
picture she you
picture she me
picture she future

today she sits one visible brick
on an invisible foundation
hidden criss crosses of connections
bringing like minds together across space-time continuums
we exist in the now
scribing a foundation
dancing as
one movement
one mind
building
one nation
building fires for others to seek
smiling into the future of a
realigned
redignified
redefined
society across man-made divisions and lines… across time…

picture she black

she stand tall with a poem in her fist
she seem to stand tall even when she sit
she sing subtle sob songs of pain
in face of oppressors
smiling softly to hide the seething
smiling an undecipherable liberation
into our hearts across time
picture she black

she crouch on invisible subway
she skin so dry it crack
she takes them to the line
aint even no looking back
even if they scared or shy
she say ‘you can be free now and die, or
you can be free later alive’
smiling behind a mask of iron resolve
across time
picture she black

picture she black
she bring blue stain scars of cotton pain
she withstood the storms so we who she knew would be born
would all be free someday
picture she black
she breathes free looking at the stars
with no care but progress
she proud of her future and her history
she never know what it is to be
cold, hungry or enslaved in mind or body
she can love without fear
she can write without starving
she can appreciate her own beauty
she can live anywhere
she can go when she pleases
she can easily breathe in
she can
she can
she can
smiling into a history book
looking at us who paved the way
thanking us in her heart for our bloodied tears and aching backs
when you are weary think of her, maybe your great-great-great-great-great
grandchild
for her the pain is worth it

picture she black

Lagos, Ikoyi Bay

I want to go home. Back to the Yoruba land where my family is from, where my ancestors are from. Back to where my pain is from. Back to where my so-called exotic roots were born.

Several times here I’ve mentioned the childhood sexual abuse in my past. I’ve found it very freeing to be able to talk about the fact that it happened, to not be the one who feels like I should be ashamed anymore. That shame was almost worse than the pain itself and the emotional after affects.

Some people don’t see what a big deal it is. And that’s okay with me, as long as they aren’t advocating that it happen to people, especially children. I’ve had male friends and lovers call me impure, or tainted, or damaged because of what happened to me, particularly after learning the horrifying extent.

The extent… the first three months after my family temporarily moved to West Africa, there was an incident almost every day. I was 9. I can’t remember most of what happened to me before I was 9 years old without some drama. In some cases there are years blocked out.

And so, I haven’t been back to Nigeria since 1984. I was born here, there seemed to be mostly pain there, so even for my only female cousin’s wedding, who is practically like a sister to me, I could not go back.

But now that time has passed, now that I have spent more than 20 years processing and healing, even though I still have night terrors, I want to go back. The earth calls to me, the sky writes my name.

There’s an opportunity for me to visit in January. I’m seriously considering staying there a year, because even if the economy is bad here, in Nigeria I could live off $500 – $1000 a month quite comfortably, and put all of the rest of what I make each month away. My sister will be there with her husband, who is like a brother to me, and their two kids. My mother will be there. And I’ll see my grandmother again before she passes on.

I would like to see home again. Though I consider myself an American, and was born and mostly raised here, I was brought up in the culture of our homeland. I’m a little afraid to go, to be a foreigner, essentially, who knows the national language of English, but isn’t fluent in the local language.

Still. I’m hoping…

” my people built this motherfucka and i know my way around.”
Don King

nigger,nigga *

sometimes i prick myself with the knife
sometimes i know who can hurt me and
sometimes i show him
where to find what kills me inside
where to find the blade of betrayal and,
where to shove it to cause me the greatest pain.
how to twist it
and when the blood will come out
for his maximum enjoyment
i dont know why.

i use the word carelessly
with my friends
as in
nigga please
and nigga fuck you
and nigga this
and, nigga that.
and sometimes i am ashamed of what
my mouth shares with the world

and sometimes i say
nigga, fuck you.

i say what i want when i want
to express what i want to express
this is America
motherfucka
my niggas
as they were being called niggas
built this
niggarific shit
and i know where my niggas is at.

sometimes i prick myself with the knife
sometimes i know who can hurt me and
sometimes i show him
where to find what kills me inside
where to find the blade of betrayal and,
where to shove it to cause me the greatest pain.
how to twist it
and i tell him when the blood will come out
for his maximum enjoyment.
i dont know why.

i use the word carefully
to define the desperate failings
of my people
when i see them on Jerry Springer
or in line to buy
whatever sells to
hopelessness
as in
nigger why
and damn nigger
you making us All
look bad.

and sometimes i am ashamed that
i feel this way about people who look like me
and sometimes i say
niggers,
if the enemy comes dressed up like you
that’s twice the reason to be scared.

sometimes i prick myself with the knife
sometimes i know who can hurt me and
sometimes i show him
where to find what kills me inside
where to find the blade of betrayal, and,
where to shove it to cause me the greatest pain.
how to twist it
and tell him when the blood will come out
for his maximum enjoyment.
i dont know why.

i am used by this word
with particular care
to wound me where i bleed best
when my heart aches
i cannot understand

why i attach such pain to a word
why i additionally let all know of my hurt
why i expose the site of my destruction

why i
repeatedly
predictably
state when and where my anguish lies
so he can strike again
so he does strike me again and again
and again and again and again

because i so eloquently articulated the site of my historical agony.
so i am the instrument of my own emotional destruction.

sometimes i prick myself with the knife
sometimes i know who can hurt me and
sometimes i show them
where to find what kills me inside
where to find the blade of betrayal, and,
where to shove it to cause me the greatest pain.
how to twist it
and tell them when the blood will come out
for his maximum enjoyment.
i dont know why.

i dont know why i still bleed from this old wound.
and
i dont know why i cry.

* People ask me how I feel about the N word. Well. There you go.