to the bottle boy

To the bottle boy 


Your soiled clothes gave it awayIt was not the horn you blew
Like trumpets announcing the arrival of the king
Not a shofar but Shabbab
A young man with a shopping cart full of bottles
Who hoped in and out of dumpsters
As touring tourist rush to see the tomb
The garden trace the footprints of a savior
In your backyard
The political implications
The religious conflict that seems less real the longer I'm here
For the call to worship at 3 am reminds me
This is not a land of just one but of many who live
And breathe and love and worship even

Admist rocks and tank rockets and checkpoints
I wonder if the bottle boy dreams of peace
Wishes for passage free from any scrutiny
Could he aimlessly wonder over hillsides
Trace historic footprints
And drink in fancy hotel lobbies?
The interpersonal informing the systemic
The local informing global
I am a stranger in this land


Taking snap shots in my mindI want to claim space here
Say my savior would see fit for a Christian presence
But space seems to Presious a commodity
To exert
I don't know what to do with the profound
The profane how to makes sense of it all
Learning and leaving
While you stay in soiled clothes blasting your horn so I
And you don't forget you are here and you are real


To the Palestinen children for whom home is unsafe and Live in poverty and inequality

lessons from Maya

Lessons from Maya

Own your story

Mother Maya wrote the pain down

So it didn’t  consume

Her

Turned hurt into passion

Anger into fire

That didn’t burn

But would push

Carry and convict with

A question or a poem

Queens shouldn’t run

From their stories

Hold them in the palm of

Our hands

Let them live and breathe

Squeeze and let go

Lest we be victims of

A world not meant for us

Not fair for us

We control what we do

With our lives

How we make them count

Give birth to the dreams

That

The world tries to beat

Out of bellies

Behold

Black woman brilliance

I would offer

You words

But you had so many

And you gave them

Freely

We don’t own language

We command it

Use it in service

To our people

Even though it has limits

I wish upon your star

That you knew

How bright you shined into my life

Just as you drove streetcars

Over streets

Danced to your own beat

Became queen

And poet

And the embodiment of

All about black womanhood

All that is complicated

All that is perfect

All that is worthwhile

And

All that is unknown

It is said that if a writer falls

In love with you

You can never die

And Maya

Our beautiful winged bird

Finally free

Will always FLY

for Renisha McBride

For Renisha McBride..

I hope your name makes noise

Speaks loud and bold

Brave and clear

For every name like yours

Your name the one

That they make fun of

Call ghetto

And say will never allow you to

Get a job

We want you to be the lip popping

Gum smacking

Goddess you are

Or the only one we will allow you to be

In our memory

The one that we suit wearing

Professional house ladies

Detest because you remind us

That even we are disposable in all our upward mobility glory

We want to remember your name

Make it mean more

Than bullets to the brain

And front porches

We want every black girl body

To carry weight

Speak volumes

Make noise

Be loud

We want it to be more than just a whisper

For once in history

We want to tell the story on

Our own terms

Share our pain

Our grief

Be more than footnotes in black male profiles

And end notes in white women sympathy

We want every syllable to

Choke the speaker’s throat

Take up more space than commonly

Allowed

Celebrate

Cry

Laugh

Be fully human

For once can we shame

Big Mama’s steady strength with

A moment of weakness?

Can we love ourselves?

Can we stop pretending?

Can we love each other

Enough to say enough?

Can we have a collective moment in space?

A time for us

A time for you

We are because you are..

Re-Nis-sha

Re- Nisha

ReNisha

r-ne-sh-a

I want to say your name so

I don’t forget my own

I want to say your name

So I can love my own

Not just another name

Not just another black girl body

Not just another girl child

Whose life isn’t worth anything?

To not only white men

But black men

And other black woman bodies

We have been taught our lives

Are disposable

So we don’t value each other

Let us call you name

Like children of the dusk

Calling for the sun

Let us call your name like

Stars calling for the moon

Like trying be whole

When you’re told your half

And I can’t seem to shake the feeling

That you need your name

Known for more

Than wide lips

And car accidents

For more than being on the wrong porch

For more than Detroit

You

Along with the others

Like

Sarah Bartman

Let us call your name

With those women

Who have been strange fruit

Jeenie Steers

Laura Nelson

Bertha Lowman

Mary Conley

Or ones who have died

Slow deaths on other trees

Like

Shirley Sherrod

Anita Hill

Rachel jeantel

Like

Mamie

Like

Welfare Queen

Like Baby Mama

Let us call your name

Renisha McBride

So we don’t forget our own

So we don’t choke

On our own voices

And think that

We are not already

Whole

B- Side

Behold

Black girl brilliant

Her brains will have you believe

She belongs on thrones

Instead of the belly of boats

Before she was brethren

She was broken

Busted and left out

By baller boys who faces turned blue 

Because of she made it hard to breathe

Boys who loved her bottom

So she trades blossoms for

Bags tried to break her bedazzlement

Bestowed her greatness on

People who could not handle the

Weight of her being

So they called it baggage 

Tell her A-side is B class at best

blasphme this butterfly 

Behold 

Black girl beyond 

not basic

blessed 

not bruised 

love her 

know her 

befriend her 

because before she was understood 

before she could be the balm 

before we study the biography of her 

she was beloved

love this

its hard to love this flesh

that everyone curses

people poke and prod 

and open wide up 

to examine

if your really made of 

tough stuff

we mules of this world

who carry it 

all on strong backs 

with clenched jaws

dont tell me about any other 

people 

i only know my own

how successful you 

are is related to 

how anti black 

how anti woman 

you become  

and hear i stand at all those

cross roads

wondering if my adhd 

mind will be silent 

or my hands will stop turning over

pages of text and scriptures

and find respite 

where is the well spring

the water

when your to tired to go looking

and to thirsty to even admit 

you have want relief

dont make my 26 years tomm 

try to mean something 

package all my shyt 

in a nice box with a neat bow

somethings

just need to be burned

lets the ashes

be scattered

as sacred 

an atonment 

an offering to a god 

i soemtimes question

let me be enough as it stands

in all its confusion 

and brokenness

all its want 

and need 

let it stand alone 

be enough as it is

so that when it comes out dancing 

it will count for something

it will be tangible 

and quantifiable 

let it live so 

it may make its own memories

out of its own dreams

and for once

know it is good  

it is complete 

it lacks nothing

so i may know 

so she may know 

it is good 

it is complete 

even in its mess 

and crazy its enough 

napkins and names

I write your name over and over on a napkin as I sit in a bar drinking cold beer and eating colder wings
Every stroke of the pen makes me more aware of the ache in my heart
It started off as an absentminded type of thing
A way to pass the time since you left and now with every pen stroke and L my heart bleeds

So I keep writing your name because at least now I know why the ache is there 

For the first time is months I feel
And although it pain I settle for it
Because your name on a napkin makes my heart remember its alive
I wish I had some resolution
Some neat lesson I could summarizes and make sense of something
that make my fingers remember to write or my eyes dance
you were that
A incarnate reminder of my own beauty reflected back to me
Now your just a name on a napkin in a empty bar
A broken promise
A memory of all I had stopped hoping for
There is no space for my name on this napkin
You take up every crevice a urge I fought against when we were dating
It's funny when you were here I wanted space
Your gone and I long for some proof that you were real
That you existed
That I didn't just conjure you up
I need to know it was flesh and bones
Heart and head
Not just imaginary dinners
And long talks
I need to be reminded of mountains

See your name sketched in grand cannons 

But your just names on a napkin
Where there is no space for me.
I wonder if my name was smaller could it fit
If I was smaller if I shrunk would I fit?
What if my name was more powerful more demanding
Would it leave space for both of us
Maybe there is just no room for both of us
No room for mistakes
No room for missteps
No room for two people on a small napkin
So I wrote yours because mines seems wrong right now
It seems like all of the we didn't work
I called it to fast
I am too emotional
Insecure didn't ask enough questions
Rest on my name so I write your trying to understand breaks and breakups
Death and loss
Most of all just trying to see if one day I will ever write your name so much that I forgive
And move on
And remember the syllables of my own broken sound
Unabashed and imperfect
But always my own name
My own being
Always my own power
And length
Never tucked into neat packages
For wrong men
Who never have space for mistakes
Or anything that illogical
Never room for me
One day hoping that my name too
My feelings too
My ideas
My thoughts too will matter

built houses

Why don’t you believe in second chances?
Its easier to walk away
Then fight for worthwhile lives
I too used to take my bruised ego
Lick wounds in lonely places
And wish someone loved me enough
To come find me
But it was never about them
It was always about me
I needed to come to a place of
Worthiness
Where my own healing wasn’t tied to what
Someone did or didn’t do


I wish for that for you
that you see your own beauty
Your own greatness
Your own healing seperate from the mistakes and
Mishaps of others
Then maybe you would believe in second chances

Too

Maybe then you could build dreams on unpractical ground
Build houses of brick and motor
and permanency

I'm trying to build houses 

16th street style
Mansions
Victorian French doors
Spanish adobe style
Cottage quaint
Southern big post columns with
Expansive memories
And enough space to breathe and move
With someone else
Someone not you
Someone who only wants me to occupy his house
Likes me for how he feels around me
But he is not home
He is not you


You are mow the lawn
Run through the sprinklers
You are BBQ and backgammon
You are the things love stories are build on and hard times lean on
You are how houses are built
Over time
Careful
Brick by brick
Moment by moment
Every overcome Argument
And late night convo
That makes us remember our humanity
And maybe your my Romeo
And I'm not your Juliet but atleast I know how I want my house built
how i want it to look
what i want it to feel like
i will always rearrange furniture
i will always change the energy
fung-sha
to make it better
but the foundation will always be reconizable

dont be scared of second chances
of big houses
with poweful women

and big dreams


women who like you used to run