random realization 2985720

ever since i could remember, my friends have loved coming to my house.  they would be at the crib for hours on end kickin it with the fam, eatin up the food, usin folk bathrooms, sleepin in beds, eatin porridge & thangs.  and for a long time i didn't bother to understand why.  as i've gotten older though i've realized that my family is lowkey good people.  & i didn't really grasp that until i read what my best friend left in my yearbook our senior year of high school-- she said she always loved comin over because here she knew what a real family felt like... you never really appreciate what you have until someone else appreciates it for you...
my parents have been married for 22 years this year. they kept me and my bros in church for as long as i can remember & i can literally count on one hand the times i've heard them seriously cutthroat argue. i thank God for them but it's another story entirely for others to see the God in your home & be so drawn towards it.
& it's another thing on top of that for friends to claim & love your parents just by virtue of knowing YOU. do you see the GOD in that??? i'm not a preacher but i know there's something in the bible that says somethin to the effect of live your life so that men can see your good works & glorify your father in heaven.... or somethin lol anywho, apparently i've lived my life in a manner that makes people want to be involved with my family also. kinda like how we're supposed to live our lives in a way that makes people want to be involved with the God we serve. hmm.
i want to be like my parents in that i want my apt or wherever i choose to live or whatever space i inhabit to be a place of peace-- a place of rest where people come & lay burdens down.  last sunday my bishop preached on the beatitude that says blessed are the peacemakers yadda yadda yadda. as Christians we're called to be peacemakers & so i consider it a great honor that my friends feel at home when they're in mine and/ or my family's company. when i grow up i want to be like them.  i want people to feel weightless when they're with me only because of the God in me.
i'm not good at writing stuff that's not poetry as you can tell lol so in conclusion... God is Love,
Rev Run

me & codename soule's duet piece

a friend of mine asked me to hop on a piece he had already written & so here's what i came up with #OkGo!

I love him, I love him not

I love him, I love him not

I love him… just too much

At this point there just aren’t enough seed head dandelion wishes for us to keep playing this love game/ we’ve prolonged the inevitable in waiting for the last seed to suicide leap its way headstrong into the wind & all we can do now is hope that it lands in the fertile flesh of hearts younger & more impressionable than either of our of own/ I hate that we’re giving up.../ but I try to keep in mind that if we’re lucky, love is cyclical, see i too have learned a lot from the seasons/ learned that seedtime & harvest rarely ever coincide & the last thing I want is for us to reap the regret & strife we’ve unintentionally sown into each other’s lives/ harvest time calls for a collection of long matured decisions pummeled by the rains & beaten by sun, buried in grounds tilled to perfection until they prove themselves  ready to be submitted to God/ so before we make this sacrifice unworthily, let us cleanse ourselves of all unrighteousness/ before we step into the holy of holies let us first petition to God for the forgiveness of our transgressions one to another—I am sorry I couldn’t be the woman you thought I was/  & I’m sorry I couldn’t love you for you & that through no fault of our own, we built a rickety US out of a lowercase N & a backwards Z/ things just weren’t the way they seemed/ but here we are watching the leaves fall as our love threatens to imitate them & take us out just as easily as we fell into it/ but gravity is not my God/ & I’m a little more aerodynamic than you are so I wave this blood red poem on this little white napkin in the air, part parachute, part surrender/ not to you/ not to the tyrant that is our love/ but to God/ ...I know we fight a lot/ but you can’t fight someone that’s  not willing to go toe to toe with you in the first place; I know I’ve dealt you low blows/ but as your rib, those were just my own futile attempts at self-mutilation-- I never meant to pierce your heart- I just wanted to be as close to you as possible/ so I’m sorry our efforts were misunderstood/ sorry seasons change just as quickly as the weather/ sorry I wasn’t a big enough blip on your Doppler radar for you to chase after me just one last time/ I still love you/ & though there were red flags & warnings all along the way, I can honestly say, I did not see this storm coming

the burden of words unsaid

The burden of words unsaid is often ignored/ as a writer, I’ve become accustomed to the conception, the gestation & the sometimes gut wrenching labor that comes with the birthing of a poem/ many a time I’ve felt the initial excitement that comes with the inception of an idea/ the growth & discomfort in carrying a message & the painful satisfaction that is sacrificing what was once a part of me to the mercy of this world is an overwhelming profusion of emotion that, as of late, I have become all too familiar with/ I can tell you about birthing complications, when recessive syntax & cadence errors manifest themselves in a premature poem & even of the great lamentation that comes when a poem is stillborn & must be abandoned/ or the miscarrying of words that occurs when I just can’t seem to mean what I say & say what I mean/ I’m a writer/... I can tell you/ …About writing/ about holding a newborn poem, fresh, unedited swaddled in loose leaf/ but I cannot tell you the burden  of an unwed mother/ I do not know what goes on in her mind with one child on her lap, another steady growing inside of her womb/ she can barely support one, refuses to give away the other who for 9 months will be her inverted appendage, she avails herself to 2 options only/ keep him so that he can grow an inkling of resentment for every thing she cannot give him, relive a childhood empty of promise vicariously through this unborn son/ no, she says…/  I’ll just give this one back to God/ … & you talk about sibling rivalry… / I cannot explain the gaping black hole left by an aborted child/the tears of a mother trapped between the poverty of a rock & the poverty of a hard place/ I cannot tell you of unborn martyrs, of sisters sacrificed for the lives of their brothers, of baby boys given back to God with a receipt for all the firsts they never got/ I don’t know anything about the strained relationship between a mother & father that can’t help but see the child that never was in the face of the child that got a chance to be/ I cannot describe the pain in a man’s pride when he can only give one of everything in the world / I cannot tell you why the son you always wanted will never get a chance to see the sun or why daddy’s little girl will never meet her other half /why a little rain ruins the best of plans & bad things happen to good ppl/ ... I cannot tell you how this sacrifice feels…/ I can only equate it to a god asking his son to give his life for this lucky bastard of a world/ but I digress/… I know nothing of a mother’s last words to that little ball of cells unfortunate enough to be born second/ I am fortunate in that I am amateur enough to know nothing of the strength it takes to make such a decision/  & in no way am I drawing a parallel between aborting a poem & aborting a child/… I was just kinda thinking that considering the number of children born into poverty each year, maybe a responsible woman ought to have a choice as to whether or not she wants to add to said numbers… / all I’m saying is… they’re not all dime store whores flying by the seat of their g strings/ I was just kinda thinkin that the next time you wanna throw blood at the clinic you might wanna consider the one who abandoned his 33 year old son so that heathens like us could have a chance at everything we ever wanted/ because when has sacrifice ever been fair?/... I in no way condone death/ but I do support conscious minds & well thought out decisions/ …because nobody ever talks about the burden of words unsaid/ but I got a good 646 that say it’s time to start.

Random Realization #934798

"sometimes when God wants to protect you, He removes someone; and when He wants to bless you, He sends someone..."

a friend of mine gave me that word a few days ago.  this quote pertains to so much more than i initially gave it credit for.  i kinda been marinating on it on & off since then, picking it apart, conceptualizing it... 2011 is upon us & i can't help but think back to years passed. 

specifically it opened my eyes to an old relationship that has recently become relevant again.  an ex of mine had been heavy on my mind for the last month or so maybe.  he was that first love kinda kid.  the one where afterwards, you swear up & down you can stay friends. but you can't. at least not right away. in the nearly two years it's been we 've made a few attempts to be friends between the two of  us, to no avail.  each time we were trying to fake a growth & a maturity that wasn't there, trying to force ourselves to be at a place to which we had not yet arrived.  i texted him merry christmas saturday.  he opted to call back & we talked for hours.  & it was easy.  didn't feel forced or out of obligation, no longer felt premature in our efforts.  it was easy.  the day we broke up a friend told me straight up, "yo it's over.  & if it's meant to come back around, then it will."  & if the relationship aspect of it does come back then i'm down.  but i must say i'm quite content with this simple restoration of friendship.  you never know how important good ppl are until you feel/ fill the hole they left.  & i didn't know that this closure was what i needed until it happened, didn't know i was missing anything until it came.  whatever's supposed to happen between us, i will be patient.  i will trust God.  i refuse to try & make anything happen on my own.  what God has for me is for me & i refuse to try & manipulate His plan.

in a more general sense, it helped me see that 2009 was a year of removal & of letting go & of protection while 2010 was a year of sending in, of introductions & entrances.  '09 was by far thee hardest year God has seen me through.  matter fact, we'll talk about 2009 in depth in another post one day lol long story short, God separated me from some people that i swear i couldn't live without-- 2 in particular.  one was my best friend at the time, the other was my man friend at the time.  i can see now that both of these "breakups" were to protect me though at the time i was sure it was the end of the world.  i see now that the man & i had to split quite possibly to protect each other.  after catching up with him the other day i see that our lives were similar in that we went through alot of the same things while we were apart. we both went through very raw and painful growing stages that i know for a fact would have killed us had we stayed together.  & sometimes that's the way growth is.  everybody wants to be grown but nobody wants to actually grow because it hurts.  & as immature as it is, hurt people hurt people.  lesson learned.  notice i didn't divulge into particulars about the ex best friend lol that's for another day.
2010 though... that's another story entirely.  please believe it was not without its ups & downs, hell & high water, trials & tribulations.  but i was surrounded with amazing people to sustain me.  this year He sent me peacemakers, He sent me manifestations of His love & His favor that i would not have survived the year without.  2010 fully embodied the second half of that quote & since they know who they are & i've been alll the mushy about them before in this very bloggy blog, i'll bow out gracefully before i get in too deep :) #pause

the same friend that gave me that good word up there also told me that a time of restoration may be upon some of us right now.  & i truly thank God for it should that word pertain to me.  whatever He decides to do in this season, i would hate for Him to do it without me.  so God i'm down.  for whatever.  i won't strive against You.  whatever You got going down in 2011, take me with You.  please.

10 Things I Wanna Say to the Next Dude That Claims to Love Me

1.  It’s impossible to love me.

2.    I kinda have a problem with commitment/ but it’s not that I’m unfaithful or anything/ it’s just that people who have promised to hold me forever never really meant it so by virtue of experience & muscle memory, I physically just don’t get it/ for example/ the only things I’ve ever committed all four fingers and one thumb to is holding my first love’s hand, groping this mic stand, & gripping a pen/ &, as you can see, the one that mattered to me most didn’t stick around as long as I would have liked so, as far as MY hands are concerned, you’ll have to excuse them/ the concept of forever was never an easy one for them OR me to grasp

3.    Baby im a thug/ I don’t smile much, half the time they say im muggin and you’ll probably never ever see me shed a tear/ or maybe, I just keep my smile behind my eyes because people hate to see you happy these days/ or maybe, my eye’s don’t cry no more because God made my heart a well  to hold the rain, an elixir to ease other’s pain/ so at times I may seem stolid or depressed but I think that if NOLA’s levees were more like me, Katrina woulda been just another rain storm instead of the devastating flood that it was

4.    I have the most amazing sisters/ we were made friends by divine incident, sisters by holy convocation and so at any given time I may drop everything, including you, to tend to them/ but know that it doesn’t mean I love you less, it’s just that blood is thicker than water and im anemic so I’d rather be warm/ wait, what?/ look ima just put it this way—I got three brothers. For 20 years, it’s been me and them boys! And recently God saw fit to give me four sisters/ so you’ll have to excuse me, but we’ve got some catching up to do.

5.    I love my god more than I will EVER love you/ you will NEVER be the most important thing in my life/ so I ain’t really tryna hear all that “baby if you love me you’ll do this that and the other” because my father loves me unconditionally and seeing as how I did nothing to deserve his love and there’s nothing I can do to make him take it away, you can actually move around with that there—my love is not a barter system to be negotiated

6.  Sometimes I think it was not meant for me to love.  but i do still.  with reckless abandon i love just to spite the universe because defiance is the strongest motivation so i love to prove that i am capable.  prove that i have a broken vessel human heart & not an energizer ironman apparatus, not indestructible but rather made for destruction-- it loves like helicopter blades fighting through arctic blizzards.  like an iditarod race because winning is not synonymous with survival, winning is not coming out on top. winning is loving like your heart is made of cinderblock instead of paper mache, like it's a porcelain doll instead of a pinata, like love is holy matrimony worship between mother nature & father God not a lonely, pleading prayer in the garden of gethsemene.  not a cross to bear—some say love is pain/ but with me, it doesn’t have to be

7.    I did some time in Chicago but I am STILL country as I wanna be/ I race barefoot in the street/ I play tackle football with my brothers and their friends/ I pop sparklers in the front yard on the fourth of july/ I eat neckbones and ox tails and collard greens and cornbread and I put butter and sugar on my white race and I’m willing to bet I can probably eat more than you/ but know that your smallish stomach doesn’t make you any less of a man

8.      i am a daredevil lover. not an evil kanieval stuntman catapulting out of cannons through rings of fire… no/ my heart loves like an aging indian man treading barefoot over hot coals slowly & deliberately like debussy's 'claire de lune' on a baby grand-- a perfectly pitched premature piano solo accompanied by no one... i give my heart straight-- no chaser.  because eventually, the risk it takes to remain closed tightly in a bud begins to outweigh the risk it takes to bloom and so sometimes my heart is just a sacrifice my love is all too willing to make

9.     I want to be the one god appoints to watch over you in your sleep, when you are most vulnerable/let me be your dream catcher/ let me hold your hidden passions, your ignored desires and should you ever forget what they taste like I will feed them to you little by little until you are full with purpose/ let me become your rib again/ let me protect your heart from all that wishes it harm/ allow me to wrap my arms around you/ let me be your backbone, your spinal cord even/ let the steady bass of my esperanza spalding heart keep you, drown out all that seeks to paralyze you/ baby dance with me instead/ and we will sway to these sad songs together/ the drunken dance of the depressed and the downtrodden/ and though disparity and displacement be our muse from time to time, I will not let them take you under/ I will hold on for dear life, for your life/ and I promise, I will not let your heart break

1 It is impossible to love me/ 10. It is impossible to love me… 3^rd times the charm/ 10. It is impossible for you to love me/ as much as I already love you