Bantu Migrations

Morning Freewrite

2011-02-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I'm back in the habit of posting, I might just be THAT lonely.

Freewrite I had to stop writing before it killed me.

Good morning.

--------------------------------

Sangre* or Sangria
I am 16 but I have always looked

like that Frida painting

And overflowing pitchers

in the middle of an earthquake

in that hall way spilling light

How do you say,

I ate but didn't know how to

I was forced to live but didn't know how to

so I sat in the hall way of a hospital

and let it poor, the sangre, all of it

how it wanted to

I've never seen so much from myself

How do you say that shit poetically,

How do you say I didn't try to kill myself,

but I would have let myself die.

* for some reason, Las Dos Fridas is titled Sangre or Sangria to me

Out of One Many Africas

2011-02-06T21:03:00.000-08:00

For the handful of Continent Cliff Hangers That Have Found Me, Despite the Distance

Out of One, Many Africas

Draft #2

No one could split us like we split us
here, where we were born,
in the April of our sour left to fester

In the maple of our mothers turned amber,
Your mother,
in her Josephine hidden
a boarded bosom and wrapped head away from bare chest
Mine, tribal marks and accented away from mammy.
Our mothers

Will sit and talk of in third person
The people their daughters
Call sister,
Call brother

Wash the work and human
of their jobs that help
“those people”
off as quickly as sweat

They will forget themselves,
their second generation children
The hypocrisy, lack of meaning
that comes in the niggerdom
they let slip.

And after, perhaps,
they will both go pray
and Mine will be distracted
by the skin of yours
glinting golden pink,
the accent too, for once
that makes her
some latitudes and languages
and latitudes closer to God

They will be praying to the same one,
in the same mosque,
maybe,

If all the others burn down
and neither
“African” nor “Arab”
can find a place to go.

1116

2010-11-17T12:43:00.001-08:00

* Eid Al-Adha is the "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God.d al-Adha is celebrated annually on the 10th day of the 12th and the last Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Eid al-Adha celebrations start after the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage toMecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat.

They say they can tell when a woman has lost her god
that our tongues become heaving and burdened
when our heads become light and bare

There are promises on this campus
packed and folded away into drawers
where they can drape over the good chance
that we've been lied to

Biases we hold hidden in class rooms
where subordinate and subjugated are used for us
are used because
ones like patriarchy hit too close to home
for these people

A faith based anachronism,
a time capsule of traditionalism preserving a past
no one is ever too sure about
an exhibit, praying in a museum
with all the other art pieces
there are drapes for the statues with eyes
for the pictures with eyes
for us women from eyes

Bodies pasted in lines
shillouttes of impressionist vision
pointillism women turned into rounds of color and fabric
into blank spots in a bigger picture again
molded into the quiet in solidarity with the nostalgia
still present in the way we worship
it is only for a day,
maybe for an hour

Even lost and godless
you'll see our tongues tuck in
so our promises can unfurl again
every Al-Adha
every festival of sacrifice

Every sacrifice for a religion
In pilgrimage honoring pilgrimage
those still searching
that have crossed sands,
climbed pillars of silk and salt
those that have thrown stones,
that are always throwing stones

All those towards Mecca,

at the end of their hajj
with their God and religion
Wandering
Wandering
Wandering,
like us,
in circles

Children of Men (freewrite, rough draft)

2010-11-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

There will be more traumas, I presume.
Each documented in hopes they will lean
more towards blasphemy someday.
I do not want this for my honest.
Do not want pain for my truth

In 20 years the brunt of a world collapsing
upon itself has folded me paper crane.
And like them, it is easy to forget how quickly
the drowning seeps through.

I am not a genuine creature of flight,
but this is not fake water

In 20 years I have learned to love things
that don't stay long enough to watch me crumble
In 20 years I have learned to make my skin a pamphlet of pleas
from a woman striving to change somebody's mind.
And like so many love letters
I am found wandering through my travels
hoping to catch my lovers ear
lost in a shuffle of demands
on some strange terrain
with no return address
and a stamp reading
"return to sender"

He does not cry over women
did not know that
the nights he spent on the floors of our markets,
in the cracks of our country of our land baked him dry.

I ,9years old
a laundry list of prayers and despites,
a young girl creating all she will be
by what she will not, and all she will not
by what she has seen.
I found my purpose in what he was not

It was a pain to watch my father cry
letting out what little water was left.
Paving his drought and dusty dams
into a circling road,
one that would take him nowhere
far from where he is now.

This water, lost when his mother left
when life betrayed him
this water
nowhere to be found at the tragedy
of more loss. The deaths of his children
No where to be found, not like this

Not like my father
in the front seat of a taxi cab
he never pays dues on
in a suit bought
with the good conscience
that his children may be hungry and in want,
maybe market floored
houseless sun-baked-dry one day
all the water drained out of them

My father crying over a woman he beats
has cut,has lacerated troughs into her desert
Showing me the little water he has left,
has irrigated from her
offering a sacrifice
in a moment that wont leave me in 10 years

The moment Mohammad Yussuff
showed some sign in the dry soul of his skin,
that he might still be able to grow.

He was floods of everyman he was named after
Someone says the water will drown him one day,
it does. I do not know men that cry like him
but there was a boy
who learned the river and ocean of his mother
and sisters,
who swallowed their
moon to drown the ditch dug crevices,
make them bear water again, and maybe even fruit.

Bobby,
Mohammad, our father's namesake,
my cactus in a field of mirages and thirst
should you have learned to grow throns
as they asked of you
I would have nothing left.
You had no thorns to protect you
and so I have nothing left.
But the faint and fading memories of the only man
that loved me the right way.
My brother,
who sacrificed his life in hopes
that another young man
may hold on long enough
to tell the story

A boy ,who let a another he barely knew
cross a road, a dry path,
with destination in front of him
showed him to quench,
Was struck by a force much larger than him
heaved so high all this liquid
rained back into the heavens
left us wanting

You are my last,
my lasts always are
they cannot keep you here,
menelik,
tell me
your water still seeps through
your skin like mine
Have you heard me, my droughts
that I am unquenched
Tell me your water still seeps through your skin like mine
That you are still a conservatory
mornings of trickles, hurricanes
the sounds that give me hope
shouting through flesh worn doors
make me happy i never listened to anything else
That I do not read the signs meant to keep people out
Tell me that I am not another catastrophe
of women
drowned
stretched
and beaten
drowned, stretched, and beaten
soaked
crumbled
and left wrinkling.

You've said before
you will not cry over a woman again.
that your water will find itself nowhere here

made blasphemy of hope for this land,
these cravings and prayers left deep
landing hard on my pathways
after promising to make blasphemy of my doubts.

You must not know
what happens to men
that take the water out of women
Let them make their wet offerings
to find their shrines left with little or nothing in return.

Meet my father.
ask him how I got this way.
Tell him of the woman I've become
with roots drowning
crumbling chewed paper-wet
Branches cracking
Always trying to be a symbol of growth
in a land that says
It wants none.

Freewrite? No idea. 5 Things I've Learned From Being in Love

2010-09-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

Partially inspired by Robin’s “10 things Ive learned from being in this relationship”

1. How to calculate a 3 hour time difference without thinking, despite sucking at math.
1.5 The words “acquiescence” “coalesce” “intentionality” and “moribund”
2. FB ruins lives
2.5. If you both like ass, and you both stare, its fun…not awkward.
3. Skype cuts off after an undisclosed amount of time,
so when taking virtual naps, Ichat (which doesn’t cut off) should have been used instead
3.5 It is totally worth it to stay awake on the phone until 5 am despite having a class at 8:45
4. Long emails and longer phone calls can be HUGE band aids,
4.5 sometimes the blood still seeps through
5.
Long emails
unanswered
and missed phone calls
are enough
To make you stop believing in magic
(….even if only for a little bit.)

2010-09-04T21:41:00.001-07:00

Men use women as currency
Tools to play the came of masculinity
Raking up chess pieces
Even if they're queens

Hometown is Homesick (prompt from Rose)

2010-08-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

Home is a place,
place is space paused in moment,
moment is emotion rubbed into memory

Home for me feels like a fleeting moment
And lost memory
In a space I am not sure can exist anymore

My homesickness is hometown
I am permanently displaced
always half departing venue of
supposedly human
and supposedly woman

I am not sure why I was brought here

My spirit still has charred pieces from the transition
My body beaks down often from the traveling, the moving
The manifestation of my awkward keeps moving to pretend there is somewhere to go
as if I have not been lost since offset,
since origin

Maryland
Born
a place a year too far away for me to draw memories into it's distance
I cannot remember who me is
And so, have no whereabouts as to who or where she was

I have lost notions of the place that taught me loss, it is where i keep my dead history, the death in my history
As if, unlike me, it will stay there

DC
Is forgotten self made and divinely declared home
Loves me like a betraying grandmother
Or some other mystic kin
Maybe a swinger aunt
A husband with amnesia,
I am told that we have history
But I don't remember what it was like to love you

I see the photographs and poems that prove we have been places together
But can't remember those feelings
I cant help but feel like I am living in someone elses house

Nigeria
Made
Me a child of missing centuries before the wombing
We still hold on to the few things that time and space and men with prophetic names like "Lord" divied us
It must not miss me like it did before it unlearned how to
And is the murderous mountain from which my rolling avalanche of travel fell

All of these are places that have changed despite me
Have become dismissive emotionally disrespectful memories lost to big pockets dug deep enough to fit big buildings and needed bodies

If I had learned nothing of home
in people, in memories and emotion
I would not know anything of loss

I am from every city that asks to be missed for the sake of evidence that someone knew it once

The nostalgia floating to the top of any land with the top layer of it's skin burning it unrecognizable

This,
Is the stomach churning, the gut wrenching place, moment of degorge in yet to be tacit diasporing,
The homesick I call hometown

One day I will laugh at the audacity of thinking I could be from "somewhere"
Sending down a thunderstorm from heaven, in earth they will call it an earthquake, or hurricane,
A natural disaster,

This world is not my home.

10 Questions for a Stranger (Prompt from Jamaica)

2010-08-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

“Then his soul is returned to his body, and there come to him two angels who make him sit up and they say to him, ‘Who is your Lord?’"

10 Questions for a Stranger,
10 Questions the Angels Will Ask You

1.When you were younger

did you think you could fly?

Can you?

2.When was your birth,

or creation,

the one that required you die first.

How many times did it happen,

can, will it happen again?

Will you spoke plug yourself

into the churning of a failing world

knowing there will be spinning,

For no good reason, maybe.

3.Where is your Grandmother,

granddaughter, at this exact moment,

in your body.

Could I speak with her?

What will she say about you?

What kinds of things will be said about you by legacy?

4.When was the last time you had an untellable feeling,

an emotion with no name?

What color was it,

are you, when you are lonely?

Do you crowd your pain before or after?

Are you a welcoming surrender

or a warring wait?

Would you mind if someone sat with you,

And asked the place you were

the first time something hurt you?

If the walls shook, the shelves too

and if anything fell on you.

5.Have you ever longed to tell a stranger

you love them? In an elevator maybe?

Have you ever found intimate

the closing space between you.

Wanted to cut the throat of the distance in you.

Chip your doubt over it, strum it like a harp.

Turn it breathing hole, and mouth it flute.

Air waiting to be cradled in your healing,

your hospital bed tongue

and its unfurling pink sheets.

6.If you are old and African

Or any other skin sheathing

of lost Gods and vacant history

Do you smile, cry ever?

Are you afraid to, or simply above such human faulting?

7.What do you think of skin?

Our see through bones, and creaking entries.

Our spoiling frames and overused doorways.

What of when it has a tint?

8.What exactly is love to you?

Is it morphine shot and opiate at all?

Can the spell be found foul needle

in your hands.

Who taught it to you?

Do you know someone taught it to you,

And them to?

Have you relearned it,

taken out the excess liquid and discoloring,

made it less dead.

Or is a laziness disheartening you.

9. Of that cocooning coffin body

will you show the loss?

What catastrophe has stolen,

the discarded arteries covered in tattering wishes.

Will you reveal the parts that have been hidden out of fear

So no pieces will be missing

when it is time for us to bury you.

The not so “extra” questions that were almost lost

9. Do you believe in fate?

Because you are assured this world

is set in something good for you?

Or because you are sitting, waiting

for life to happen to you?

9. Are you religious?

Do you spend more time praying in temples

or building them?

9. Are you starving, how hungry are you?

are your intestines coiling like a snake

Is there ever venom in your action, Lucifer in your want?

Do you think we fell out of heaven

or that we were banished?

What would you do to feel like something God made again?

10. Are you one of us,

Are you sure?

Are you sure,

You can’t fly?

EGBE OMO ISOKUN

2010-08-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

NATIONAL YORUBA CONVENTION...

It is a room full of crowded diaspora
with the American anthem playing,

silence
like no one knows the words

It is the Yoruba anthem I first heard when I was EIGHT
still making me cry

It is his daughter
a man who is 60

his daughter,
13 stubborn and unfriendly

adjusting his shirt

without saying a word

like she is his father

Habeebi

2010-08-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Ever write a poem for/about someone and realize it doesn't skim?
This doesn't skim...
Im going to sit down with my muses and live through it and then let it happen to me instead of try to make it happen through me.

I love you.

For Sadia, who held me in a green field, sang ‘Yellow’ and cried with me

I have always wanted to cry as pretty as you do.
Shed water and light at the same time
Pour and glow transpire a rainbow,

Emit
Through plains of dark and shaken nowhere
Every color stolen from us
And hidden in some wrong cavity

Do you see sun in me?
Are you forgetting about the water?
that you are spilling brim and dam split
cleansing
That your head is pouring somewhere near your eyes

Find the narcissus in you,
See for once
That you are simmering rays and golden
See the gold in you
Watch what you’ve guarded so dearly
Admire all of it
Guard but don’t hide it

Though I am ether tarnished treasure or blackened foil
and you love me
Do not let anyone
Rot iron
or lime you

You are a perched sun nights
When I do not want moon hole and sinking feet

Thank you
for blocking out evening
and skipping morning
for being zenith and high noon

Mercy filled baptism
You are no fountain,
Not recycled water

You are falls and pottery wheel
overflowing
clay and sand hands
pedaling feet

Held me yearned creation though I made your work muddy

Kiln
how are you still not water logged hearth

Who made you
All heat no burn
All liquid no drowning

This world
Eggshell promises
and
Unimagined heavens

I don’t know how is it I have still found one in you.

What God Looks Like to Me

2010-08-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I had a conversation with the love of my life Jamaica Osorio ... in my head. I have been asking myself recently about overused words (and structures) in my poetry. All to challenge my language, my craft, my heart. One such overused word is "God" an other religious rhetoric. Reminding myself that words are symbols, I am selling mine so short of what they represent. I want my words to be less symbolic more merging, more transcendent.

Nevertheless, this resulted in,in my head, my love challenging me. Asking, as if in response to reading a piece I have written, since i mention "god" so much in my poetry...what is it that god looks like to me.
My response was the following...

A fiery night turned scorched evening in Brooklyn
A homeless person stands over
a hallowed turbine canister for heat

A man, wall street all three piece suits
And shoe sole covered
with other peoples dreams
walks over freezing

The homeless man shifts over
Never even looking up
They stand over the fire
Both shivering

Neither of them saying a thing

That is what God looks like to me

10 Things That Remind Me of A Thunderstorm (freewrite)

2010-08-06T23:51:00.000-07:00

Got this via my beloved soulmate Anwar Jabari Johnson

10 things that remind me of a thunderstorm

1.
Ancestors falling
from their avalanche of wander woes
gripping to the roof of her mouth for heaven
afterlife

My mother's voice
the lioness she taught me to fear
...being.

Mane slipped into its aftermath,
the depth of her transmutable story
causing unknowing listeners to call her
"MR" Yussuf
like they know how shes been my father

2.
Our lips meeting for the 1st time
the passion that made everything messy
Have you ever clutched a storm in your arms before?
Tamed it?
Are you sure
Minilik?

3.
An unnumbered summer
2008
Where some girls began shedding their skin together,
learned to stop being ashamed
of how they had shared it together.
No one told you you looked this good naked

4.
A bag of Italian leather shoes and suits
that always seemed better buys than
formula, or juice, or school fees
or marriage counseling.
My older sister at 15
rolling his belongings down the stairs
right after calling the police

5.
the night when it began to become clear
that little girls do not grow into 18 year olds
that hate men for no reason.
That there had been clouds beneath her eyes breaking
not high enough to forget what happened
That the fogs and opaque bottles full
of blackouts and drowning
the nights when alcohol found prescriptions
readable, understanding,...friendly
Had all
never been for no reason

6.
The day they realize
they did not welcome a daughter back properly
When a whole country
will rise above itself
into the frame of what
its dislocated daughter
has always viewed it to be...
My the cheering

7.
Dec 2009
A doctor saying something
about a lung collapsing
A prayer in a hospital bed
that means nothing
In a room she is sharing with a woman who is 90
A 19 yo realizing, again, she is dying

8.
A quiet night in Chicago
at the most recent BNV
When something is happening
that shouldn't be
Pathetic attempts to regain agency
Have you no idea what type of woman
you want to be anymore?
Are you looking for her
by finding
everything you don't want to be

9.
"that night" "that summer"
I had a vision of my deceased sister walking towards me

10.
"finishing"
the sound of breaking to begin again
pretending you've lived already

2010-08-03T15:54:00.001-07:00

"Muslim Jews & Christians war, no one's left to praise the Lord"
knaan

TO do List (freewrite)

2010-07-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Bismillah
Start everything with God in mind,
be open about the horrible if existent
nature of your Arabic.

Do not be ashamed of how you carry your religion
its compass, guiding light you follow when you so choose
relinquish the idea of it shinning a single hue

Level your head
try to wear that rolling scab with pride
Remember the times when your hijab
made you feel beautiful but never be afraid to expose your wounds
bear no fear of exposure physical or otherwise

Lose yourself when your write
find a forgetfulness for not being good enough
You are larger than your fears wont let you be

Run away from complacency
even when it looks like God standing still,
Know that God never stands still unless you are running at a divine speed
Check your feet, their harshness, how quickly they are moving
Kick the stagnancy when it comes
Catch up to yourself

Ponder the making of your first love into your last
not for admonishing, just for pondering
On nights when your chest is cold with wondering if you lived too quickly
warm it with the kinetic heat of a clock moving
Time
Feel its abundance, flow in it
there is so much, too much to exist
Forget finite, know it never
Live now

Let yourself wonder why this poem is filled with “Don’ts”

Don’t stop being hard on yourself out of guilt
knead yourself against the scabs on your heart
rub your chest often, especially when your insides hurt
make it prolific

Keep writing poems to your broken body
there are no doctors, no cure that can heal
your inherited illness like these poems
The unveiling of sickled cells
do not make you less strong

Cherish your withering hands for what they are
do not regret how dark your palm
its lines, the depth of the bark, the tell tale rings
Stop trying to hide that you’ve been here before

Kiss boys,…Kiss girls
Kiss first,
and only places screaming of beauty
Look for nothing in return
Be thankful that you will let none of this make you ugly
Forgive yourself for not letting them kiss you
For surrenders reserved for the love you won't let go
Do not let go if you do not want to
Know that its okay if you do decide to

Let yourself build a shrine to your tears
reread the poems he wrote
they are a portal into eternity
Be okay with not wanting to leave it at just that

Reminisce on when you got the wanting washed out of you
how ugly you looked clean
Bask in the residue the stains
the foreshadow in smiling at being called “filthy”
by an Abyssinian son with Seattle tongue

Burn hot inside for him whenever you want to
Fuck outsiders' feelings procreate with patience

Carry the novelty of that love obnoxiously as you want to
other claims will only be as threatening as you allow them to
Listen to those declarations with open ears and a sure heart

Use your heart
as a key
the places you belong will never
accuse you of breaking and entry

If and when you decide to kiss girls
Do not check boxes
But do not not check boxes because you are afraid to

Believe in Hasani
(the hypothetical human being)
love yourself for giving him a name
and appreciate that God gave him a face
Find a way to settle with the idea that he may have many
That “he” may be a “she” or that he
may make his way into your mirror one day

No one is more worthy of your love than you

Make love to your insecurities
be open about the dance you two do

How you are thinking to yourself
you must make this poem pretty,
adequate, less longwinded
Forgetting that you are a stretched breeze
that you encompass everything

Focus, and re-read
every word before these
they prove
Here there is much love
and many vital things to do

Egbe Omo Yoruba National Conference

2010-07-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Baton Rouge
August 5-8
SHITTIN on deez hoes....

haha.
I'm so excited.

2010-07-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

this song is a series of what the fucks
shet
Taylor put me on.
I have bomb lovelings,
fuck it..
when you make up a word you should know what you think it means and try to justify it...
but fuck it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Q8dlusBk4

2010-07-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
- khalil gibran The Prophet

Finally read it last week.
gah.

The poem that resulted in my drive from Hartford to Hanover last week.

2010-06-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

The only emotion easier than anger is sadness, which looks too much like pity to be thrust onto a woman of your strength. For my mother, my fountain of faith, who reminds me to fight for what I believe in the worst way sometimes…by the downpour.

Yet another ride
down a snoring road
crossing New England
In the passengers seat
a bellowing history book of sins
and strict rules bound by strength
is beautiful

It is uncommon for you to be this quiet on a ride
but you still say all that you would want to
the percussion of each breath
a matter of fact sound repeatedly punctuated
by a schizophrenic back and forth paranoid battle,
What is described as “a snorting breath during sleep”

Apparently it is impossible to dream whilst snoring
I imagine, dear mother, that you have long been afraid to
that your nightmares look too much like your memories.
It is still unclear how a woman who has seen so much battle
always manages to come out on top.

Warrior woman you raised an Athena like yourself
and most of the honesty between us
emerges out of feeling combatively corned.
when I feel trapped.
which now is left for days like these
when there is no escaping a battlefield with wheels
and a mother with too many lectures
but not enough good questions.

We have not called the same place home in a year
Our storage is full of burnt out thunderbolts and crushed armor,
our phone conversations the biting taste of iron.
I am told too often about my guard (purity), that my clothes are too tight,
that my shields are not high enough, that I know too many men I trust,
that I don’t know the right time to run away from a fight

We have not learned the same things from war.

Last week you asked me to pray for your friends’ brother
A man in Florida who accidently killed his wife,
in an infidelity fueled rage,
…with a baseball bat.
I can say…like I did last week
that despite all the love in me
I have not learned how to pray for men like that.

Today,
I hear you speaking on the phone
relaying the story
trying to defend a party
Using the phrase:
oloriburiuku obirin
meaning
‘horrible woman’
Forgetting that violence is only ever justified
in the minds of those who commit it.
Forgetting the conversations knives and fists
have had with your throat and body
I wish you did not hold that bat with him today
Umi,
I wish that you would not let the blood and hair
claim your hands and hijab

Somehow you do not see the connection in the faults
of this conversation and the one you have with me
in which you claim that a woman’s body is so holy
men can only read sin into it.
I still do not know how to be trapped into that lack of connections.
I have never felt good hiding behind those cloaks
I will never look good in the lessons learned from your mistakes
In that veiling, and its patriarchal God

He
Who only re-disguises himself
As everyone else’s God
And still finds ways to stand in the mirror cursing
And still trying to catch all my holy with the fire from either side

It should be easier to simply choose one of them
what with my cover too lacking to make me a ‘good Muslim girl’
and juxtaposed modesty too abundant for my sexuality to not be questioned
Choosing would surely be easier than this
But I will not feed from flawed leftovers
Dear mother,
I cannot worship at a temple of backwash

Today
I am stuck in the car with you
All the things that cannot be said over dinner,
or a two day visit
being forced back into my throat by my own hands

I wish I could tell you,
as I have learned,
That the world is not all battles
and how to choose the right ones

That you cannot wear your armor all the time
that even if you end up being partially exposed
you can pray for blooms to sprout from the bruises
and be thankful for your thick skin

I wish
I could tell you about all the handprints
and dented breastplates
How I have found away for them to teach me
Resilience

But today
You are fighting, again,
in a world that you think of
as the highest level of hell,
The world I know
as simply the lowest level of heaven
we have not called the same place home in at least a year
I imagine my words would not translate well as they descend
That they may fall
on deaf ears
and hardened hands

I do in fact know retreat
Taking all of me that is
what the woman you would like to be hopes to be
I will go into hiding (yet again)

The monotonous humming of this road
you will not hear me snoring
Will never know I’ve gone to sleep

2010-06-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard

via (wolffofthesea)

2010-06-28T20:25:00.001-07:00

the world actually does not have it figured out.
AT ALL!

I really just did that

2010-06-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

DC
New York
New Haven
Hartford
NewYork
DC

...
(four cities) in four days

2010-06-26T16:20:00.002-07:00

"Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again - the first kiss of the rest of your life. A kiss that confirms that the universe is aligned, that the world's greatest resource is love, and maybe even that God is a woman. With or without a belief in God, all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding"
— Saul Williams (Said the Shotgun to the Head)

(via James Sprang)

2010-06-26T16:20:00.001-07:00

"i am like a survivor
of the flood
walking through the streets
drenched with
God
surprised that all of the
drowned victims
are still walking and talking"
— Saul Williams (Said the Shotgun to the Head)

2010-06-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

"I cannot tell you the last time I smoked..I got groceries to buy I don't have time to… no, extra munchies?"
-the 'fabulous' homie whose convo I've been eavesdropping on my whole way to new york.

me and him need to be friends
<3

yas =]

2010-06-23T07:12:00.001-07:00

2010-06-23T00:35:00.000-07:00

"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror..."
- Khalil Gibran
via. Omar Offendum

Who I was stalking...
because he is worthy of stalking.

he is DUMB sexy.
aiite I said it.
My love Sadia put me on.
His work is matches up to his face.
haha.

HALAL BOOTY.*

He also qualifies as IslamaBAYADNESS.
I have decided.

Apparently he frequents the District(as well as the multiple other places I sporadically do such as Philly and New York)
...welp, I'm not going to SAY anything but.. umm...yea. An encounter needs to happen soon is all.

And ...again.
HE IS DUMMMMMMB SEXY.
shet shet shet triple shet..

I should not be watching this.
SMH..
hormonal angst.
Or is that more than you neededto know?
its not my fault he is so damn pretty.
Actually enough of this, let me go find the artist circles around here he frequents lmao
let the work (or rather procrastination from my own) begin

*Tomfoolery is Ade and Murktarat creating Muslimly contradictions

THANK GOD

2010-06-22T01:47:00.000-07:00

for the Pazzaze in my life!
The Universe is speaking to me
and my do I love the things I am hearing.

Ears Open.

2010-06-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

It scares me how much I am understanding this poem more and more.
I've been got it deeply, and relating....but today...too much, too much.

Domestic Nomad

2010-06-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

let's ego trip real quick shall We.
I give a big wtf in reflection right now..

I have been home, what i call home.. the only place in this country i call home (DC)
For Two weeks
... mind you.. I do not have a house there...

okay...
and in those two weeks
I have spent not one weekend in DC

I am in Philly right now..
for the second time in Two weeks
(more out of necessity than choice)

By the end of the week (according to plans)
I will have visted

DC (going back 'home' in an hour or so)
New York.. to get to New haven so i can get to...
Hartford CT (where my mom lives)[from which i will go to]
Hanover NH to take care of school shit (and drama etc)
New York again for poetry regionals on Sunday... [and maybe a fashion show and play or two.. on Saturday]
all in one week...
actually..??!?

WHAT
THE
FUCK?!

Avoid Tough Questions

2010-06-21T06:02:00.000-07:00

I keep skipping the uncomfortable ones subconsciously.. the one's I have already written too many poems about
day 7-10 is all the same person.. Damn, Okay.

Day 11.
uhh. its not complete..its not going to be.. this is what happened when i wrote..interestingly.. raw writing even when its horrible process and stress and this is what happens to many of us somedays.. so fuck it.

It is an anxious afternoon
in the city of brothers we love
I try to pay attention to only the good things
as I miss a bus back home to DC

If the "left us's"
if the dearly departed
are as omnipresent as we say
You already know these things

That our mother is more of a mess now
but that (fortunately, for the present) it has been worse
That I watched a set of twins walk by as I chewed up time
and wondered what it would have been like
to be born with a mirror
That sometimes it would almost be good to forget that i have a sister
along with the lessons it has taught me

I got a means of reflection,
when I was 14 I knew what i would look like at 18
you showed me all the good I would do
and all too often the mistakes I could not handle

1. No matter how many times you are hurt do not become bitter
...on the outside, we both know it makes us feel ugly and that our means for beauty are limited

2.Do Not love men who do not matter
Staying true to this creed is making a harder sound as life breaks me piecemeal, it has only meant that along with him I have let go of something vital

3.Do not lie

It is perfectly clear to me at this point in writing that I am bullshitting so I will not finish this piece, I don't know if anyone is worth of hearing what I actually have to say to my sister it is certainly not worth fucking up in the frame of this or sacrificing or using as a writing warm up so fuck this

Now that I know this morning what bullshitting in my writing feels like (or am rather reminded) I can get to my shit and start my poetic day on my bus back to DC, word.Guhhh.. that was interesting?? see.. Wtf.. yea, whatever.. processing..damn rereading it.. guess who's bitter.. shet

So..

2010-06-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

I bought my ROCK the Bells tickets on Friday...

I'm pretty sure this fixes like... everything, technically.

Day 6- A Stranger

2010-06-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

To the black man with the scorched skin who at a second gaze burned me to ashes

it is the right time to find you beautiful,

the sun is scantily clad

DC is the city of hot

hot humid nights

and men the color of things that got hot too quickly

I'm still shedding all the ugly i find in me

So it took a second glance

maybe you heard the exclamation

You are a victim

or healing tool,

product of a lie

or pedestal

My throat quivers tsunamis

"I cannot love a man who looks like me"**

Your skin is a slap across an insecure face,

the burning remnants of thinking:

the sun touched too much,

too much.

It is too easy to see the ugly put in me

We like that hard kind of beauty

So, today

you are that purpose-full type of pretty

Wonder if you heard the fright before the exclamations,

the stutter

the pause

the scoff

Maybe

you tell women you meet

that they should love you

for how your skin glistens

for the faint reflections found

in the opaques trapped in your outline

Maybe

they are all lily white

or better still

the right not almost but quite

I wonder if you will ever believe like they do

Like i say, because I would like to

You, beautiful

it was a ripe day to find you

**ade is fucking booooomb

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deadass in the middle of the 1st one realized I wanted to write about the beautiful African at marshalls.. ye..my cashier, smh

I imagine the shaken sanctuaries

and fallen figures

of your country

are bruised and engraved

over your heart

under your name tag

Dear stranger,

I did not ask your name because

I was afraid it would be beautiful

or that the way you said it would make it so

Did not ask your country because

I am sure it is entirely too close

to my first love's

to bring me any peace

By the proud of your nose

and the faint of your eyes

I'm pegged on certainty of your Somali

And you can surely tell I have a country,

too far from this one

to not be called home,

or mother

--land

I am not proud about anything

around men like you

I am glad you did not ask

The act,

as if all the Africa had been poured out of me,

made it easier to face

something other than yours

I cannot look you in your eyes

I would like my bag

and receipt

and permission

to leave

Thank you.

Damn

2010-06-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yes.

Shet

Holy God.

Thats that type loving I'm talking about.

Blessings

2010-06-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

Today me and the love in my life.

Bought underwear together.

specifically little boys boxer briefs

I'm serious.

I love Taylor Johnson...

yes, its so blog worthy.

Yesterday

2010-06-16T05:31:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot your birthday.

like the 10pm type"almost"

Yea. they got me like that...

R.I.P to the only man that I have loved

that has never disappointed me.

Mohammad Yussuff turned 19.

2010-06-15T20:26:00.001-07:00

“The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.”

—	Jacques Benigne Bossuel

findlings and tings, random old files.

2010-06-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

broken women make bad decisions and

bad decisions break broken women

so broken women keep breaking broken things

Yesterday

2010-06-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

I decided that our first daughter's name would have been Imani

meaning faith,

or some variation thereof

2010-06-15T13:09:00.001-07:00

I called your bluff

I always knew you would break

under the weight of how hard I love.

Look how you cracked

freewrite

2010-06-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

Patriarchy seems to be where are the issues in my problems are leveled.

men, God, Love. (Since God is supposedly male , everytime I am talking bout God is interchangeable with a man/men in my life and vice versa)

freewrite from todays training sess

About the Men

Pre-existence-

They told me that you would make trgedies out of all my hope and rigid perseverance

I do not listen. They told me you were male. I saw me in you. I will always be confused about where I fit on the gender spectrum

Age 12- between now and the last time

You have exposed me to a lot of ugly.

Before I was six I knew about sex

and wont know why until im 15

in the newest old neighborhood

you lifted up my shirt

to expose what was under there

as if to say

I am in fact a woman

I saw you try to cut my mother’s throat

You are leaving now taking everything with you

except the disconcerting assurance that you will be back

Age 18- it was either all you

or you and him between us

but God,

if that’s what they still call you.

You sulked and soaked into the thing that is ‘us’

I wanted to trust you again.

I always get what I want

in the worst way

Age 20- stranded, I wonder if you listen anymore.

the questions I have for you all come out like curses

25- you are no where to be found

30- I start thinking about not looking anymore

35- every laugh is a sacrifice of my heart. I smile to not hurt anymore

it breaks me

40- I stop reading. I do not speak, do not cry. Forgot how to pray

45- my feet are pretty now

from all the walking I refuse to do

there’s a certain beauty that comes when all the hope is drained out of you

50- I wouldn’t recognize you if I saw you,

I am too pretty now

20- I’m still writing silly poems like somehow they can make this less true.

Dear God

Today I hate how ugly you made me.

2010-06-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

Sperectomy: the draining-out of hope.

midnight's children

In Response(s)

2010-06-15T12:37:00.001-07:00

I do not co-author tragedies.

Dear God,
May I never fall in love again
Amen

I don't ever want to know how to stop waiting

So I talked madd shit.

2010-06-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

But he hella redeemed himself. And is still my plan B (maybe A)

I LOVE YOU K'NAAN.

damn why he so beautiful.

oh and check out his huffington post article which made me be like..

dAMNNN

i cant be mad at youuuu

<33

rightchea

gorgeous in fact.

Day 1- Bestfriend

2010-06-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

You have my mothers eyes.
my sisters hands
and chest
and smile
and love
you shape shifter you
cradle you rock
you have a million faces

safia-
the summer we met i watched you bloom beautiful
i have never seen anyone work so
hard to tear
broke your shell
woman
height like a sleeping giant
little girl big voice
you worked so hard to tear
for a girl who got all the
'how to cry' washed out of
her
there is bleach in that water
clean slate
you make me feel
like i can begin again.
it started with you.

Taylor
Every broken step
towards
whole
is another
one towards
remembering you
and how
i was not who i am now
before you
love.
you made me know
what type of woman i could be
and how much i would love her
and how
and how
and when
i love you,
my dear.

ade
i brought you
my stories
my burdens
my deaths
a fan-dangled forest of regret
and ugly
you made them beautiful
i cried in on my self
let it steep
poured my delicate all back in
with my hard and stern
i am beautiful
like i was before
but the reflection speaks easier about it
thanks to you.

minilik
i dont remember men before you
they were all brothers
and a father with no puberty in him
i dont know how to love men
i was never looking for a king
i found a prince trying to regain his crown
when you take your thrown
if i cannot sit next to you
i will watch your palace from afar
and smile.

bianca

it was simple with us
there is something
simple
about a beautiful girl
with a lot of heart
and all of it seeping out of her
we were sisters before i met you
my laughter knows you
like my heart knows love
and pain
and when i found you
a part of me came home again
its that simple
with us

piper

i am a whirling dervish
a cracked out queen of
street soothsayer in your life
a crazy girl
with a loud mouth
and a louder
heart
you loved me anyway
you have held my tears
you have held me closer
there is nothing i can say
that can articulate
how much i owe you
a part of my me

omie

you are a queen of queeness
a floating smile
a foolish beauty
a crying growth
I find something
so beautiful
about how true
you are with your tears
with your honesty
with your laughter
your hurt
your bullshitting
your bitching
you are your everything
there is nothing more beautiful
about being a beautiful you
and making no apologies for it
except when its necessary

yarminiah

a beautfiul black man
once wrote about the dimple on the side of your face
there is an equator about you
you make things balanced
i am smalled by you
and always want to grow
bigger
to your heights
so i can reach up to your cheek
and fall into the paradise
of the crater on your face

there is a home about you
a stern mother
a whole sister
a beautiful friend
a careless color and shade
about how confusing it is
to explain how hard
i have
loved you

30 day.. letter...poem? challenge.

2010-06-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

this was a post on tumblr:

Inspired by the below post, this is the 30 day letter challenge. I won’t write consecutively and about half of these will be anonymous.

Watch this space.
Day one - your best friend
Day two - your crush
Day three - your parents
Day four - your sibling
Day five - your dreams
Day six - a stranger
Day seven - your ex/love/crush
Day eight - your favorite internet friend
Day nine - someone you wish you could meet
Day ten - someone you dont talk to as much as you’d like
Day eleven - someone deceased you wish you could talk to
Day twelve - someone you hate/caused you alot of pain
Day thirteen - someone you wish would forgive you

Day fourteen - someone you drifted away from
Day fifteen - the person you miss the most
Day sixteen - someone thats not in your state/country
Day seventeen - someone from your childhood
Day eighteen - the person you wish you could be
Day nineteen - someone that pesters your mind, good or bad
Day twenty - the one that broke your heart the most
Day twentyone - someone you judged on first impression
Day twentytwo - someone you want to give a second chance to
Day twentythree - the last person you kissed
Day twentyfour - the person who gave you your favorite memory
Day twentyfive - the person you know going through the hardest time
Day twentysix - the last person you made a pinky promise to
Day twentyyseven - the friendliest person you knew for one day
Day twentyeight - someone that changed your life
Day twentynine - the person you want to tell everything to but are afraid to
Day thirty - your reflection in the mirro

i decided i wanted to try to see wat would happen with this as poems
i may not do all of em
actually im sure i wont
but interesting prompts /reflectionsfor the day

Slim Thug Schooled By Prof. Marc Lamont of Columbia University.

2010-06-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Its about time
people start getting their asses handed to them.
for saying ignorant shit.

Amen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a recent interview, rapper Slim Thug unleashed a very disturbing attack on Black women, here's an excerpt:

...Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now. They have to understand that successful Black men are kind of extinct. We’re important. It’s hard to find us so Black women have to bow down and let it be known that they gotta start working hard; they gotta start cooking and being down for they man more. They can’t just be running around with their head up in the air and passing all of us.

I have a brother that dates a White woman and he always be fucking with me about it saying, 'Y’all gotta go through all that shit [but] my White woman is fine. She don’t give me no problems, she do whatever I say and y’all gotta do all that arguing and fighting and worry about all this other shit.'...

While many people dismissed it as a publicity stunt or the rant of an ignorant rapper, I felt compelled to respond to him in the form of an open letter.

Slim,

A few days ago, you made comments in Vibe magazine that have caused a great deal of controversy. While I appreciate your willingness to offer your opinion in public, you made several statements that were not only unfair and untrue, but deeply damaging to our community. Normally, I would reach out to you privately, but since your comments were made in a very public place, I feel compelled to respond in the same manner.

As an artist who is respected by millions of fans, particularly young ones, I found your comments to be hurtful and irresponsible. For good or for bad, our children follow the lead of you and other artists for everything from fashion and slang to self-esteem, body image and relationships. Imagine how a young black girl feels to hear from you, her role model, that her “standards are too high” and that she should “bow down” and “settle for less.” Consider the pain that our beautiful brown skinned babies feel when Yung Berg says he doesn’t date “dark butts.” Think about the self-esteem of our community when Nelly refers to our mothers, sisters, and daughters as “Tip Drills.”

As celebrities, your public comments are not just your own. Instead they influence the choices, beliefs, and lives of an entire generation of young people who look to you for direction.

Of course, you have every right to say things that you think are true. The problem, however, is that there was very little truth in your comments.

In your interview, you talk about how much better white women treat their partners than black women. If what you’re saying is true, why do Whites have the highest divorce rate of any group? Do white men get tired of being treated like kings? In reality, it seems that you are buying into (and selling) a stale but dangerous ideal that constructs White women as ultra-feminine, loving, queens, and Black women as angry, selfish, and untrustworthy hoes.

Even more disturbing was your comment that “Black women gotta start being down for their man more.” Since slavery, Black women have had to withstand rape, torture, and humiliation (from both white and black men) in order to sustain their families. Now, in 2010, 1 in 3 Black men between 20 and 29 years old are incarcerated or otherwise under criminal supervision. Every day, Black women are raising children without men in the house, working multiple jobs (for less pay!), and supporting brothers as they finish their prison bids.

With Black male unemployment as high as 50 percent in some cities, sisters are often holding down households without child support or other financial assistance. Black female incarceration rates are skyrocketing, partly because Black women are “riding” for their men, hiding guns and drugs, operating as mules, and refusing to snitch to authorities. In addition, Black women are the group most likely to be victims of domestic violence and the least likely to be married. Still, in spite of all this bad news, Black women are less likely to date outside their race than Black men.

How much more “down” do you want Black women to be?

I agree with you that both brothers and sisters have work to do. Over the last year, we’ve seen countless TV shows, movies, and bestselling books telling Black women how broken they are, how ugly they are, why they don’t have a man, and how they need to behave. Instead of adding to this pile of pain and ignorance, I would encourage you to turn the mirror on yourself. How does the image of the pimp/player/baller/dopeboy promoted in your music help to create the “gold diggers” that you badmouth in your interviews? How might your own admitted failures at monogamy undermine the type of loyalty that you find missing in Black women? Criticizing the vulnerable is easy. Working on yourself is the difficult part.

I hope you don’t take this letter as an attack, but as an act of concern and love from one brother to another. Through your fame and wealth, you have tremendous power. You can use it to hurt or to heal, to injure or to inspire.

The world is watching. What will you do?

Your Brother,

Marc Lamont Hill

Link
Mind you there are actually people trying to partially justify some of this as far as the void that exists between black women and men and love in the black community. I will say, any issues that are perpetuated on the side of black females are as a result of the faults and flaws of patriarchy&misogyny and false precepts of what masculinity is..period.
Rocky Rivera schools the homies on this in he tumblr about Kat spanks..

Readhere

To day/night.

2010-06-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

I made salat.
On my homegirls rooftop.

Romantic.

Anniversary freewrite

2010-06-07T02:07:00.001-07:00

I told myself that there would be no such writing because it smelled too much like wallowing..here it is anyway seeping out of me like drained hope. I had to write it down in two minutes and pretend to get it out.. for my so-called sanity

there is no ceremony

there are no candles

there is no talk of love today

the way there was a year a go

when I unfolded the love letters knotted up in my throat and

gave them to you in a sentence.

I wonder how it became this way

the turn table of my thought telling

a truth with no expected reciprocity

met their gilded joy at the dawn of a morning much like this

when I was scared and full of love for you

busying myself

there is no phone call today

and similarly enough

I am learning to cope somehow, again

with the idea of getting no reciprocity for my divulgences

oh faith,

oh risk,

oh gilded heart

I wonder where and in what I should place thee

I learned love a year ago

and now

I am trying to teach myself how to let it go

On Black Masculinity...

2010-06-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

"There is a resistance to rethinking masculinity that is embedded not only within the psyche and lived experience of Black men alone but within women as well. Bell hooks writes: 'Heterosexual women have not unlearned a heterosexist-based 'eroticism' that constructs desire in such a way that many of us can only respond erotically to male behavior that has already been coded as masculine within the sexist framework' (1994a,111). So even a heterosexual man who engages in a sensitive awareness of feminist issues, and in humanistic caring alternative performances of Black masculinity, is demonized for not being a strong, take-charge kind of guy."- bryant keith alexander

OMFG!!

BONG! WTF this is way too relevant to my life and how the world/society has totally fucked the shit out of it..

I WILL definitely be reflecting/ranting on this later.

shet!

but for now..

back to work

2010-06-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

The most beautiful love poems are written by people who are not in love at the time.

The real thing has a way of ruining the dream.

Subsistence Struggles Continued

2010-06-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Yea.

Still eating the same shit.

Although yesterday I used like 5$ of what is left of my dining hall money (now 26$) to buy a sandwhich. wack ass salad and apple sauce so actually it was more than 5$. Crappy thing is if you go over its out of pocket and they attach it to your tuition funds (a random $200 charge on my tuition from last year proves I had to learn the hard way). And some how if you go under you lose yo mofucking ca$h and these beetches "throw the money out" FUCK YOU DARTMOUTH . aint that some capitalistic shit right there. oh yea... lets pretend these numbers are real money till yo ass tries to retrieve it or something.. tsk tsk tsk.

anywhooser, im tryna make it through. you see dining dates actually dont work too well when you realize you are royally fucked/ too set in yo procrastinating ass ways and have mad research papers due within the next few days.

Food is a good distraction to make you feel like you are actually doing something when you are not, especially if you are like me and have an oral fixation. Here is what happens. You meet and devour food pals especially if they are new ones or old ones you have missed for a long time.

LoOk:

EVIL BAG OF POPCORN PART 2

Before

After

and this my friends.. i kid you not.. is in a matter of two days or Like 50-60 hours. How does one consume so much popcorn, its actually kettle corn which is very special and hard to come by so that is part of it.. I will say though, I am proud i didnt eat it all in one day cuz i do and have indeed taken on stomach feats such as that.

guhhhhhh.Same 'ol shit.

oh but meet my other friend.

Genetically Modified Giant Ass Apple.

Unlike Popcorn he has secret evils, his ills are in fact hidden.. which may be worse.

You cant tell.. but that is actually a big ass apple. SMH. oh college woes "poor me", i'm a jerk. But I cant wait till I have access to 'ethnic' people and 'ethnic' food it literally changes my brain and my thinking and my spiritual centeredness. DEADASS NO GASS fooo.

May God grant me something pretty in my belly as soon as I get home to DC.

Ashe. Ameen. Amen.

2010-06-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

your mouth is an overflowing hearth

from which a million rivers grow

a place of proliferation

that once set many things ablaze

2010-06-03T13:28:00.001-07:00

Your name was like a song out my mouth

a prayer of sorts

I miss my God.

2010-06-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Henry Miller

When you have no more dining hall money you...

2010-06-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

1. Go out of town to your mom's house and make her buy you sustainable groceries.

apples
bananas
not strawberries (b/c they go bad on your microwave and you just wasted a lot of money like your mom warned you not to)
big ass bag of cheerioes (only half the supersized BJ's wholesale package)
Giant carton of Almond Breeze Almond Milk

2. Pray that these will hold you over for the week you have left of school

3. When you realize they won't start making dining dates off campus to start spending money you don't have.

4. Buy a giant bag of kettle corn from the fair that is taking place in the center of campus that is selling a bunch of unaffordable folky ass shit

5. Eat the giant bag of kettle corn until your stomach hurts and you are still paying for it the next day....shame

Me, Malcolm, and the Evil Bag of Kettle Corn.. in the libs... not writing 'our' finals.

Black Masculinity in America

2010-06-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have been on a binge/ used my classes as an excuse within the past couple days to delve deep into understanding the institutions tropes etc. That make the men I love the way they are...difficult to love often. I jokingly say it is me "getting to know the enemy," the fact is I am almost half serious. That half of the ankh for me and many black women my age has indeed been a source of a lot of anguish, pain, growth, torture, surprise, hope, disappointment. Our fathers, brothers (bloodline and otherwise), and the men we take as companion often bring back around the notion that the ankh is still in desperate need of healing.

Here is a movie I am watching (supposedly) for a paper I am writing:

I am A Man: Black Masculinity in America

M.i.A

2010-06-03T07:22:00.001-07:00

(Some of) What I have been doing instead.

Clothing/Mission Steez

CLLLIIIICK MEEEEEE

2010-03-13T07:01:00.002-08:00

The nuance of this as a love song... she keeps speaking in past tense.. But OD.. itssssss hellllaaaa more than just a... this is how beautiful what was..was

But word like..

2010-03-12T01:56:00.000-08:00

Songs needa stop getting me open..

its not okay.

YO....

2010-03-11T00:30:00.001-08:00

this is sooo wrong and problematic at the end

especially considering I feel like the beat is on some Gospel type vibe..

but ..what can i say.. it got me homie

More Hafiz fo dat dat dat

2010-03-09T06:54:00.001-08:00

WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.

Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives with a
full moon in each eye that is
always saying,

with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in
this world is
dying to
hear?

She's My Lady by Donny Hathaway

2010-03-07T08:17:00.001-08:00

(oh word youtube, you gon delete the audio on the one video of the song so I cant put it on my page, oh word. Aiite bet)

...damn, talk about a love song

"doing my work"/"writing my exam"

and can't stop hearing it

no, no, listening to it

2010-03-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

"There is, by a way, in which a man's feelings are more rational than his mind"

Invisible man

I love

An Illuminated Heart Must Cast So Much Light

2010-03-01T17:30:00.001-08:00

I am so proud of my mother!

Redemption on the come up

2010-02-28T07:56:00.000-08:00

2010-02-23T09:38:00.001-08:00

2010-02-21T15:02:00.001-08:00

"The condition of native is a native is a nervous condition”-Introduction to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth

2010-02-18T03:02:00.000-08:00

Anglicized-Nyasha (born in Zimbabwe, 14 years old, lived in Britain for 5 of them) reflecting after getting in a fight with her father...where she hits him back. The book speaks much of the subjugation of women, class issues in post-colonial Africa, "modernization", education, and self-preservation

"I know [… ]It’s not England anymore and I ought to adjust. But when you’ve seen different things you want to be sure you’re adjusting to the right thing. You can't go on all the time being whatever’s necessary. You’ve got to have some conviction, and I’m convinced I don’t want to anyone’s underdog. It’s not right for anyone to be that. But once you get used to it, well, it just seems natural and you just carry on. And that’s the end of you. You’re trapped. They control everything you do"

-Nervous Conditions By Tsitsi Dangarembga

Straight out of my paper enh? How is it that this quote can apply to so many things. This passage, once I read it, summed up in full and effortlessly my issue with my place in this here world. More specifically, my feeling of lacking or rather sacrificing the latter as a result of gaining placement in this here "Small liberal arts college in New England". And we won't even start on how much this says about being a Second-generation Immigrant/ Foreign/ Blank space-cultural hyphen- Anything.

& The battle that the spirit has with this place.

The things my soul has seen and felt. Look nothing like what I see with all this "reality" stuck in the corners of my eyes. Me, me, ego-less, and otherwise says this quote so often it hurts& heals to see it in print.

And it goes, and goes, and goes.

Fear controls its all.

"We are so trained in the thought system of fear and attack that we get to the point where natural thinking-love-feels unnatural and unnatural thinking-fear- feels natural. It takes real discipline to train an unlearn the thought system of fear"

But I have to keep in mind that, even with all that stuff stuck in my eyes, some will sadly call reality (if its not love its not real) that

"A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be"

-Marianne Williamson

(Is so still my homie...some 3years strong)

"Nervous Conditions", eh?

That was it is isn't it.. conditioning,

A condition,

temporal,

temporary.

Woke up to fast and now its 7am.

Hello world...I'm going back to sleep..

&.

2010-02-16T06:47:00.001-08:00

Sharing.

Me mostly discovering, her mostly re-discovering

Black&African Oldies.

(There will forever be odes to the time we sat in the car and drove to New York singing Sam Cooke's Bring it on Home to Me between sobs)

My MOMs

LIKE

DAT.

(like, actually)

The newest re-addition to our Try to Reconcile Life archive :

(oh, yea...you go dey brush up on your pidgin enh?)

2010-02-16T06:19:00.000-08:00

Moshood Abiola (MKO) with Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from Robben Island.

In case I forget that there is much history interacting with my childhood and wonder why it often comes out of my random-wiki.search-nowheres to slap me on the face and remind me that my mother was "something" somewheres (multiple) maybe once.

Will expand later, currently procrastinating my procrastination of a paper that is due in 4.5 (hours) on a book I never finished but throughly (almost) enjoyed (Nervous Conditions).

...I'm sleepy

2010-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Adam was an androgyne.

I'm already yours.

Be Mine.

I don't have a way with words.

2010-02-05T09:05:00.001-08:00

But they have their way with me ;)

(scandal)

Periodically

2010-02-05T07:57:00.001-08:00

I think of how beautiful you are.

And want to laugh,

but always cry.

Delivery.. Bundle of Joy

2010-02-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

We love Vintage Shopping
We love ebay.
(in that order...haha who is 'we' ?
me and the voices in my head possibly)

Yes. I'm serious...

Wait till you see me in this

I know it may be wack to post this on a blog

but I am actually just too excited.

I cannot wait to wear this.
I have been trying to cop this since summer and finally decided to stop being cheap and lazy.
I love vintage shopping on ebay. My gawd

The RBG motif tho yall..
Really?
Loveliness all the way.
It's on some dress/jacket status
(Pretty shameful that I think I either one will do... lets see if I have any senses when I do step out
with this on SMH, shameful)
My friend Ben said
"mmm, i like it.. its very HBCU circa 1980"
(that was in the summer & I still remember it
to the letter, or to the essence
whatever, thats not the point)

Disclaimer:
it looks better on me than on the mannequin
ha.YAS!

POWpowPOW

We Forget

2010-02-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

"I love you" is a statement. Not a response.

2010-02-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

The fool looks at a finger that points at the sky.

2010-02-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

“There is always some madness in love.

But there is also always some reason in madness.”

Nietzsche

2010-02-02T07:07:00.000-08:00

"I guess they've broken my spirit"

SexyBlackAfrican....Muslims

2010-02-01T18:24:00.000-08:00

My name is Murktarat Yussuff

and I actually only like African- descendant Muslims.

Sorry...Its not my fault

Past

Mansa Musa

Bilal ibn Ribah

African (present-day Ethiopia) slave the prophet chose to be his muezzin (person who makes the call to prayer). Also first African to convert to Islam. Also known as Bilal al-Habashi or "Bilal the Ethiopian" (Al-Habishi, like Habesha wheeeeeeeeeew! I'm so cool... Amharic is so a Semitic language anyway so i guess that was an obvious and easy one but I'll take it). Most importantly Bilal is said to be the muezzin that will make the call to prayer on the day of judgement. So we were running around 2008 worried about the wondrous event of having a Black man in office when there have been Black men running world powerful empires (yea duh duh I know) but who would have told you or would have remembered(this is for all the WACK racist Muslims out there... you're an oxymoron .. just saying) a Black man could/would (depending on your religious affiliation homie I aint forcing my faith on anyone) be calling people to prayer. Hm. Rakakakakow. Bilal, Mansa Musa (Musa being the name for Moses....Black +Moses: oohh lawd don't make me start making connections to Egypt and Blackness and Slavery and Harriet Tubman..) and Baraki (I dont know if I like him too much but that is besides the point) are all African and Muslimy..muhahah OUT TO CONQUER THE WORLD. okay im done.

But I will say. I love this I love Bilal and although it is perhaps one of the most urbanized Black Muslimized, significance underrated and unrecognized, culturized and de-religousized namesEVER. I'm pretty bent on naming one of my offspring Bilal in someway shape or form.

(okay so my work is ACTUALLY WAITING so Im going to make this brief instead of as long as I actually would like to)

Present

(obvi. there are a lot including yours truly but I'm putting only two and probably really famous ones)

Mos Def

(Obviously because I'm in love with him)

Everyone knows Mos Def's drama two wives and all that nonsense and he makes it clear/ has made it clear at shows that he struggles with his religion people wanna criticize him for that, people want and like to criticize Black Muslims in general and people like to criticize African descendant Muslims in general because of the issue of Religion and/or/ with Culture of a people not from the places where Islam originated and how these different histories interact and appropriations that are made........

I love him anyways.

K'naan

is the only man I would ever make my an exception to the 'no being a second wife, there are only 1st wives in my lineage' rule for

(yes, we have polygamy in the Yussuff fam.. we'll talk about that later.. until then.. don't be an ignorant fart and make any assumptions.. it no dey be good-oh.)

(found this picture after I wrote the blurb about him but when I saw this picture I literally slapped myself in the face and gasped "God" smh, oh yea that actually is really wrong haha lamenting over a beautiful man.. where is my shame)

Gawd you pretty. And I have a thing for East African men.. actually only Somali's and really really SEXY Ethiopian men (insert awkward silence and crickets here for all those that get the innie..smh). & OD within the past couple years I have surprisingly run across a few fine Ethiopian men. I aint saying they typically unattractive I'm just saying that I have been told by my many many MANY Habesha homegirls that the fly ones are few and far between... mmMmM. Dartmouth has one cutie right neeeeeyaaaawwwwSHATAHAY! (sorry, fully aware that was inaapropriate) And bump that. add a 'really really sexy' in front of the Somali part too, You only get an automatic obsession from me without being mad sexy if you are a West African male.. but not the 'I wanna date you' type obsession.. more like the 'in another world in another time' , 'back before before' 'alternate reality, future ex lover, when we were kings and queens' 'maybe i was his husband maybe he was my wife' or ' I've spent so much time despising and fearing you that now i am intrigued by you since you once stood emblematic of everything i hate/ everything that has broken me and I think i'm a fearless almost woman thing now and tryna have my heart follow suit' or 'homie, i really want a voice with some base in it to help me practice my Yoruba &/or Pidgin' ...

Ways type of obsession

Whoa.. that was a whole lot!

but...i think I may just be obsessed with Somali's in general and never realized it til K'naan.. like its been sitting in me all along.. haha. Warsame is a pretty sexy last name.. i look good in sexy, i feel like i could rock it.. and i need kids with mad culture...little homies would be speakin Somali..which has mad arabic all up in it..WHAARRAT. (I am thinking this out way too much it is disturbing)

ohh OH AND. one of the most amazing African Muslim female poets EVER. Warsan Shire. Also happens to grant poetically and in her personal physical presence the best sights and sounds I have ever seen or heard. DAMN SHE FINE!. BAYAD ONE!! Seriously though click the link read her poetry and make sure you see that woman's face. Ma'shallah and a GOODGODALMIGHTY

Okay i said two but i lied. Three.

Q-TIP

oh shay tay hay good GOD almighty.

damn you pretty.

DAMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Okay sorry but this picture was disappointing haha

(Um It took me entirely too long to find a picture of q-tip I could deal with this makes me sad.. i think he is getting old. I just need one that recaptures the beauty of his face in poetic justice and that beauty mark.. yea that beauty mark is all im really worried about actually.. hahhaa)

I won't add no mo cuz yall alhhhreaaaahhdeee knoo

Oh person I didn't include because I am obsessed with him to an unhealthy degree.

Amir Sulaiman

(I like yell when I see his face anywhere.. wtf am i going to do when i meet him.. yea. i love how him and my advisor are BFFs and he is prally coming to my school soon.. my organizing Ass will be making sure that occurs in the Spring inshallah....=/ i put a curse world and inshallah in the same sentence... my middle name is Sacrilege)

Interesting how all the present day ones are hip-hop artists .. we will have a discussion about Muslim in HipHop aka my life and my struggles and my contradictions in many ways, and even perhaps a marginalized group where a marginalized person like me would fit in most but still feels marginalized in some ways. it's a long discussion to be had over and over and one they attempted in DEEN TIGHT.. which i still haven't seen =/ whoops.

Peeep:

Muslims in HipHop

(Pop master Fabel of the 2livecrew. man oh man he came to teach my theater class.. GOD IS GOOD what a blessing.. that & how i got connected to this network is a story for later though...pt: him and his wife run this)

Iman Community Cafe'

okay. NOT only is Chicago beastly .. but apparently so are their MUSLIMS

my God. Oh man I'm trying to go to Taking it to the Streets this June.

YESSIRMAM&CHILD.

ALSO!!

i only put BlackAfricanMEN..what the hell is up with that.. I will do a massive female do-over. I think somehow history Not necc. Islam in itself but history and American culture can't deal with Muslim females. Especially if she is a "Black AFRICAN" oh ya. this was all Sub-Saharan... which was ignorant for me to go with the idea that Sub-Saharan is the only Africa meant in African descent. I'm a victim of my circumstances trying not to work within these fallacies that you wont understand me without.....smh... that is an intellectual ponder I'll deal with later though... I think.

This week is Islam in Africa Week on the syllabus for my Introduction to African Studies class and also happens to be our MSA's Islamic Awareness Week with a focus on Muslims in America, one of the events being a screening of New Muslim Cool (which is not about a chocolate Muslim but a Puerto Rican rapper one BUT! there are mad coco Muslim in dere doe) and our new advisor has some Chocolate in his whatever else (I ain't sure yet),

ON TOP OF IT ALL at the end of the week I am going to Muslims in the IVY conference at Yale on the prowl for some (SHAMEFUL I AM!) chocolate Muslim men.. (let's be real though whenever you get Muslim youth between the ages of 20 and 30 together you are soooo tryna get a homie betrothed to a homie). All of that is going on okay.. So I cannot be blamed for writing this blog literally in the middle of my reading for Intro. for African Studies ...due tomorrow, when I should be working. Blame my African Studies prof, Al-Nur (and my mom for convincing me to run for office this year), and Yale's MSA...ALL IM DOING IS TRYNA HAVE A HOLISTIC LEARNING EXPERIENCE HOMIE!

HAHA

Click on the underlined stuff for goodiesdurr....please =]

...I am Murktarat.. and i ACTUALLY pondered linking mentions of my reading to my ACTUAL reading for people who wanted to learn more about Islam in Africa and the words "chocolate" and "Muslim chocolate" to images of their respective association (yes including the actual food).

I have problems

(this blog officially took about three hours of my life... this is high school all over again...and this was supposed to be my 'go academically hard week....FAIL.. which also means you have to ignore any typos nonsensicalness in here, and any messiness)

2010-02-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

Fear Controls Love Compels

2010-02-01T04:33:00.000-08:00

"Don't Move.

Listen: You are the only thing in your way,

Why?"

-Hueman Prophet Jabari Exum

Listen: With Your Heart

Dream Sequence

2010-02-01T04:31:00.000-08:00

I need to speak to

Whoever is in charge of

dreams.

I Know Angels,

2010-01-31T12:38:00.000-08:00

Personally.

October 24, 2009

In the back of heaven somewhere
beyond the leaky halo shower and
behind the creaky door
stage left.

God keeps the stories (s)he is most proud of

Under a stack of old angel wings
too powerful for flight that isn't gaudy,
There is a news paper article from the day you were born
And it reads:

In the beginning there was darkness
So people knew nothing of light
God set down a girl the size of a fallen star,
placed her in the belly of a woman
with the least reason to keep faith in anything

Tiptoeing around the back parts of heaven,
royalty refreshed,
trying to quench your thirst for antiquity..

Find it.

Make an obscene amount of copies.
Tape them to yourself
and run,
head first
off of the 7th level as close to the speed of light
as angelically possible.

Remember to flash that smile the way you do
so that the light hits the filaments of paper
just enough to cast a shadow down to earth.

On the anniversary of the day you ascended,
When I am looking up at heaven
Thinking of the unreachable
In wonder and worry
It'd be nice to know
that you were finally given eyes
grand enough
to gauge
your greatness.

انّا للہ و انّا الیہ راجعون

Muhsinat "Joi" Yussuff

October 24 1986~February 3 2005

2010-01-31T12:18:00.001-08:00

Laughing Buddha.

Smile.

Pants fo Dat Ass..teheheh get it?

2010-01-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

I have working on these (dis)continuously since December break.
It was a massive 'edit' as my homie momoh would put it, homes.
I should have taken before pictures but I'll describe them instead,
they were giant big person pants straight legged falling off of me had it not been for the elastic
oh man..me and these here pantalones been through it
it took a lot of work but I am finished.
if it hadn't got to the point of "fuck it i cant really sew but lets do this"
mixed with a lil begging for advice from moms these would never have made me so satisfied.

So now on some.. 'do whatever you want and use ya resources homie'
im proud of myself and feel motivated

SHAYTAYHAY
PEEEEEP HOMIE
Channeling my inner FELA with this pants. WHHHHEW!

(I post too many pictures of the same angle but you get the idea..& if not..I'm too lazy to break out the digitals and upload again..nooothanks)

Dress it up

(my room is a mess...as am i...mindyabitnessHOE)

Wear It Down

PowPOWPOW

Foreal this time.

2010-01-30T22:22:00.000-08:00

How is it that one does the traditional new years blog post on the 31st of january you ask...

like....

this..........

WORD

so..

school is boring and cold and Dartmouth-y

and this is nothing but a 1:23 blog of boredom

reinstitution and validation

let's try to get this blog bitness togetha shall we.

oh and.

i finished my 30/3,00000

hahah

before the new year.

didn't think i caught that did you?

now the question is did YOU actually notice

so thats officially the 1st 30/30 i have ever finished

no i didnt do it in 30 days nevertheless it served the purpose.. not of necc. inspiring me to write or write everyday.. but to put my self into the universe

vulnerability is always positive.

figuring out where my limits are so i can bust through dem.

and leaving things like that unfinished feels wrong

im not good at leaving anything other than my beliefs open ended..

hrmmmm

i have a lot more to say about all diss 30/30 nonsense-oh but im going to refrain...

i dont know why..

next time.. it'll be bombder.. i hope..

and this is boring..

ill be back..

next time

bearing gifts..

Wahid.

Do Over.

2010-01-30T22:21:00.001-08:00

Today is Yesterday's hotter sister.

and tomorrow is Today's sexier cousin.

You

2010-01-30T22:18:00.000-08:00

Rub me counter clockwise...

is such a negative thing to stay.. but is such a great saying of mine..

i'm so cleaver hehe.

and i'm not even mad at anyone..

hence it is uninspired.

just bored.

back,

beetches.

(Missing) Michigan, Where there is a lot of Water (ppiiicccheas beeeccheasss)

2009-12-29T16:17:00.000-08:00

wait wait..
thats boring if i just plop them on here. lets tell a story shall we..

Once upon a time...

two girls from Dartmouth set out on a journey (dundundundun)
trekking through the tundra of the newest hampshires they ended up on a bus in boston...

it was dark and the travel was difficult
but there was lots of great convo..
and pretty colors
through..
the newest of yorks
and
cleve of lands
and tolls of ledo
haha
wtf?
lmao..

(uwwww....ahhhh...purty..bosty)

SOME HOW.
through it all.
specifically with the help of a goddess sculpture in a fish filet box
they made it

(yes... um Aimee def has a Tara, beautiful Bodhisattva in the box...yea. i know.. i dont know why she likes me either...when people too bomb for their own good love me i just sit by and take it and hope they never become the wiser..and yes.those glasses are actually broken..foreal and actually taped. you cant fake that..lol. it was def the talk of the visit like people thought she was just being a bootyclown lol.. booty clown is assclowns lil sister..lol. ade taught me that word...assclown.hahahaa.haha.HA!
man vocabulary is good. okay.. back to aimee.,
people thought she was just being an assbootyclown and taping her glasses)

side note:
Aimee le also specializes in wearing coool boots and "artsyfartsy i am an artist but im cool and not a d-wad see" pictures(see below)
(man aimee put me on the word d-wad lol..waid d-bag? watevers.. vocabulary..good)

okay back to our story..
wow...
im ACTUALLY RIDICULOUS..

the two girls..
they made it safely.
saw poetry n'shit/
it was good

hahah.

real good.
damn thats an UGLEEEEEEEEE picture of me lmao

>>yea. that type of good>

are these my bedroom eyes?...
dear God i hope not
lmao

ME AND aimee...
we take sexy pictures.

PLURAL.
homie
lol

OH man oh boy..
these pictures are making me so happy right now
lmao..
is this inappropro..who said that..
ew.
aimee was using that word.. and now i am
wtf
where'd that come from. lmao.
EW!

i need some sexy to wash that off..

aww. she's so cute..
ALL BETTER. =]
lol
there is a REALLLLLLY EMBARRASSING picture i skipped .. see.. i do have an appropriateness gauge.. or maybe i dont since i mentioned it lol.

im too sexy for my homemade

AAE clothing

(.coming soon-godwilling.)

printfabric suspenders.

...yes..
i know my self obessession is a wee bit unhealthy....sighhhhh
and
moving on..

THAT SQUIRREL IS ACTUALLY NAMED KING COBRA
DONT TRUST HIM!!!
HE IS
A FLYING
EVVIIILL
WOMBAT
CREATURE THING
THE LARGEST SQUIRELL I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE!!!

you can't even tell how big he is tho lmao.
wtf
he was mad large doe.
homie
fucking huge
it would been appropriate to place him in the lil tale here as the dragon or something.. the obstacle to conquer for freedom
yea.
the fucking evil squirrel dragon man..
lol
BIG ASS FUCKING SQUIRREL
so uneccessary
i mean..
i dont usually take my time talking to God about squirrelss.(got more pressing issues haaa.)
but i do kinda wanna ask him
why
WHY
WHY
why a squirrel that bigg..
yesshabeesh
LOOKING LIKE A FURRY ELAPHANT.
yahweh

i mean YHWH
..right
....
ooooooooooooooooooooookayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

LOL.

huthutkingtutut.
a nice series of annoyance just to rap this shit up.. hmm shall well..
blllrrp.

if my camera farted all over this blog with most of my pics from michigan it would sound like that...
blllllrp..
like
madd base in it..
you gotta hear it homes.
like
use your fucking imagicicantion. so i just meant to write imagination just then. but imagicinatioin.....hommiee... tell me thats not dope..
good accident.

word.
i mean.
bllrrp.
and the fart would smell like this...

burrrmmbuurrmp.

this is when i realized there was a lot of water

i shouldnthavegottenthisdrinkishouldnthavegottenthisdrinkishouldnthavegottenthisdrink

nightnight (in) connecticut.

yes..
smell.
...
with your eyes.
=]
wooooooooooooooooooow murk.

Wahid.

(But I can't)

2009-12-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

Knowing
you are here
Now

Remembers
you were gone
once.

Lauren Whitehead

2009-12-29T15:54:00.000-08:00

as promised (sortof)

Silly Murktarat you shouldn't post a poem out a chatbook
...whoops
a certain someone ehemehem verified that fear for me ;) so um no
black girl manifesto that happens to be earthshatteringly bomb

but look for it
search for it
find it

'for those who want to know what it feels like to be this blk chick'

i could do a shameless plugg for the bomb bombbomb poetry circle of Michigan
and say just buy the chapbook its in that happens to have the amazingness of Kevin Coval and RogerBonairAgard in it tooo...
scccccchhhwoord. how do you spell scchoowword. schword.?
whatever.

here.
preetty.
look.
...whoops. CROCH.CROACH. wait wtf.. sp? CROTCCH
lol.
crotch
but thats the only pic i have of the book.
3.hole.bunch
homess.

YEA. me in the airport .. i think the BWI (home ;'{ )
being ridiculous..
mmmhmmmmm

kk.
aiite
but.
i have

whiplash

here...
for you...
like
i said
perhaps the bombdest 'green' piece i ever did seees
SON.

WHIPLASH BY LAUREN WHITHEAD

told you.

Wahid (one).

call me 29? on the 29th

2009-12-29T00:26:00.000-08:00

not even knowing what type of bullshit im on right now or was right then.. ohhh is that a disclaimer.. whooops

This morning you drew blood

You have been here so many times

that there are no veins left

No one asks you how that is

He goes for your wrist

and strikes a nerve in your forefinger

drawing on callous

and ignorance

No one asks you if you are a writer

the only offense a broken nerve in a forefinger evokes for you

in the millisecond it takes to process the pain is

you unwilling to stand the thought of not being able to hold your lover's hand

This morning you drew blood

with no idea how many times I've been here

Do you wonder why there are no veins left

What are you looking for

and Why doesn't it occur to you

that I am a writer,

creator,

maker,

lover,

that I too draw blood.

Do you have any idea what I do with these hands

and I want to

Will you be a stand in my nerves aren't weak

but this one is

and I struggle at the art of a deceivingly weak capture

The type of grasp that can only be held

by a woman with purpose,

holds the hand her lover,

even if only regrettably hands

the emotions tied to the title.

This morning you drew blood

and leave

you draw blood and left,

and always leave.

And when you come back,
which I know you will,
(cuz you always do)

There will be still

more blood for you to steal,

more nerves for you to break

Leaving Michigan, Where There is a Lot of Water.

2009-12-16T19:38:00.001-08:00

Day One

I don’t know where it started or when but if the feeling counts it was a lot longer than 24 hours and was either my two-day-feeling trip into Toledo, ohio or the event that evening that my trip was supposedly for. Essentially, the trip was the longest buts shortest feeling, thank God for good company. I left Dartmouth on the 11^th was in Boston the same day (thanks mom). took a bus that went from boston to new york, new york to Cleveland and from Cleveland to Toledo and with an onward route to Chicago that I was incredibly tempted to take with good knowledge that I had no where to stay in the city but a classmates’.. actually a home girl’s figuratively and literally, and that it would take four more hours. OH! and that it was illegal and not what I left boston thinking of. One hour and drive later…ann arbor, Michigan.

a knockout nap and some visual SBApowpowpow’s later. studded. PIMP.

(aka. my dude i looked dumb fly. DUH!.. ill post some pictures later)

I’m at poetry night Kevin Coval, Roger Bonair Agard and Lauren Whitehead fixed me. sometimes in growing we don’t get water we shed it. Something was happening that night at least, don’t ask what, I couldn’t tell you. Aint wasn’t no body crying like no lil beeetch doe ;) hahaha. it was a lot more than that a lot less. a lot less heavier.. a lot of growing

and just plain and simple and just good.

1. Kevin Coval is the shit

(but) because of my obsessive nature, infatuation for nice looking things, and great artists… I’m not allowed to talk about him…blah blah (embarrassment) BLAH.

2. Roger Bonair Agard. who I have been obsessively in love with for the past iounno how many months but several. I am also not allowed to talk about for the same reasons.

WHOOPS.

3. Lauren Whitehead. makes me happy.

definitely spit a black girl manifesto which I had never heard.

For those who want to know what It feels like to be this blk chick (will post)

AND

Whiplash

which is perhaps one of the best “green” pieces that I have ever heard and oh so much more.

um. fuhrealfuhrealdoe.

she just hella bomb.

periodHOMES.

that night KIIIIIIICKN’ IT was good.

I was in Michigan for 6 days or something.. okay. 5? if I can count? oh damn actually I must have left new England on the 10^th not the 11^th .. so yea. 6 if you count today which is when I left. NEVERTHELESS . that is way too many days to account for in detail

important parts.

Aimee le.

Water (of the un-outwardly expressed salt bearing as well as fresh kind)

the word homie (thanks to my obsessive nature)

^ REPEAT. REPEAT. REPEAT (for the past two weeks in fact)

Boldness (Mama Le.)

Renewal (Mama Le.)

Compassion (Mama Le.)

and faultiness at times

(Me.)

the DIA

the DIA Avedon photography exhibit. hellla replenishing and fueling.

grants new obsessions.

1. China Machado

2. Gloria (some of my features are proof Adam and eve were West African) Vanderbilt

(bayad one ... i can't find the specific picture)

3. BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB model I can’t remember but will..hopefully, eventually.

oh and DOVIMA!

DOVIMA! DOVIMA!DOVIMA!

agh.

FEAST your eyes.

moral of the story:

Richard Avedon.ummmm.theSHIT

(very aware that they may possibly have some problematic histories surrounding images. minorities, fashion blah blah blah and these models that I am yet to be aware of but I don’t really care right now.. HERMMMM. thank yOUuuuuu)

i wish I could remember all the models. this exhibit was like a big YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS! IN A sea of =/-ness.

(lol. the day started off slow)

4. new sketches in my book HOMEBRO!

cuz now I remember that there was a time that clothes were better and that I like time traveling and being in the wrong time at the right time and shit and anachronism so some shat needs to go down when me and my baby meet up again (yes, that was a reference to my sewing machine)..fucking foul. just wack. I know.

ahh blogging…

this is actually a pre-blog which may be pathetic .. I have no internet here ta BW (OMFG IM HOME FOR ONCE) I AIRPORT (forgot how beautiful the black people in DC are) and am gonna post this when I get to mamma dukes house this evening(maybe)

but ohh.. yea. ..

ahhh.

blogging..

the tele communication.. that forces the constant question… WHO THE FUCK ACTUALLY LISTENS TO(ME)/ READS THIS SHIT.

people in ann arbor are lovely…or like-ly ahahha, its good company.

poetry scene prally the most functional I have been exposed to in its natural homestead-ish state. Actually definitely the most positive I have been able to be truly involved with.. is that the word….

word.

my last day (yesterday)

I founda love for hafiz and subsequently rumi that is/will surely prove to be important…/significant

i hope to go back cuz I always need a good place to run away to./seem to be losing places to run away from. ha. whoops. I mean escape. I mean free myself with?

brummmpp. (random clash of onomatopoeia… quite frequent where my people, aka. ME and me alone, are from)

ummmhmmmmm.

….why does it feel like I said a lot of nothing, a whole lot of nothing I actually wanted to say….

someone(s) once told me my train of thought is nonsensical.

but hells everything has a pattern even if the pattern is that there is no pattern

I fucks wit it.

Ill blog about something that actually matters soon. maybe the things that matter that I skipped over, re-blog about them in greater detail. HA! plan.

here is some Hafiz.

fo dat ass,

Son

Homie.

Homie,

HOMIE.

(had to get that out)

The Sun Never Says

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

Love.Word

Remember One

Wahid

Best (not) love song. Mos def lyrically beastly

2009-11-30T07:20:00.000-08:00

If you are to fall in love
Then where should you stand to begin with?
And when the falling's done
How bad should you plan to get injured?
And if you land on your feet
Do it count as a fall or a jump?
And do it feel like a fall
When the hands that pushed you were holding you up?

....I'm mad that when I heard the line

"Your back in the scene where your sweet dreams are so true"

I thought he said

"you're back in the scene where your sweet dreams sold you"

but of course

Hartford... Meh.

2009-11-29T16:58:00.001-08:00

Um.
I'm still taking pictures of things that "don't matter"
So sue me!

...architecture in Connecticut is... bomb.

The images below being in my life are why I... Murktarat Yussuff deserve an SLR camera. just saying

oy dios. you cant see how bomb the visuals in this staircase are. subtracting the fact that i had a 10 year love affair with this shade of blue. the colors are just beautiful. SEE. i needa fucking CANON! (the legit un dinky one I have now) s'all good. Plottin'

Things that 'Don't Matter'

abandoned diners and graffiti-ed trucks

Things that really 'don't matter

Cohluh's

N' Shit.

Hartford. I don't like you.. I don't like you... I do not LIKE YOU and I didn't just actually write love by accident and erase it.damn...we are going to have quite an 'interesting' relationship.

twenty.eight: The haiku that never was (it has one too many words)

2009-11-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Obama

Do your gardening
No water to grassroots means
sunk slaves stay water-lunged

From September... the way these days repeat themselves makes me mistake my existence for limbo

2009-11-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

poetry explains
that which cannot be easily seen
that which is all but visible

You are silent

No one will know you were here
how you sit
somewhere in the back of my laughter
in its tilt
the groans in their dissolvement
sound of me sending out echos looking for you,
you looking for yourself

No one will know you were ever here
will assume that you were never here
and will wonder why everything humorous about me
seems a lot sadder than it used to.