Foreal this time.

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.

(But I can't)

Knowing
you are here
Now

Remembers
you were gone
once.

call me 29? on the 29th

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

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

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

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.

hmm and when you say "30/30" what exactly do you meaaannnnnn by "in 30 days" lmao

am i done...
nooooo....
am i still posting it anyways...
yeeeessssss

"the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it"-James Baldwin


where do you exist?

I.

He
Doesn’t swallow any of his sounds
18 and Black
Beautiful
Second generation
Grew up in Maine, somewhere


He doesn’t know his tongue
they are not acquainted
its strange in all its lack of foreignness
He doesn’t know his tongue
Doesn’t know the lick of his language


There is no flag
flapping from his mouth
the way he would want


(Cuz)
Language lies heavy upon
culture and loyalty
(and)

He has neither
So he has lay his tongue to rest
its still,
flat…
doesn’t lie,
Speaks truth
only knows
one truth
only knows
one word for truth

saves clumsy sticky slips over syllables
for the 'knot in his throat' okra that
washes away
everything that had ever been in its place once


Those moments
when he is back home
back whole
are halved
are had half halfheartedly
don’t match up
to the reality
his eyes face


and seeing is believing
so, call him false, or faking
or faker
but this is real

no silent mumbles of vernacular
signal
He is trying to remember himself
into the past somehow
He is trying to re-member himself
into his culture


He is trying
not to remember his
culture
Excavating ancestry
With the strongest muscle in body
makes a mess


Sitting on his own stage
at the back of an open mic
(at the back of a poem)
Listening to someone else recite his story


II.

If you are not your past
what are you
what be you
are you
anything
do you exist
do you remember
that in your language
GOD
is said in a cacophony of collapsing syllables
dedicated
to when the earth cracked in half
spilling eternity at the smell of our birth


You are the silent
shell of what was
don't speak your language
walking image of burned homes and
deserted villages at the hands of colonialism
the thrash of “Lord” Lugard’s lessons
how men came and forgot that you already had a God


lash like whips, your tongue.
the slavery of your voice.
only know yourself
and your name
and your people
in the language of the oppressed


lash like whips
your tongue
your slavery is
your voice


beautiful left
Laughing lines like if
your people made marks in the sky
when they flew from their own oppression.


do you know yourself
like how your people built pyramids 1st,

forgotten
like you standing
a crumbling and ancient one


you have forgotten

Sitting on back of an open mic,
At the back of an
Open
Mic
dormant and voiceless
at the back end of a poem
(still)
Letting someone else
tell your story

day25. bimbamboom( numbering these almost feels Wrong now)

She's Ugly II

M.R

takes friendship out of

depth and comfort zones for me

washed up beauty queen

no make up on

sitting across from me

doing make up work

neither of us thinking

She's ugly

both of us paranoid

that the other is

She's ugly...

She's Beautiful

day24?

um.. yes def just started another epic series (this time on purpose..i guess..whoops)

She's Ugly I

Hands calloused,

holding on to the things

you have done and said..

reaching for the people

you have loved(and lost)...

is hard work

face softened by the things

that she has denied seeing,

there is a thin line between baby faced

and brashly polished...

gleaming nevertheless

no one hesitates to kiss her face

thinking as they may

that there is nothing

but the beauty of

a woman with

untransferable history

to fear there

be that as it may...

but there will always be the question of

who will hold

those hands of hers

She's ugly

Day What ever what have you... 23

The Women I love Continue to be my greatest inspiration

Booming voice
tinted eyes
A girl stands on a stage
with a voice she wished she owned
off it

She wont remember she was here
...hence the witnesses
Women like us
find ourselves
On stages
to realize
just how lost we are

Dearest sister,
(self)
Will you remember you were here
Will you remember where you have been
Will you remember;
Where you were going
and that you havent gotten there yet

An empty black stage
"no larger than a twin bed"
An empty
black space

and
a blinding beam of light
from where the universe grabbed her
spotlight
too close to see too far out of
too close to the sun and stars

and
a girl,
who cant see
who she is
where she is going
or where she has been

orbiting around what she thinks
is her own headspace
beaming with the emissions
of crashing light within her,

stands on a stage
stands in the middle of the universe
wondering why her audience
is starring so intently
at what she perceives to be nothing
but a vast amount of empty space

My dearest love,
you are so much more
than you know
indeed a bright and beaming
celestial body of this
and every universe

Day 22 (yea. like actually stiil truckin' re.lent.less)

"I don't think I have ever seen you do an ugly thing... ever"

In one week

it will have been one month

since I have heard from you

Immediate assumptions

draw such phrases

to romantic love

because no one

would ever want to imagine

neglect in a foundation

as sacred

as this one

Not wishing to speak

of apologies and guilt

You stay in silence

because there is nothing

else for you to say

A guilty conscious

makes for a guilty face

and who would want to be seen

as anything other than beautiful

especially a woman as effortlessly beautiful

as you

The truth is marring

and

You my dear,

A woman of my very heart

the one who,

not only knew where everything went

but also understood why I don't bother

to ever actually keep it organized,

You are what you believe

and from what you have shown

right now you only believe

in things you see

and I just happen to unfortunately

not be one of those things

A wise girl

with a smile the size

of my unsettled destiny

once said:

"Just because you've never seen me do anything ugly

doesn't make that the way it is"

But then again,

as this very poem shows,

you have always known

how to turn the ugliest things

Beautiful.

Minilik

I am scared of you

wide eyed

wider heart

love erect

unbroken back

"Outstretched arms

widening ribcage

and an exposed heart

all

so our souls can hold hands

and our life lines can overlap"

Unfortunately Hasani,

as beautiful as

I wrote you would be

Scared of you

just as I wrote I would be

meaning

I,

we

must be doing

something written

something

right

....

For those of us who

do and don't relate

and how hard it is

to tell the difference

these days

Women

speak of self hatred

in action

in silence

mumbling words

that make the beauty they leave behind

catch the world off gaurd

We don't hate ourselves

in ways that are easy to catch

Smiling at the things about how we feel

that are not okay,

but are commonplace

We have found

so many ways to do it

For the EDPA** on my floor

who mentioned she used to be a ballerina

and how I make assumptions

that I don't want to

because they maybe made about me

and someone may see

that they are mostly true

rationalizing

how and why

our faces

rather,

everything below them

will never be okay

sample sizes are easier in single digits

specifically ones with BIG HOLES in them

but dont hate yourself

because the fact that only one type of woman

can model things of beauty

doesnt mean you should make

any limiting correlations

For the men who will accept us

and how we will use it to feel

nothing less than dealt with

We are counting

counting on

counting numbers

on weights

on scales

boxes,

clothing

on clocks

instead of waiting

counting down

smaller, lower

towards

the day that

the weight of being

a sizably questionable pretty

will be lifted

and we will be light enough

to feel a little less heavy

with burden

Though we will never get the love we want

because we can't find it in ourselves

the chase...

the chase

will always feel a lot better

than the w(ai/eigh)t

**Eating Disorder Peer Advisor

Day 20 and sum.odd

Pregnant- full of meaning significant or suggestive

You can give birth to an idea.

an inanimate object(ion)

bring it

full term and birth it.

This ideal

is of your neglect

and self pity

rumbles with

pensive mania

of destain

is the painstaking

neuralgia

of all that is broken

outside of your control

taking place inside of you

Mother,

if you make the decision

to have a child now

he or she will be

the walking epitome

of abstractions you made them

long before

they had any choice

Pregnant- having a child developing in the womb

Stomach swollen for

more than a year now.

Way overdue

I have been expecting for so long.

it has been easy for me to forget,

I'm pregnant.

My stretch marks have grown

long

and

lazy

they do not know where to go anymore

and these birthing pain scars have

managed to become so common place

in the architecture of my skin

that it is hard to remember that they

Have not always been part of who I am,

Have not always been part of my story,

that they are only a part of my self

seemingly so candid and trite

that thee only thing to look forward to is

new ones

and when they will come

and how long they will be

and how much they will hurt

and whether

I will still be transfixed by them at the end of it all

If I will look at them after the pain

and thank them for bringing to fruition

the things that show

just how worth it they were

Full off these thoughts

my womb and my mind

have switched places

It aint over...

Til its over.

Day 19

It is hard to reclaim something
you never knew you were losing at the time

I made a vow to never press my lips
against things that hadn't proven themselves
worthy of my touch,
drenched themselves in beauty first

I believe more in the things you haven't said
than the things you did,

The beauty of your silence is what got me.
I fell for the nothing in you,
only to now wonder
if I fell for nothing in you.
I fell
for nothing.

I do not actually have any reasons
to care about you,
but have been trying to reclaim
my firsts that you,
unworthy as you are,
get to hold as trophies
or centerpieces.

But you wont
they are not important to you,
you do not know their value,
I wont ever have enough courage
or self pity
to actually tell you.

They will probably end up somewhere
in the back of a closet in your room,
the one in your hometown
that you spend the least amount of time in,
collecting dust

Passing up the opportunity to be of use
even as a hand me down lesson
to someone younger than you.

And you won't even know they're there.

Meanwhile I've lost something,
quite a bit of faith in myself,
in my fearlessness

Confusing the fact that
silence will always be held by truth
With
silence will always be the truth

As a man,
learn to be more careful about the things you do
And the things you don't say
Because this is not a test drive
or
a thrift store exchange of
ancient things you can borrow
and get rid of

You know more than
you act like you do
And as a man,
hiding behind the guise of a boy,
your knowledge will find its way
to seep through the claim of ignorance
you put on certain things you do
And its stench will catch you like
haunting guilt,
something that no one will ever
be able to smell
as clearly as you do.

However odd, untimely, or frivolous
you may interpret my actions to be
I am not something ancient to be
borrowed
when you're fascinated
and exchanged
when it stops being convenient to think its pretty
To stop thinking is worth the trouble
when it starts being convenient to

If you didn't want it
You should have said so,
it would have saved the both of us
a great deal
of trouble

Day 18

There are orchids blooming
in your ears
If I could be the voice of reason
in your thoughts
The sounds of femininity
in your ear drums
The whisper of creation
in your spirit
I would feel a lot less
like a woman with unfinished business

Weeping willows disguise the rustling
of their long and soft work
in your snoring

Laying still you move like you are
waiting for something to send you
looking for something;
Laying motionless you
move like it isn't me.

There is baby's breath tangling istelf
in the width of you dead, sleeping eyes

And underneath my ear I can feel
an Adam's apple fall
and perish in the earth
to bloom a budding tree

But your voice does it no justice
and barely follows through
to let me climb
the branches leading to your mind.

I have a lot more faith in the things you do not say

It's all here,
The fruitfulness of Eden
is ressurecting in you
And you wake,
only to tell me
that you don't believe in reincarnation

Day 17

We keep writing poems about you
Knowing that if you are actually there
you wont need them.

Three Women, stubborn girls,
holding the threads of who you are,
your puppet strings.

Motions, day dreams move your heart...
those eyes of yours
But we can never find it in us to make you speak
It would look too forced,
it may be too much of what we have wanted to hear
for too long

My youngest sister
she tapes every manifestation of
the distance between you and her
to her eyelashes,
every falling follicle
struggling to hold on
is an ode to you,
the innocence in your eyes

Our eldest, she gives you hands.
Pretends that you know how to love already,
and is careful about everything she touches
the way we dreamed you would be.

And I
am dancing
in the ballroom of your heart,
liquored up
no music on
eyes closed
spinning in circles
like i was never taught
how to move over black and white tile
the right way

And I
am careful to make sure
that no one knows I am here
the way they do;
We don't keep secrets from each other
or handle love obnoxiously;

Understanding,
in the hand work,
in the sweeping steps,
in the taped on innocence,
that with out us
there would be no you
That without you
there very well
may be no us.

Day something pretending to be Day 16 (rewinding)

Sex on a plane

People think I’m weird
At this point, ask me if I
give a flying fuck

15th stil rewinding the clock.. aka timetravellin.

18295 Fairhaven Dr.

This
is
for..us
For HOC
For roaches
and,
I swear they were there
before we moved there
For
I was born this shade of black
and
dark colored pride
For culture cannot be
killed
just hidden
For
I know you were here
before we moved here
but
my eyes
make this block look like a village
and I cant get over the
nostalgia
of it all

For us,
because
when the forgotten
are forgetful
there are no
locks to pull on to
reveal hidden stories
anymore

For us,
easily
in between

Our
cannot be here
along with the
holier
parts of our
selves

for,
I like silence
because I am artistic
I was born this way

I am artistic
because I like silence
I was bred this way

I like silence because
I was never heard
I was loved this way

I wasn’t allowed
to play with kids
that never listened
I did it anyway

they never listened
my face spoke too loudly
of before
they told me
they hated it
I never listen anymore

I like silence
Because I like silence
Bred this way
because I was born
this way
I will love this way,
way loudly,
because I have yet to be heard

For the forgetful ones
fearful that if they speak
they may learn that their voices
are louder than they could ever imagine
and that have spent all this time
in silence
For nothing.

(18295 fairhaven drive)
I still don’t speak
about
such things

Day 14.but not really, still rewinding.

There is nothing
As unnerving
as the sight
of an unsure woman
So my mother has taught me
to be utterly intimidating
mirrors and all
I shriek
at any sign of the uncomfortable
and uneasy
I make it easy

Utterly intimidating
I am scared of myself sometimes
What I can do
What I cant
What I have

My mother has taught me
I can do anything
I have taught myself
Anything
I cant, I have already

Mirrors and all
I make it easy to be
utterly intimidating

I have a hard time
looking
at myself
most of the time
thinking about
the
things I cant do
More scared of the things I can
and not daring to
question enough in my eyes
the things
that I have,
There is nothing
as unnerving
as the sight of an unsure woman