the bone of my marrow

Why do you linger on the edge of my lashes

Keeping my eyes wet with pain

Kissing me, pleading that you’re missing me

When all we were ever shaping up to be

Was a bygone era, an un-won game

Now in the bottom of my lingerie drawer

Yellowed love-letters tied together with strings

Sealed with kisses, stained with both our tears

Sprinkled with dead petals of roses you sent me

A monument to failure

A shrine to our extinction



...

Pro Choice vs Pro-Life

It's not because I believe that killing a living thing is "right", but what many people don't understand is that laws do not stop at the point at which they begin. Once a laws is set in motion, it creates precedence and can apply to future cases where you cannot imaging that law could be applied. When you take away a woman's right to have abortions, you take away a woman's right to her own body. Explain why it is that a man can have a vasectomy whenever he wants, but a woman must meet certain criteria for a tubal ligation (tying of the fallopian tubes). In most states, a woman is required to already have had at least 2 children, or if she is married she must get the written, notarized consent of her spouse. What the fuck is that?!

With the exception of careless hood-rats who have abortions every Saturday morning out of fear and a general lack of responsibility for their behavior, there are countless women who have multiple abortions because they can't afford $35.00 to $60.00 a month for oral contraceptive, and that is the price "with medical insurance". Without medical insurance, the cost of oral contraception ranges from $60 to $130.00 per month. That is crazy! The better the medication is, the more expensive it is. And let's not approach the subject of condoms ... yeah, yeah - it's the man's responsibility as well, and besides oral contraception does not prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Ok. We know all that. But regardless of all this, the truth is, sex is the ultimate physical satisfaction, and you can't get that with a condom - you may as well masturbate. Let's just be real.
So we're not on the topic of disease - we're on the topic of abortions, but if we were able to terminate diseases, we would still make the choice to have great sex and terminate the disease every time, wouldn't we? If AIDS was as curable as pregnancy is, who would want to be responsible for their actions, you would just get rid of it, no? The reality is that most people want real sex without the rubbery intrusion, and if it ends in pregnancy and women lose their rights to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, they lose the right to make a decision concerning their own life, the life of the child, and the the choice of what happens inside their own body. And who do you think this affects most? Not the rich girls, but the poor women, most of whom are overrepresented in the Black community. You not only take away a sista's right, you take away the right of a brotha to not have to probably end up in the court system, jammed up for not paying some baby-momma to look after a kid he didn't want either. It's defeating. Having a Choice does not mean we will always choose to abort. And seriously, some people should never be allowed to have kids anyway.

Before you sign up to take away that right, think about the precedent you set by voting to make abortions illegal. Think carefully before you vote on issues. Those rights you remove from a woman, you also remove from some men, and that choice may not be yours today, but watch out, choices of yesterday can come back to bite you in the ass tomorrow. That same choice you make for others, can someday be used against you when you want to make some other decision about your own body.

For the record: No Daniel, I have never had an abortion. I can actually care about something that is not yet affecting me.

you mean you want me to speak to them now? ... unmedicated?

your eyes flutter open --- automatic body alarm
it must be 6am. as your vision adjusts, you notice your clock is missing from the bedside table, above you is a ceiling fan spinning slowly and you don't recognize it. you freeze in terror. where are you? ok, you remember laughing in the club, spilling your drink, some girl pushed you and you pushed back, someone grabbed your hand, you both ran out the emergency exit ...laughing breathlessly ... you were kissing in the back alley outside the club, then you were in the car. there was music, his hands were everywhere, his tongue tasted like warm wine. you told him you would see him back inside, he didn't want to let you go but he did. you had to get your coat and say goodbye to your friends.

So you went back inside and someone gave you a drink. you saw your friends were on the dancefloor. you danced. but that's all you remember ... and now you're here... somewhere. you don't know where you are. your eyes move inside our head, scanning your surroundings for a clue. and though you begged to recognize something familiar, you had not hoped it would be your blue sequin dress, draped across the back of an unfamiliar chair. and now you realize you're naked. someone is whistling in the shower. you spring from the bed, your toe is caught in the sheet and you go crashing to the floor. the whistling stops, you hold your breath and an uncomfortable posture. everything is spinning and the sun is too bright, the floor is too cold. the whistling resumes. stealthily, you dislodge your toes from the grip of the sheet and spy your silver 6 inch stilettos under the bed. you cringe in horror, but there is no time for lamenting, no time to try to figure out what or whom you had done. you must move quickly to end this unfolding nightmare.
your head is pounding. there is an empty bottle of vodka on the side table. you don't have time to look for pictures. you stumble into your dress and carry your shoes in your hand. You hear the squeak of a pipe. The shower is turned off. You're already half way down the stairs. the apartment is spotless. Nice furnishings. but you can;t decide if the place belongs to a man or a woman. the decor is androgynous. you don't wanna know. within seconds you're out the door, running through the parking lot. your bare feet ache on the pavement and there's still a chill in the early morning air. you hit the sidewalk, thumb the first cab you see. and then you realize you have no purse, no phone, nothing. you hop into the cab anyway.

you tell the cabbie you have no money on you. you explain the circumstances as his eyes are gleaming all up your thighs. He tells you it's ok, you can work things out, he knows you working girls have bad nights too -- no passengers ... lol... he laughs at his own joke. you get out and slam the door and prepare for the long walk home in your sequins and stilettos. a car pulls up behind you. It's him. the man you're in-love with. he asks if you forgot he had his aunt's apartment for the weekend because she's out of town. you're flooded with relief. you laugh and tell him you were only trying to get a Sunday papers.

Fool.

one reason to love winter

i changed my mind - this is the one

are we there yet??

All my life, I couldn’t wait to get to the next step.
Did everything I could to get to this next step.
Broke rules to get to the next step
Broke hearts because of the next step
Dissed a lot people who didn’t respect the next step
Left a lot behind to focus on this next step
And now I’m here—On the brink of the next step
And I am terrified
because the next step requires many harder steps
And at the end of that next step
Is the step to the next step with all its steps
But if I don’t take the next step
Then that’s a waste of all the steps I’ve already taken
And that would be a step in the wrong direction
So maybe I won’t step –
I’ll
Just
Dive
In
With
My
Eyes
Closed

I wanna prolong this

Most people will probably tell you they were so shocked when Obama won. I was shocked too- my entire body shook for several minutes -- I laughed, screamed, cried and cried. Then I stayed up till about 3AM watching it over and over so it could sink into my bloodstream... I never expected to be -- ?what's the opposite of disappointed? appointed? I feel like my dreams always come true for bullshit stuff but for important stuff, I just have to remain pessimistic.

Anyway Obama won - I contributed my money, my Primaries vote, and my Presidential vote and my total support. There's a lot of Republicans in my office building - you can tell by the down-syndrome - they are all totally bummed out today.

Anyway, I don't really want to sully Obama's wonderful reputation by putting him on this yuk face emo shit blog but - congratulations my brotha. I will stand with you as I have done since before the begining - and if you make mistakes, I'll still be here and I'm voting for you in 2012.

I think Obama set a new standard for future presidents. So many records broken. And I'm a part of that History.
....
....

the stages of profound hurt

there are events that happen in my life that make me scream, curse, bitch, moan, sulk, sob, or cry quietly in a dark corner of my bed...

then there are the odd ones that don't give way to any of my typical reactions ... I'm left confused, as though someone had just walked up to me out of nowhere and punched me in the gut for no reason -- all the wind is knocked out of me, I'm disembodied, fragments of my former self ... no longer a person... just ashes... and my brain disengages.

everything sounds different in my ear, I understand the words people are saying to me but only in a denotative sense - dictionary meaning. I see things in my field of vision, but none of it has sensory meaning.

there are no tears, words don't come to my mouth. everything just stays stuffed way down inside me - nothing moves in or out. It feels like I swallowed something whole, that sits heavily, right in the pit of my belly.

and all that I do feel can't be described as pain ... no -- it's some new category of hurt, and I spend hours, days, sometimes weeks or months, stunned ... just ... stupefied.

i realize what is going on inside me. I am searching my database, leafing through my years, my life, every memory cell, for a reaction to something of this magnitude - but nothing that I know of is even vaguely appropriate for such a situation.

i tell myself I should be angry -- i know how to be angry -- but anger doesn't surface. I try sadness -- nothing - I run the gamut of emotions that I know how to react to, but none of them come - just more numb silence.

after a while, I start wondering if anything had really happened. maybe it didn't happen ... maybe it was one of those weird dreams that haunts you with a sense of realness - then I realize I'm in some stage of denial. It has happened, but nothing in my past experiences has equipped me to handle it.

the first time this happened to me was the first time in my life that i realized -- that i really understood, why people sometimes kill.

while we sit on our sofas, watching the news, with a warm plate of food on our laps, we cannot come to grips with why someone otherwise intelligent, with so much to lose, would choose to exchange their future for a life in prison.

but you cannot possibly know the answer to this question if you have not known that most profound hurt that your current response system fails to shelter you from.

when there is no available reaction, no appropriate response to some unrecognizable hurt, sometimes people --- not just the thug, or the insane criminal-minded; not just the psychopath, or the evil bastard, but the regular, even tempered intelligent and aware person, with a great career, a nice home, and beautiful family, who has never felt that foreign blow to the gut, --- with nothing else inside to rely on, they just unleashes a foreign response to an unfamiliar blow.

whoever is in the way, be it perpetrator of said hurt, or not, everything and everyone in the wrong place at the wrong time suffers, including them self...

but at last, they now have a familiar feeling...Regret... or Shame. And we all know how to feel those. We all have a trained, built-in response system to those familiar emotions ... even if we do not know the cure.

" a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma"

I’m not a "real woman"...but this is no lament. If a "real woman" is someone who cries when the soufflé falls, mourns a broken nail, and doesn’t know what the elbow of a pipe is … then I’m not a real woman.

The only makeup I wear is cherry chapstick. I don't wear perfume, just baby oil mixed with sun-tan oil and that's my beach scent - even in the winter. I hate the salon -seriously, who has 4 hours to sit in one place ... I wash my hair in the shower and I wear my own nails short and natural, and still manage to put food on the table even though the dinnerware doesn’t match... I can still cook like a head chef.

My favorite color is midnight blue – not pink, and I don’t like shopping malls or long conversations on the phone. I don’t know the price of grocery items; I buy only what I need and worst of all offenses, I sometimes repeat an item of clothing in the same week … what horror ... isn't being pretty, and clean, and properly groomed with a healthy body and mind what matters?

I know some women are not blessed with effortless beauty, but is so much fake stuff necessary? And where does it end before you start having a fake smile, fake love, fake tears, and other fake emotions.

So anyway, what is a "real woman"? That stiff, overmanicured, embalmed, mumified bitch who can't get her hair wet and can't let you to grab her hair while you tear up the backshot? Can't open jars or change her own tire in an emergency? Can't dial a number or touch you till her nails are dry?

Congratulations ... you have a winner.