Bags (Prelude)

It takes a long time for young girls to view their mothers as human. We grow up watching them conquer the world like superwomen; all the while, gaining unrealistic ideas of what we have to live up to. Trying to walk in mommy’s shoes, our spirits overwhelmed with the notion that we could never fill them…until that morning we wake up and realize that our mothers, much like us, are not perfect. Every woman can pin point that day, that moment, that incident that defined her newfound relationship with her mom. The day that we began to despise instead of emulate them. That day that we began to look down upon them, wish they were better, smarter, richer, prettier, more ambitious, skinnier, braver, more independent…and we hold onto that resentment. It walks with us, breeds life inside of us and becomes the space that harbors dislike for other women who look and act just like us and who walk the same walk as us. It becomes the place we harbor self hate. We begin to blame our mothers for the reasons we don’t have more, hurt less or know how to love better.

Somewhere down the line, somewhere in the mainstream of our adulthood, where self acceptance meets forgiveness, we begin to look into the mirror and see them. Many made mistakes. Many did what they could at the time with what they had. Many were young, some too young to be raising children. Some were angry, not at us, but at the world for not taking more responsibility for our children and placing more value on our lives, equipping mothers with the necessities of what it takes to not have to work three jobs and depend ONLY on the grace of God to raise us.

Some will never reach this knowing until they too become mothers, when they can finally look their mothers in the eyes and say “I know what you were going through…” Some of us will never get there because somewhere deep down we’re still carrying the burden of all that pain, still feeding off of the idea that we are worth less than the mistakes that our mothers made.

Only when we allow ourselves to let down our guard and heal can we begin to peer into their eyes and see ourselves in them. Only when we begin to base our perception of them less on their mistakes and more on the knowledge of how FUCKING hard it is to be a woman in this world will we accept them as human. Our mothers deserve that much…they deserve to be accepted, acknowledged, loved, adored because they carried us; not only in their wombs but through life. Our mothers are the backbone of society. They nurture life and prolong existence. Where would we be without them?
Mommy, I dedicate this poem to you. You will forever be a superwoman in my eyes…

Mr. President

I Am From...

I am from...
Mango and lime trees
Dried out wishing wells
And banana leaves

I am from...
She who raised me to be great
Worked hard so that her ceiling could be my floor
No matter how high my own expectations
She believed in my for more

I am from…
Less than enough and still more than we needed
From outhouses
Scarce resources
And faith in He who we were taught to believe in

I am from...
Catholicism and broad Christianity
From religion and sacrilegious tragedy
I am from betrayal of the book and treason
From denial of His word and what we were forced to believe in

I am from...
His touch
Unwanted
Unwarranted
Seduced by the satisfaction of those who desired me to desire them
Turned lovers and friends
To false angels and demons
Therein dictating the love that I believed in

I am from...
Beliefs’ being what grounds me
And challenges me to be the me He's destined me to be

I am from…
This person
This place
This thing
This tradition
This memory
Those that made me but still do not define me

I am me.

The Key to My Essence

You remind me of my essence
In that moment we’re undressing
And I let you inside of me
I trust in you
Lust in you
Like it’s okay for women to do
Contrary to double standards
And the only power you abuse
While I’m there on top of you
Is the power that I choose

In that moment I am freed
The key to my essence
And all that it takes
When destiny collides with fate
There’s no escape
Our love transforms the moon into sunlight
And we become one with midnight
As I fight the urge to purge this impurity building inside of me

You find me a solution
A resolution to this madness
In that moment, I become a woman
No longer weary of the sadness
Misunderstanding
Too much demanding of more than I’ve ever been able or willing to give
I am reminded of what it is to live
Even if only for a moment
And daddy you’re the best
When you put my loving to the test
You know more about the depths of me than even I could comprehend
Your love is like a blessing
When you pour your love all over me
And remind me of my essence

Nigger to Me

Free Write: LOVE

Seems to me that half the world is running from love
And the other half is still searching
For that place in all of us
That gives life meaning and purpose
Convincing ourselves that we deserve it
Is a full-time job with no benefits
No time off
No incentives
But this is as good as it gets
So we keep coming in everyday
For no pay
Promised minimum wage
But love doesn’t pay the bills
Besides, after taxes
What you’re bringing home isn’t worth the amount of work
That it takes
To make a broken heart keep beating
When love just keeps leaving us defeated
We result to bitterness
Tired from the fight
We’ve retreated
Settle for what we can get
Instead of all of the things that we’ve needed
Who’s left to believe in
Something with no rhyme or reason
We’ve all been keeping
Possibilities open
Wishing, praying and hoping
For something rarely chosen
Leaving us more lonely and broken
Than before it first arrived
But this time
The love I’ll be searching to find
Is mine

Go Ahead and Hit Me!

“Go ahead and hit me!”

Emotion steams through darting eyes
Gaze locked with mine
For a instant in time
Everything that he’d internalized
Was absorbed into that moment

“Go ahead and hit me! I aint afraid to die…”

Takes more than “the right kind”
To find that the pain inside every step knows no reason to be alive

And I cried for him
For them
For every Black boy who thought their life insignificant
Meaningless
Only worth the taking
By someone who hadn’t earned it
Didn’t own it
And had no intention to ever give it back

He was already dying to live
Living to die
We know so few
Yet lose so many
What’s one more life?

The self-believed worthlessness of our people leads to stained sidewalks
You can’t see through blood to understanding
So he puts life at risk
Trades rights for tricks
Because he thinks that this is his way of demanding
Respect
Affirmation
Approval
But as usual, he is misled by bling and all the things that have no real value
And so he travels through life with a chip on his shoulder
And while he carries the weight
His heart just gets colder

With every friend lost to nigga
And every nigga lost to trigger
The world just gets bigger
While his passion just gets sicker

It’ll die soon
Just like the rest of him
His dreams will die too
Just like the best of them

What was, can never be again
Back then he was a kid with pipe dreams and friends
Now he’s a rebel
Regressing to when
A future was worth believing
And his people had meaning

But now he’s realizing
That equal opportunities are just lies
And he’ll have to work harder
Be stronger
And stand taller
To be awarded the same things
As those who hadn’t earned them

Oh, but baby maybe for a moment
If you’ll listen, I can show you that your forefathers were kings
And just when we gave flight, oppression clipped our wings
But freedom, she sings
She can he heard through our history
Through our voyage
Through our triumph
And through our victories
You have the blood of warriors pumping through your veins
And all that pain can either be an excuse
Or you can use it to revitalize your passion
Take back your life and stop asking
Feast on life and stop fasting
Live instead of just lasting
Because this life, it keeps passing
And I don’t want for you to be another casualty

All of this is what I should have told him
But instead he just looked back at me
As he kept walking toward his destiny

And I’ll pray for him
Because nothing I do can undo over 600 years of oppression
And no amount of words can convince him he’s worth more than less than
Not even his own reflection can reassure a soul who’s stopped believing in his blessings
Only he can learn this lesson
He is so beautiful and worthy
Instead he’ll go on not knowing

See, while he’s yelling “Hit me!” all I hear is “Save me!”

…but instead I’ll just keep going.