what is adulthood and tell me how to get there...

i'm leaving college soon (very soon) and there is no longer this thin, glossy film between me and the world, where I am looking out from the inside. instead i am so knee deep in it, im turned on and deathly afraid all at once. im sitting in the library at bank street college of education, waiting to be interviewed, thinking about grad school, dreaming about the future that is no longer a dream but a new exciting reality. no one told me that this time would feel like being born again, that i am just slowly making my way through amniotic fluid, hoping i will be able to breath on the other side.

what it is my life going to look like out of my own creation? when there is no longer anything expected of me? what am i holding out for myself?

i have been acquiring a business wardrobe. haven't gotten down working in heels yet. i even bought a fashion magazine to view the article on mixing colors with naturals, since career dress is so boring. but i think i got it down. this coming from a dyke that basically dresses like she falls out of a crayon box and think doc martens go with everything. oh and i bought a briefcase, like a nice leather one.

(what the hell is going on?)

i'm walking around new york city, thinking i can blend in with the suits and the women with their frappocinos arguing on the phone about businessy things. i feel like this responsible child, like im playing the part, trying to make all these discussions, hoping i can still get a job with all these holes in my face.

but its cleansing i guess. acquiring new things and letting things go. i think im just unsure about what new things i am suppose to take and what i should let go. and still learning how to slow down and pace myself.

and celebrate. fucking celebrate.

and accept all this beautiful racket, even if i dont know what it all means yet.

settling virtually

so...i am starting a blog because i have jumping from journal to journal my whole life and maybe it is time to make a virtual imprint on the net and journal here instead. no notebook to fall apart, no need for a well functioning pen, no regrets over buying expensive, misused Moleskins.

so here i am making an attempt at artistry.

i've been a little overwhelmed with my pending graduation date, div iii deadlines, a totaled car (rest in pieces Gerty), a mother who i cannot sway to happiness and the prospect of establishing myself as a teaching, performing arts in New York City.

i've just been listening to a lot of India Arie's new CD and coloring in spring time coloring books.

through all of this, i am reminding myself of how big i want to be for the world; how the writer, poet, playwright, teacher, singer, dreamer in me has always surpassed my height. im sick of creating in silence. i am really ready to start speaking loudly and gracefully with much purpose. im ready to stop keeping secrets about who i am and share myself fully with the world.

im ready to acknowledge myself for the things that i do, for The Hair Project: Our Hairstories, for my chapbook, for my work with youth, for my impact.

little ole' me is attempting alot of things. so i guess this blog is a small step in my journey to the entry of the world. welcome.

recent poem:

CONVERSATIONS WITH MY MOTHER

ive always been frightened
of diseases of the mind;

now i have one of my own making.

BLACK WOMEN’S DISEASE

‘in this life
you are never guaranteed
to happiness’
my mother’s voice said.

our hands finally unclenched for the first time,
i realized black woman are built of

pain
mothering
suffering
and silence.

happiness is a language
we never learned.
we were never taught the sounds
the curl of the tongue
the lips, the taste of joy.

i’ve been searching for the translation my whole life;

rejecting lovers
dismissing the calm
remembering not to forget
the mechanics of a smile.

the women in my family
hid their teeth behind thick broad lips
until they lost them with age

fought each other with their silences

their bodies taught to be composed in pain

and i’ve never known different;

years of tiptoeing around sex + skin
my 8 yr old developing body
menstruating, top heavy

terrified already stony and silent

frightened of the women in me.


i am still frightened

black queer woman

un/learning dis/assembling

myself everyday
hoping that inside blood + bones
there is an ability to learn

the glow

the force to joy

the rights

GOD FEARING WOMAN

you never taught
me god

you always thought
he was just joking

i’ve always
secretly hoped
he was listening

mother, may i love a woman?

i rest beneath her breastbone now

go back between a still sleep
and crawling out

lie deep in chest love
without fabricating its ending.

i’ve watched you with your lover

separate

distant

you are how i’ve learned to hide
what everyone can see;

to fight being filled by the shape of her

in seeing/loving
her/myself

our skin projected against each other’s
a tracing a marking

the ways we are the same

the times i’ve stepped into her
and walked right into myself.

i tire
fighting
what makes
a home between us.

i close my eyes to stay inside our love.


i once lived beneath your heart;
these days it seems as if
i barely know it anymore

maybe i have just been
carrying it with me for too long.

my hands are only big enough for hers.

i am the cure for my own disease

i am my truth