He's Not My Lover

He's not my lover; he doesn't care about me -- at least not the way I want him to be. He's more like a brother, but I wanted him to be my lover, again. I have to get tired of settling for crumbles, of trying to maintain a one-sided lover affair.

I am really worth so much more, but I have settled all my life for small fragments of love, little glimpse of intimacy; I polluted my own psyche with images of self-worth crumpled up in someone else's hand, most often in the name of a man.

This is not going to be easy; I am so used, used to running away from myself into the arms of someone that doesn't really want me.

My Lover

My lover is coming home. He doesn't know he's my lover but he is, has been for a long time. He thinks he's coming just to borrow a DVD, but he's really coming home to see about me.

He's been gone almost a year. I hurt so much when he left;the way he left -- right around my birthday -- I wept a deep soulful cry, a doubled over pain that torn my insides, left me sad, hurt, empty and forgotten. Until the day he left me, I was alive again, a natural woman. He was here for nine month and I was glad most the time he was living along side me.

My lover cared for me, helping me through my brokenness, carrying my wheel chair up and down the steps, looking away when I had to crawl. We shared time, laughed and told corny jokes. We ate together at tables, on benches, by candle lights.

When I take the courage, I wait and hope for his return; I believe we are together.I call his name out loud and weep at the loss of him. I laugh at memories, taking courage to dream.

My lover doesn't want me to love him sometimes but my love is mine and I give it; I want to love him -- even if he decides not to love me back.

Keep Writing!

I am trying to keep writing.
Striving to keep my pen to the page.
I am pushing to make writing more important than the pain
as vital a strategy to keep my car from being repossessed

Writing means something to me
I want to write what I want to write
I am procrastinating while I am creating.
I am reaching for a breakthrough I am not sure exists.
I'm thinking too much

There is so much I needed to accomplish today
I didn't get much of any of it done
not because I was so busy or hanging out with anyone
between the pain and the pressure and the hope and the fear
I did what I could to stay grounded

Sorry everyone expecting so much more
I had too little to give and what I mustered up
I gave it to making a meal, moving a couch, taking a bath
and to just keep writing.

So, file your complaints at the door of midnight
cause I'm going to bed.

Question the Pen

Today I question
I question today
when do writers get the courage to keep on writing?
How can putting pen to page be more important or as important as earthquakes and snowstorms? The end of the world or the mortgage company needing something else?

How does this make a difference?
Maybe I'll never know.
So I'll just keep writing.

At least I'll leave proof that I was here
that I lived and thought and dreamt and hoped and cried
when I was alone I was really alive
as the wind blew my thoughts took shape
in my non-sleeping moments I was really awake

Maybe I can dream louder than my pain
while I sing my song about living again
living in the midst of things that don't work
I keep on dreaming in spite of the hurt
I keep on dreaming in front on the pain
engaged in a battle that cannot limit my range

Anyway, I will continue to trust in the purpose that alludes me at times
at snow desolate times when no shelter can be found

Almost Didn't Write

I almost didn't write today
almost didn't write.
Came close to giving up on ink today
close to giving up.

Censor, I've got to censor my work -- I'm being too honest
that will never sell and you sure can't be a Christian and be so real.

Clean it up!
Add some fluff!
Someone might really read this and then what?
Stop telling the truth!
Don't be so human!
Make up something pretty and light blue.
Don't let anyone see into you!
You have an image to maintain...
Are you forgetting to play the game?
This is not readable.
this is not good stuff to read
Get back in your box!

Get back! Get back!
You are shattering too many stereotypes
You are risking too much.
You are taking a chance no one is asking you to
You are writing
Finally writing.

Oh no! She's writing again!
Oh no! She's writing again and
She's telling the truth.
Something must be done to stop her.
Stop her! Someone or something stop her.
This cannot be allowed.
She's thinking out loud.
She's not fitting in again and again.

We've tried everything to crush her spirit and nothing has worked.
We've come hard after her with lies and limitations
We've tried loneliness and fear, doubt and doubled pain
We've worked hard to discourage her again and again
but she just keeps on writing
We can't even shame her to stop
Now she's writing in public

This has got to stop!
She has got to stop.

Let's get a plan.
What can we do?
How can we take her voice of the truth?
How can we make her not want to speak?
How can we cripple her at least for a week?

What war can we wage?
What onslaught ensue?
What weakness or peril or lie can we do?
Call out the big dogs
See what they have left

We are sorry to tell with so much regret:

Lizzie Louis got a way

Frustrated or Free?

Things I used to love are getting on my nerves now. I'm getting pissed off too easily. I desire to be a pleasant person but I am not always successful. Maybe I'm just growing up and that's why I don't want to be bothered with certain things. I am hurting and in pain and angry and lonely and need a job but can't afford to work. All this academia is getting on my nerves.

So I am sitting here writing, and that is a beautiful thing for me; because I usually do everything but write when I am dealing with so much in my life, which has been all of my life -- really, all of my life -- it is still strange that I am giving myself permission to write.

I've got to find something that I love and that loves me. Being Black and poor and lonely and almost cripple at times is not an easy life. I am not even after easy but I am after something. Whatever it is I haven't it yet. I feel closer than I've ever been but I have not arrived.

Ice cream ain't it; chocolate either; nothing is it anymore. I've lost my passion; please don't give up and let circumstances win. All the shadows of my victories launch an attack that try and say, "You are nothing without a battle; you are destined to fight forever."

Limping and wounded, hurting and pained, still somehow hope to hear someone say my name -- someone else besides a bill collector -- still trying and hoping and holding on; I want to live; I want to live life without all this pain, just a little bit of life where peace and comfort rein; a warm embrace and maybe even a smile; a cheerful hello and a "Please stay a while."

I want to be loved for no reason at all; I want to rest for real and sing a brand new song; no one is designed to fight for this long and without any help I fear I'll be gone the way of my sister's death, the way of my mother's death, the way of a premature death.

If the mortgage don't kill me, being abandoned sure will ; if the pain doesn't stop me, truly the deficit will, if being all alone doesn't crush me... enough please don't let my legs fail to an oncoming bus. I'm just a woman trying to live. A little Black sister, striving to give; I 'm just a citizen of a country of my own where I beg for acceptance and I stand all alone.

If you ask me, I'll answer; if you hear me, I'll tell; if you see me, I'll look you straight in your eyes and I'll tell you my story of crush and of pain. I'll write it so clear you'll remember my name. I'll paint all the bruises; I'll song all the songs; I'll make it so real you will known I belong somewhere. So I 'm fighting this battle that's too often hard. I am fighting though broken and standing though crushed because I'm determined not to die because I've buried too many to ever give up.

Ma! I'm gonna find my way;Lynn I'm gonna tell it; Neet, I'm gonna write; I'll tell the truth; I'll hunt it down; I promise I will not only because you lived but because I refuse to die.

This Pen Belongs

This pen belongs to me. I write with it: telling songs about my mother and singing stories about my father, revealing what's happened to me. I cry blood through its veins, cut, bruise or heal in its name. I laugh out loud, cry, dance, even tell lies.

Because of my pen I am never alone -- even when I want to be. I'll ignore it at time because I am afraid of what I might say; I cry when I say it, but I find my way.

I've fought my way through jungles, stopped and started wars, cut and healed lovers, left situations dead on the floor. I've made love over and over again, non-stoppable with my writing pen.

This is my pen, like a trumpet inside of me; I blow my way out -- almost free. And because of my instrument in the lowest valley I'll never be alone, no sacrifice will be mooted, my family will always live on.

My search now is to find my pen a home.

The Killing Field

She walks with a limp because she's been violated --
She walks with a limp because she's been raped
She walks with a limp because she's been cut
She walks with a limp she was born that way
She walks with a limp because she fell

She was knocked down
she was pushed
she jumped

She walks with a limp
in silence seven-- after being raped by her step father
she walks with a limp because
those bags were so heavy, the shopping bags
carrying food from the hospital kitchen
leftovers hand-me-downs
new stuff old

She walks with a limp because she is sad
so sad she can't hardly pick herself up
she walks with a limp because she's in love
and hated by her parents
she's in love and can't tell anybody
she's in love and married and
wants to pump under the strong breast of her stallion husband and she's only thirteen.
from virgin to wife to church to funeral pyre in 3 days
Christ like figure or almost something
that doesn't resurrect but does sacrifice
like a scape goat

There are and were I will be
women as dumping spaces
some places to put feet and sperm and spit and hate
some place to slap the face of when things don't go right
the way they planned --

Every body needs a scapegoat
why not women, children little girls?
Why not daughters and wives and mothers and mistress and nanny?

Fathers hump their daughters
Brother's rape their sisters
Uncles slip in and out of places no one belongs

What is this killing field from which no girl is safe?
Even Mary would have been stoned without divine intervention.

Juanita walks with a limp because she was raped in
a lot almost home - almost home

Pecola was raped at home, Precious and Lucretia too

Mattie Lee was beat to death trying to leave home

Wilhelmina was cursed out at home

this killing field has no boundaries

where can I go to be safe?

Juliet chose the grave

Neet did too

Pecola chose insanity

Lynn and Tamar too

Lizzie and Margerit chose the pen

Lady Capulet chose denial

Nurse chose someone else's family

Neet another man's house

but there was a pledge on both houses

Does it take more courage to live or to die?

and what is the truth about living a lie?and why did they have to chose when all they wanted was love?

So they went -- some ran --

to their fathers -- to find help

They ran towards safety and found something else

they went arms open and the demand was , open your crouch too,

open up to something or someone

let a penis enter you and you'll be safe.

Some said ,"No!" and were forced

Some said yes and were used

some said nothing but all found its a killing field

to find help home

girl

woman caught in adultery

was there no one to protect? any way out at all? drawn and quartered, prepped for the fall.

These are just shadows of women that all did once live now they are only fragment to remember, side dishes to a meal.

I want to tell you a story that is difficult to comprehend but it is important that I tell it over and over again.

Within my voice their cries might be heard. Without their lives the ordeal's just obscured.

I am searching for an ear that the time it will take for me to tell the story neither truth neither fake. Some my call this a fable, some tragic, and ordeal but just because I get started I must emphasize that it is all real.

The details may not be exact. the time frames obscured. the order of events intentionally not blurred yet each and every women did truly existed in fiction, or the Bible, in Harlem, autobiography or mental glimpse.

I will sing you a song of blood and of pain

my primary goal make you remember at least one name

of a lady who died on the killing field.

a woman who died on the killing field,

the women who died on the killing field.

So look out and don't dare go back cause

where I come from am going

I have always been where

it is a well known fact,

they're killing woman .

Ask Maya, and Alice and Toni M. too,

ask Shakespeare and Jesus and

I'll even ask you if you know

I woman how dead who

died with the battle still raging in head

"I must I must how I must make it true

I have to be loved and I 'll fight against for it too

I must i must even if I must die

I must be loved it is why I'm alive

I must be loved

It may cost you your life

it did oh it did oh so many times.

these sister these queens they die

I'd tell you no lie dead slam in

the middle of the l killing field.

The Pressure or the Pen?

And the winner is the pressure or the pen?

So your are going to write?

Yes?

What are you going to write? Will you work on your thesis? Your lesson plan for Introduction to Fiction? Or the motion for court? Journal entries? Your resume, the budget or program for the church? Maybe a love letter to the man you want in your life? How about the performance piece to resolve that incomplete grade? There is always that homework assignment for the non-fiction writing workshop. Or this or that or this or that or the other. What are you going to write?

Oh, and, before you get started: can you really afford the time to write? After all there are so many other things you really need to get done. Don't you hear them calling? Louder, louder! Do you hear them now?

What difference does this writing thing make anyway? Do you really think it is going to make a difference in your life? In the quality of your life? In the outcome of the foreclosure case, or the overdue taxes, or your underemployment situation?

I know, if you sit down and write your car note will miraculously be paid, you won't have to borrow anymore and your body will automatically be healed. You won't have to grade those papers, pay those bills, return those calls, study for that test, pray without ceasing, preach the gospel, lay hands and the sick and they recover, resolve all the issues of the past, find creative ways to love yourself while waiting to be loved, limp, hurt, cry, beg, give. You won't have to do anything if you write. Face it baby girl, you are bugging out if you think writing is going to make a significant difference in your life.

I was watching the movie Precious the other night. In a scene, Precious is in class and it's journal writing time. The only thing on her page is, "Why me?" Her teacher says, "Write Precious; you have to write." The student argues, "I don't have anything to write." The teacher pressures the student to obey instructions and Precious curses her teacher out informing the entire class she just found out she is HIV positive; in addition, she's been raped by her father since she was three ages old, has two children by him -- one with Downs Syndrome -- has never had a boyfriend, is being sexually and physically abused by her mother, is homeless and reads and writes and a third grade level. The teacher looks at Precious and says, "Write...."

I went to sleep that night saying to myself, "I just don't get it."

"You said you've never had a change to tell your story."

Why Should I Get-up?

I struggled with myself today. Why should I get-up? My body hurts. There are too many things to try to accomplish today. No matter what I do, I'll hardly make a dent in the mess that I've made of my life. Which way should I go? I am pulled in so many directions and all are important. If I quit on any of these, my entire life could unravel and I end up homeless on the street somewhere -- or worse in a New York City shelter.

I wrestle lying there: should I change my hours; can I do this 9 AM thing? My leg hurt so much. I need rest. I am hurting. I am tired. I need money to pay my car note. How am I going to make it? What choices do I have? Way do I have so many? Will any of them work? If I choose the wrong one will it cost me my legs or my life?

I fling the sheet, covers and quilt back, hoisting my legs to the floor, I push myself up. "What are you doing? Where are you going? Way don't you just call and change your schedule?" The me in my mind asks so many questions; I have answers to none. Twenty minutes to 9, I start getting dress for my 9:00 AM schedule at the Writing Lab -- part of my actually thinks I'll be on time, but of course I'll be later. I don't even know way I am going.

Dressed I decide to put on make-up. Looking in the mirror, I ask myself again, "Why are you going?" This time the answer comes, "I am going to write."

Why Should I Write?

I am not really sure sometimes way I should write. Because the ancestors beckon me? I might get a mainstream publisher? It's the cheapest thing I can do? It makes me un-afraid? Because I am scarred, scared, sacred? I promised to tell his, her, their, my story? So I don't forget? So I can remember?

I am not often sure why I should write. And I do not understand the power of my mind, the way thoughts slip into the point of my pen and spill out onto the once blank page inking my life print forever.

But while I am trying to figure out why I should write, my story keeps pressing its way out of me.