I am many things, but it is important for me to define myself so that you might hear/see/perceive me correctly. I am a poet. I am a scholar that is concerned with the lives of Black folks, especially Black disabled folks. I am a musician that thinks firstly in terms of music. I am a contemplative in the way that I orient towards myself, God, and others. Lastly…I am a son of softness. I write over at musingsfromabrokenheart.com about the world and my place in it.

The title of this essay comes tongue in cheek from a slightly irritable place. Recently, there has been…active discourse on standards for Black aesthetics in public. What first started out on commentary in classrooms, has morphed into conversations on what being ghetto/dusty/unprofessional looks like. I admit here that it has disappointed me to see largely Black people use terms like “dusty” to describe other Black folks wearing bonnets or du-rags in public. (For more background information please read up here.) While I personally was raised in an era where you took pride in your outward appearance, I find myself perplexed at the vitriolic ways that people comment on what others choose to wear. Is it possible to have a standard for oneself without resorting to judgement and condescension of someone else? As I sat for days scrolling through comments that have largely been repeated year after year, I noticed that what was missing was a love ethic. That was what was missing from so much of the discourse. “I’m Black and I would never wear a bonnet outside!” Or “Only dusty people wear sweatpants to class.” I wonder how much these dialogues, well monologues really because people ain’t listening, could be changed if love was the apparent anchor? bell hooks taught me differently…

Context:

I am slightly ashamed to say that I didn’t grow up reading bell hooks’ work. Although her name sounds familiar, I was mostly inundated with the white classics that are somehow deemed critical to American history. (Sigh) I didn’t grow up with works that uplifted Black thought and expansiveness. In my Masters program I was taken aback by hooks’ work and found myself hungry for the type of academic work that she put out there. She was clear. She was spiritual. She was multi-faceted. She was accessible in the ways that she communicated. This was the exact opposite of what I was encountering in academia, so I found her work to be riveting.

Later, when I found myself moving to a city alone, I anchored myself in her book All About Love and I can’t emphasize enough how much that book has transformed me. In the late hours of the night I would find myself crying over page after page as she spoke to cultivating a love ethic that transcended dominance and oppression. I knew and know now that love has always been something that made me “soft” as a man. That ridicule sticking with me throughout much of my child and adulthood. And yet, here was bell hooks asserting that lovelessness was destroying our society, dismantling our communities. Lovelessness was something that I, as a strong Black male, was supposed to wear as a badge of honor. Being labeled “soft” remains one of the tougher labels that men place on each other…at least where I’m from.

Building Good Reflections

“Commitment to truth-telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love.” bell hooks

One of the best things about the hit show Insecure, at least for me, was whenever the main character, Issa would look in the mirror and speak to herself. Rap to herself. Lament about who she was and who she wasn’t. Though many of these scenes were comical, I always took them to be an attempt to tell the truth to the person in the mirror. And I wonder how our personal and public priorities would shift if we first learned to tell the truth to ourselves. If we were able to speak those things that nobody else has heard. If we were able to see someone looking back at us that we are proud of. I wonder how many faulty relationships we would avoid, or leave, if we learned how to erect beautiful mirrors. This commitment to honest self-dialogue sits with me most days, but especially these days where truth seems to be ever elusive. Ever shifting.

“Usually it is through reflection that individuals who have not accepted themselves make the choice to stop listening to negative voices, within and outside the self, that constantly reject and devalue them.” bell hooks.

As I grow older (these grey hairs do not lie), I am aware that liberation doesn’t start somewhere “out there.” It doesn’t come from folks who have large platforms. There is no single device or book that one can buy that can make us free. But. Freedom starts as an inner seed that is built by honest self-reflection and self-acceptance. It is built by telling the truth of who we have been, who we are now, and who we wish to become. I find myself spending more and more days in quiet, in stillness. I find myself taking time when I brush my teeth to stare at my reflection. Asking myself often “am I proud of who I see?”

Today. The answer is yes.

I hope we can build that for one another too.

low income, but will not describe

being accosted by the ancestral odor

of boiling vinegar for chitlins on new years

or how to pray for prosperity while rinsing black eyed peas

neither Chinese food on Christmas Eve

or aunt Dinky’s house on east 43rd between H and I

for 4th of July will make the cut

it’s not like we didn’t have the time of our lives

behind that white and red house, in that cerulean pool, playing marco polo

till Uncle Ricky was almost done on the grill and Aunt Robin

yelled come eat before the adults made their plates and started

fussing over who was taking food home before everyone had the chance to eat

they will gloss over

standing on your tippie toes, with your head in

the kitchen sink as your grandmother washed your

hair with Pantene Pro-V, the gold bottle,

taking care not to get shampoo in your delicate eyes

they will mention being told to get the belt but not

being told to get a pillow to sit on, while your cousin

braids your hair and talks to you about

mature things like breasts, boys, and periods

the reader will never imagine the peculiar sight of a bronzed hot comb

balancing over an open cobalt flame, blue magic and singeing hair

mixing with smells of baked chicken, canned green beans, and cornbread

they’ll forget to mention how heavy your arms

were as you learned to wrap your hair for the first time

without bobby pins using the silk scarf your grandmother inherited

from her mother or how the silk scarf usually made it to the bathroom

in the morning before you did

they’ll say my mother was absent

but will not say

the day she visited, pregnant,

holding a baby, she smelled like

my breast milk and marlboro lights

and the fuchsia sweater she wore

was fraying slightly at the elbows

as if she was always resting on them

thinking of ways to get us back

that didn’t involve sobriety

they will not tell you, that in the ruffled baby blue

photo album my cousin who loves me made

there is only one picture of us that is not blurry

it is halloween and my mother is smiling

my younger brother and i are

wearing masks, my older brother

looks stunned, as if the flash had

disturbed his american dream

we look

like a family

According to Matthew, after feeding the five thousand, Jesus dismissed the crowd, sent the disciples away by boat, and went to the mountainside to pray. When he was through, the boat was a considerable distance from the shore, so Jesus walked to them.

Both this miracle and Jesus’ edict that greater things than these you will do weighed heavily on my mind as a child. But, when I asked my Sunday School teacher when the water walking classes would begin, I was berated and asked not to come back. At the time, the chasm between fantasy and reality had yet to widen and Jesus’ miracles were not esoteric fables, but practical phenomena capable of being taught and replicated. I kept quiet and attended church only on Easter Sundays. My relationship with the institution would continue to be frayed.

In the absence of a practical theology, my grandmother became my god. The woman who raised me was not particularly religious, but would say she put the fear of God in her children so we wouldn’t wind up dead. What could’ve been, I put the love of God in you so you won’t end up broken, was instead delivered as corporal punishment and psychological abuse. Worse than the beatings was being told I was just like my mother. My narrative of my mother had been flattened to her drug addiction and perennial absence, and so the repetition of this phrase bore an emotional wound so deep, I attempted to vault it with academic accomplishments and good deeds. Inevitably, the phantoms of my mother’s absence and my grandmother’s wrath would haunt me into my adulthood.

After my second bout with heartbreak, I went to seminary. I was determined to dictate my own spiritual direction without clinging to the disappointment inherent in loss. I wanted to discover God for myself, form community, and unearth the possibilities of my potential. My thesis was rooted in Ntozake Shange’s, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. I posited that directing and participating in the choreopoem is a portal towards divinity and self-actualization. My essay received a distinction. I was elected third year representative and I began an initiative that gave emergency financial assistance to seminarians in need. By the time I graduated, I felt powerful, full of myself. But, without any job prospects and being saddled with debt in my last year, I was sleeping on my cousin’s floor within eight months.

I began teaching out of necessity. Although I had always imagined being a teacher as a child, the reality was a lot different. I wanted to teach what I had learned in seminary, what I had learned in life. Not adult basic education. I was grateful for a job, my own apartment, but I could not shake the feeling that I wasn’t living the life I had envisioned. I was the golden child turned bronzed adult and I watched my peers get accolades and become powerful figures in their respective fields. The dissonance between where I was versus where I “should” be widened the same gulf in my spirit. I clung to hope of being discovered while I worked on my art. I had taken a picture in 2009 with Warsan Shire who wrote the poetry for Lemonade, so in my mind, getting recognized by Beyoncé was not far-fetched. I would love to work with her, to write for her. Recognition by her would have proved to myself that I had made it.

While I was making Beyoncé my god, my grandmother was dying. In the late stages of her dementia, she no longer recognized me, calling me by my mother’s name. I broke down. As I adjusted, I began taking pictures, mostly of botanical art and people on the street. I used the hashtag beygate because bees are attracted to flowers and hoped it would get Beyoncé’s attention. One of my photos was of a bird flying over the Atlantic from the viewpoint of the Coney Island boardwalk. I captioned it “when you go home.” Solange released her album When I Get Home a couple of months later. She put this image, which happen to be my intials, in the visual album along with call me if you get lost, etc. Now did I get discovered? No. But, do I think I did something cool? Maybe.

It’s been seven years since When I Get Home, eighteen years since getting my heart broken, and eight years since my grandmother’s passing. All of my gods are dead. In their wake, I’ve turned within. Returning to my masters thesis, I realized that I failed to apply what I had studied to how I was living and what I believed to be true about myself. To be fair, it’s hard to feel powerful when you’re struggling. It’s hard to sing, I’m that girl, when you’re reckoning with the monotony of life, worried that working a nine to five while writing poems on the side is all that I’m allotted. In for colored girls… Lady in Green admits “now you cant have me less i give me away.” To become my own god, I had to admit when I sacrificed myself before others’ altars, when I gave myself away for empty promises and the possibility of tomorrow, when I failed to see the beauty in my own life.

Knowing that I am worthy and capable of love begins with me. In The Color Purple, Shug tells Celie, “God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for.” I stopped looking for God and started finding God in everything and everyone. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Around me and inside of me. The spiritual direction I had searched for in seminary became a practical synthesis of teachings from Jesus, other faiths, Black women and my own lived experience. What was truly divine about Jesus was his humanity, but ruling authorities conspired to rid him of that. The fissure between who Jesus was and who I am had to dissipate.

When studying the historical Jesus, one learns to contextualize his life, message and how he was mythologized and deified. As Philip Gulley puts it, “The prophets preceding Jesus had described well the priorities of God: mercy, forgiveness, hospitality, and compassion. Jesus exemplified those virtues, expanded their meaning for his generation, and through the power of his good example, urged others to not only imitate his works, but to exceed them.” Jesus was a prophet amongst prophets. I do not believe he intended to be worshipped. His message was practical. The performance of miracles is not based on defying physics, but on the collection of resources, commitment to love, integration of fear and the belief that anything is possible. I understand why people make myths. I understand why people deify others. But, let others be lighthouses, not destinations.

As Jesus approaches the disciples in the boat, they think he is a ghost and become afraid, but Peter says, “Jesus if that is you, tell me to come to you.” Jesus obliges and Peter walks on water. Despite the fact that he gets startled by the wind and almost drowns, Peter gives me courage. Like Peter, I have seen miracles in the making. I have watched Black women feed multitudes on a limited budget. I have been on the receiving end of their healing touch multiple times. I have seen them use words to make a name for themselves, challenge the status quo, and exorcise demons. I have watched them become the biggest living entertainer since Michael Jackson. In God is a Black Woman, Dr. Christena Cleveland says, “Imagination is theology; we can only believe what we can imagine.” I can only imagine beyond what I can see. My theology is predicated upon the fact that I am (g)od and I am love as God is love and any beliefs or actions that harm myself or others is a deviation from that truth. I have seen Black women make a way out of no way. I have been seen making a way out of no way. I am a miracle, like you.

My gods had to die before I could resurrect one from the soil. The soil: Black women’s literature, Jesus’ teachings, and a lifetime of wisdom. Although it’s taken me a while, “i found god in myself and i loved her… i loved her fiercely” (Shange). I have learned to “forget all those things [I] don’t want to remember, and remember everything [I] don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then [I] act and do things accordingly” (Hurston). In her biography of Harriet Tubman, Tiya Miles writes, “Her countercultural belief in a God of freedom stemmed from her lived experience, moral intuition, critical inquiry, cultural learning, religious feeling, and environmental surroundings.” I might have needed others to show me what’s possible, but my witnessing must be complemented by my belief in and acceptance of my own divinity and a remembrance that that divinity is a reflection of my humanity. Although I’ve buried my old gods, what’s grown is a God of liberation, or as Huston Smith describes, “release from the finitude that restricts us from the limitless being, consciousness, and bliss our hearts desire.” Writing this essay has felt phenomenal. I feel like I can do anything. Looking forward to it.

if it wasn’t for the magic, i wouldn’t be here cracking sunflower seeds in my cheek, twisting dreadlocks, suffering the creamy crack, dangling two silver hoops in pierced ears, smelling pizza stores down the block, Marlboro men catcalling, women cat walking in kitten heels, they watching, tasting lust on half quarter mooned lips, chewing magnolia and cherry soda, missing black boxes with red numbers tell time with too many channels, phone wires drugged and plugged into kitchen corded receivers dialing up MySpace or aim, or away message if you put your ear to the soil you can still hear the rumblings of a black planet and a salted watery angel with glittered fuscia jelly sandals singing her siren song - emerging from the beach into a home that played kiss fm till 9am Mike Jack on repeat till 5 and gospel only on Christmas forgetting black and white tiles covering marbled floors the plywood paneling replaced with ivory paint, the pans’ silver burnt bottoms and edges, from years of feeding children the cornbread, a history baked into barrettes and bobby pins, collards rinsed in the atlantic, rice washed in the pacific, chitlins for the adults on new years the black eyed peas for the wizard of oz and elderly babysitters on the 21st floor standing on balconies I’ll never make love on, parkways leading to oceans corner stores still selling loosies - linda playing numbers boxed or straight - an interior designer if only her dreams had come true, in her neutral home with plastic covered sofas sat on when family comes over - parents who lost the war on drugs - aunties who lost uncles to the blood, or the sugar, or the gout, or the all timer’s disease, nieces dead from getting fucked too rough…the details if it wasn’t for the magic I wouldn’t be here drawn out of a bespoke baptism watering seeds sewn into my ancestors’ cornrows, lavender grown in infertile soil roots planted backward in a blood soaked prequel the hangman comes for us in the cotton and indigo fields. in the reprise a mother wants their sons’ disfigurement on the cover of Jet, an opinion piece on how the metal cotton gin fan he was tied to weighed more than his boy body. every time I hear Korryn Gaines’ name I breakdown. say her name, please say her name.

you lived at the edge of your bed and drank.

and smoked benson and hedges ultra lights.

you’d call our names

we’d pour ice, seltzer, in a glass —

you’d pull the bottle of smirnoff from under your pillow

like we didn’t know where you hid it.

like we found out when we got older why you hid it.

and you waited for me to call.

i think we spoke twice in 2008.

ungrateful.

“This is my house!”

“My mother is coming back to get us.”

“Good, I’ll help you pack your bags.”

in some fantasy my brother relayed from the top bunk,

there’s a big red house my mother built.

grandma lived alone.

where did she store her secrets? how many ashes fell onto

bare skin, itching after the burn burned?

she didn’t speak in tongues because there was nothing to say.

if a tree falls will she get back up?

exposed roots like crying backwards.

am I a moonwalker of my emotions to the purgatory of

root canals and aches and pains that will never and then forever go away?

can I stretch back into good posture?

can I cry back into womb?

it’s like i’m doing CPR on myself.

is this ethical?

if i hear the voice of God am i delusional?

are you jealous?

if a street can have two names shouldn’t Lenox on 60th

and Lenox on 110th both be named Malcolm X Blvd?

we unswallow what we cannot name.

dying alone is a hard sneeze.

sex is a kiss of teeth.

all clothes are costume.

the future is naked.

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i know God because i have known loneliness

i know heartbreak because i have known religion

i know rest because i have known race

i know fear because i have known valor

i know jealousy because i have known ecstasy

i know poetry because i have known goodbyes

i know grief because i have known ghosts

i know future because i have known forgiveness

i know heaven because i have known you

i know worship because i have known worry

i know blessings because i have know breath

i know miracles because i have known myself

im from white washing

and black magic

black jesus

and dark matter

pewter bricks

and aluminum foil

macaroni and cheese

and collard greens

im from plates to go

and plates for sale.

im from block parties

and home goings

deviled eggs and baptisms

miracles and resurrections

im from take the meat

out the deep freezer

and have this house clean

by the time i get home

im from i brought you into

this world

and i can take you out

im from tell the truth

and shame the devil

im from i know you didn’t

and i wish you would

im from i call you sun cuz you

shine like one

im from we don’t die we multiply

im from viewers like you

and won’t you be my neighbor

hey! DW! woooaaah!

and please, baby please!

im from 1010 wins

im from all my life I had to fight

im from brother to the night

im from Oprah and soap operas

strange fruit and fruit loops

im from afropunk! and yasiin bey

im from sunday’s best and sunday dinner

kiss FM and BLS

im from thick rimmed glasses

and coke bottle figures

afros and pink lotion

im from corner stores

and selling loosies

playing spades

and throwing bones

im from cracked mommas

and cracked babies

florida water and washing walls

im from crystal cabinets

and glass elephants

wall units and itchy palms

smelling rain and canning fruit

im from family bibles and electric slides

im from break dancers

and curse breakers

beatboxers with boomboxes

barrettes and cassettes

mixtapes and tape decks

wash & sets and box braids

im from Kool Aid

and quarter waters

lottos and casinos

playing numbers and playing slide

patty cake and black jack

im from tweet baby and miss mary mack

im from hauntings and possessions

alzheimer’s and miscarriages

im from drumlines and gang signs

play cousins and play stations

im from docked boats and folding chairs

ancestors and survivors

magicians and morticians

im from in the beginning

im from at the end of the day

im from Black people

who made a way out of no way

1) Make a list

When I was born, my first urine tested positive for cocaine. In the first few hours of my life, my brother and I were unceremoniously separated from our mother and sent to live with our grandmother until she got off drugs. She never did. While not conscious of these early affairs, this birth story colors my psychology, relationships, worldview, etc. It appears in my poetry often, explicitly or implicitly, shaping my reverence for Black women and the people who survived the crack epidemic. As a poet, I’m the archaeologist of my life. Artifacts like my birth story are the bones of my biography. Maya Angelou said, “You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it’s all there. Everything influences us…” Make a list of the things you remember, the smell of blue magic radiating off the burning hot comb, the wrinkles of your grandmother’s hands as completes her crossword puzzles. All of these things are yours. Start with a list of all the things you can remember, the mundane, the ugly, the beautiful. And as importantly, make a list of all the things you try to forget. The people, places, and things you’ve lost. Make a list of all the things that you wanted to go your way but never did. These things matter. The poem begins with the list. Your table of contents, if you will.

2) Feel in the blanks

Our histories are the bones, our feelings are the flesh. Your emotions are sacred. They are divine signals that you are safe or something is wrong. Trust those feelings. When you make your list, choose one to flesh out your emotions. Find an emotions wheel online and attempt to describe how you feel. With my mother’s abandonment, I felt resentful towards her for a long time. I felt betrayed by the first person who was meant to love me. And that anger showed up in a lot of my poetry. But, when I rounded the corner of that anger, I realized it was sadness, a deep, inherited sadness. Because what ailed my mother was what ailed my grandmother who lost her mother at a young age.

3) Tell the truth

It is said that the making of a poem is a lot like the making of the self. You need an abundance of awareness, understanding, and a willingness to tell the truth about how you’ve been shaped by culture, language, and the people and things you love. This truth telling takes bravery. It may come in a hushed conversation between you and your best friend. Or it may come in the silence of you sitting in your favorite place, with your favorite pen and journal, and favorite drink, ready to write about the world and your place in it. Sometimes it comes out in therapy. I hope you tell what has happened to you. I hope you learn to tell what is happening to all of us. Learning to tell the truth is not just about telling your story. It’s about telling the why of it all. My mother’s struggle with addiction was structural. There was no help for her or other Black moms who were surviving the crack epidemic. I’m lucky that we didn’t die during childbirth. So tell the truth, tell how you feel about it and then say why it’s happening.

4) Return to the source

This essay began as a speech on resilience, and so I looked up its etymology. It comes from the Latin resilire which means to leap back, to recoil, to rebound, to jump again. I learned that originally the word was meant in the context of solids and metals. That once compressed, the item had the ability to return to its original shape. But, for humans there is no returning to our original shape. After your first love, your first heartbreak, your first disappointment, your first failure, your first loss, each bout with grief — you do not go back to your original shape. Psychological pressure leaves traces. Life leaves traces. Love leaves traces. Loss leaves traces. When you’re lost, return to the root, the origin, the source. Then write about it. What happened? Who did it and why? And then ask yourself what remains, what’s endured. Because a poem is evidence that you survived. It is proof that something in you kept speaking, even when no one was listening. So gather your list. Flesh it with feeling. Tell the truth, even when your voice shakes. And when you return to the source, don’t go looking for who you used to be. Look for who you’ve become in spite of it all. There’s the poem. That’s how you write it.

I am not me, I tell her outside an elevated train station.

The familiar scent of pizza and Marlboro Lights wafting up the steps.

The air is quick with winter.

I am trembling beneath my color blocked coat.

My cheeks flush a rosewood.

We see her from the door.

My mother is a monolith.

She’s wearing an oversized white coat and a frown.

She’s asking for change.

My brother avoids her, scurrying down the opposite steps.

Head down, I pass in front of her.

Is your name Emerald Carter?

I wince at my name in her mouth, the calm she has from knowing the answer.

At home, grandma says she had to call the cops on her because she was acting crazy, demanding to see us.

Says she’s pregnant and she’s not taking another one of her kids.

The woman at the train station wasn’t crazy, just pitiful.

I tell my uncle I lied to my mother. He laughs and says nothing else.

this forehead is ancient

sacred, terracotta projector

this forehead is country

and continent, pyramid and desert

this forehead is a nation

of ribbon and tongues

this forehead is brilliant

prophet, memory archivist

this forehead is bigger with my hair pulled back

i look pretty with my hair pulled back

this forehead is decolonized, destabilized, decriminalized

it requires room to think and grow

small thoughts crown here to live and bloom

while wisping down jamaica ave

named not for the island

but for the beavers who colonized it

the sun had yet to set 

on the men in front the liquor stores

or the barefoot niños spilling up and down the block

i recalled the raspberry roses

dying gracefully on the bookshelf

the masked kisses snuck in the bowling alley

the lemon candle 

too low to light

as requested a man 

with melancholy eyes 

came to draw me baths

massage my roots and worship me 

to tell me my scrambled eggs 

tasted like I’d make a good

mother 

The sun was setting and I was waking up to a new day and a hangover. My first week studying abroad had been an exhilarating amalgamation of orientations, dorm room shopping, bar hopping and the occasional meal I afforded stretching my stipend. I checked the time. Shit! I rushed to get ready and throw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie. The student activities fair was closing in fifteen minutes and I lived twenty minutes away from campus. I would have to book it.

When I arrived at the student union, there were tables lining the interior of the circular room. Students were leaving with their pamphlets, excitement in the air. I scanned the room and to my right was a Black man. Bingo. He was packing up as I approached. “Is this the Black Students’ Union?” “This is the African Students Organization,” he said proudly. Close enough. I wrote my name and email down on his clipboard. As he spun it around I got a closer look at him. He was a smidge taller than me, slender, with umber skin which sparkled underneath a rainbow-striped sweater.

“Emerald Carter,” he said as if he was pronouncing new words. His accent tickled me and his smile was as wide as the room. His head cocked up and his back straightened when he introduced himself as the president. “Would you like to come with me to my locker?” For the next ten minutes, we engaged in conversation about Assata and the carceral surveillance state. He was smart and I was intrigued. Once in the lobby, a small crowd had formed around us debating the next thing to do. His commandeering of the group impressed me and over chicken, a dozen or so of some of the most brilliant people I have ever met and I discussed politics, literature, relationships, education, and the moral state of society. As he walked me home he asked to hold my hand, I said yes.

We talked about his work in the community, the youth arts program he’d started, and his love for Black people. I saw a lot of myself in him. Over time, watching him lead the African Students Organization was inspiring. It reminded me of my time as vice president of the Pan African Society the year before. It wasn’t hard to fall in love with him. My mind, body and spirit were ignited in his presence. Every conversation felt like we were plotting a revolution and between us we could change the world. I had dealt with intellectual men before, but he was different. His politics matched his ethics. He loved being a leader and I loved watching him lead. It was an honor being the woman he came home to at night. But, there were challenges…

Step Two: Get Your Heartbroken

One night we argued over whether to have sex. I loved making love to him. The first time we kissed it felt like I had died a little bit. But, he was pious (or trying to be that night). And I loved Jesus, but having sex was natural and felt amazing with him. I couldn’t understand the back and forth. He called me a Jezebel. I brushed it off at the time, but in hindsight have come to understand it as a sign of our incompatibility. Not to mention his mother didn’t like me. When she first met me she asked where his ex-girlfriend was. I often felt like I was not meeting a standard that I didn’t know existed. I loved him, but I was exhausted and when I returned home for Christmas break, I broke up with him.

The story should’ve ended with Jezebel, but it doesn’t. When I returned abroad he was running for student council president, a role which I thought he deserved. So, when he asked me to help him campaign for it, I accepted. We made videos, facebook groups, did interviews, and the night before the election we all chalked the entire campus to say vote for him. When we returned in the morning, everything was gone. I fell to my knees. All that work. He had to pick me back up.

We never talked about the future because he did not see me in his. “What will you say about me when this is all over?” he asked one evening while we were walking in Chinatown. I had not given it much thought and the first thing that came to mind was “you’re just some guy I was fucking on.” But, the truth was the opposite. I thought he was dope. He was a love of my life and I was losing him.

That summer I returned home and he planned to stay in New York with family, so we had a couple more weeks together. When he returned home, a video made the news out there of me dancing at a club with some guy. He said it was embarrassing for him and his family to watch, wished me all the best, and for the most part, never spoke to me again.

For a few weeks, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Life felt meaningless, I felt worthless, and nothing seemed to snap me back into reality. That was until my cousin’s godmother told my cousin to bring me to church. I walked into that church deflated. It was a Tuesday night Bible Study and we sat in the back close to the doors. I listened as the pastor posed questions that sounded familiar. Ones that I had been asking my whole life. Who wrote the Bible? Was Jesus real? Wait a minute. Had I entered another dimension? Defensive, I raised my hand. “Is this an open and affirming church?” What ensued that evening and for the next month following was a Socratic, intellectual and spiritual back and forth between me and the pastor. I was slowly coming alive again, the community started calling me grasshopper, and before I left for my senior year in college I told the pastor I wanted to go to seminary. I had no idea what seminary was, only that he had gone. He asked what took me so long and said he knew the president of the seminary up the block. Before I knew it, I was enrolled at Union Theological Seminary.

Step Three: Go To Seminary

I forgot all about that nigga in seminary, chat! Yes, healing from him and his elitist, Christian shenanigans were partially the reason I was there. But, I was so engrossed in my work and the community, I couldn’t be bothered to take the time to miss him. For three years, I thrived amongst the most amazing scholars, people for whom the Bible was a living document susceptible to criticism and change. I read Cone while being taught by Cone. Townes while being taught by Marshall-Turman. Marshall-Turman while being taught by Marshall-Turman. I studied Black women for whom love is an ethic, a verb. When I tell you I was locked in? Babyee. I was there to reclaim my spirituality, to liberate myself from the shackles of what people thought of me and the limitations I had previously placed on myself.

In my third year I was elected representative of the divinity students. I also directed for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf as my masters thesis. I was DJing at parties… It was divine. I loved school and it loved me back. Until they cut off my scholarship (but that’s a story for another day). In seminary, I discovered my power. My intuition. I fell in love with God. I fell in love with myself.

Step Four: Learn to be Alone

So, what started out as an essay about how I miss my ex, has graduated into an essay about gratitude for the times I’ve fallen in love. And gratitude for each time the wrong person has walked away. I miss him, yes. But I miss the girl I was with him more. And it’s just fine to mourn her. And that grief can kick up, especially around Valentine’s Day. Especially as a single, 37 year old. I have to be gentle with myself. I’ve learned that over time.

I know God because I have known loneliness. And I know God because I have known myself. What a gift. I have not given up on love. In fact, my capacity for love has only grown because I have known it with others. I look forward to being held while I cry. Laughing till my cheeks hurt. Being helped to take my braids out and grease my scalp. Someone to read my poems. Someone to grow in a healthy love with. I hate the times I thought my self worth was tied to others’, and lovers’, opinions of me. But, hey. I was just a girl. What did I know?

I’s a woman now. And I know a lot. I know a lot about joy. About being alone. About wanting to share the mundanity of life with someone who thinks your morning breath tastes like salt water taffy. I also know a lot about not settling. About discerning quickly whether or not someone is right for me. I’m serious about being in love. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. It has led me down a path of self-discovery that I would not trade for the world. And for that I’m grateful.

Plenty of people have written about how to be single. Build community. Get hobbies. Go to the gym. I choose to write. Write about the times I came close to heaven, tasted it with my own tongue, but it never quite curled all the way over. I don’t know if a romantic relationship is in the cards for me again. But, what I have are these poems. My consolation prizes. Vestiges of times when my heart was in full bloom, my mind ignited, and my soul… mishandled. I hope you read them and are inspired to be good to yourself and someone else. Looking forward to getting love right the next time. I have faith that someone will bring the right kind of rhythm to my blues. And I have me, always.

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before the second calloused foot slips bravely into the sorry navy slipper,

she sighs, cracked palms kissing the sheets goodbye, damp sheets kissing

the floor good mourning, the ivory of her cotton nightgown blues under

the haint of the moon, her shoulders round to reveal a cluster of fucks she

cultivated overnight, they fall gingerly around her hips and one by one

she places them in the violet of her varicose veins. this can’t be what my ancestors

prayed for, she hoped, as her hesitant toes inch closer to the lip of the slipper,

her blush pink rollers hanging dangerously on to the woman she’d always

wanted to be, today isn’t the day for quitting, she thinks, today is the day

for 86 dollars and 45 cents. And coffee. First coffee.

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I’ve always loved playing monopoly and have grown to appreciate both its scathing critique of capitalism and its capacity to bring people together and incite joy. Recently, however, I’ve been intrigued by the game’s profundity and the lessons it’s taught me. From negotiation, to agency and autonomy, monopoly is a masterclass in the architecture of community. These are 6 things playing monopoly has taught me over the years.

1) Reciprocity

Alexa play “Ex-Factor” by Lauryn Hill

While monopoly may present as a game of peak selfishness, it is a game of community at heart. Trading is an integral part of playing the game and the etiquette with which you trade is important. Be mindful of the deals you offer and the ones you accept. Highballing may reap short-term benefits, but alienating your opponent only makes it harder to trade in the future. And accepting a low offer can encourage others to lowball you as well. Make deals that are mutually beneficial. Get your coin, but be fair.

2) Great risk, great reward

Alexa, play “Where I Wanna Be” by Donell Jones

The most lucrative spaces, like Boardwalk, are the hardest to land on. They’re also the hardest to build upon because they require the most capital, but they reap the greatest reward. There are seasons of your life that require you to make hard decisions, sacrifice the utmost, and operate at capacity for too much of it. But, those seasons reap the greatest reward. If it wasn’t worth it you wouldn’t be doing it.

3) Don’t sleep on the little guys

Alexa play “Little Things” by India Arie

Truth be told, my favorite properties are the light blue ones. They’re easy to build on and land on. It’s not often that they’ll bankrupt an opponent, but stacking money is the reason why these spaces exist. Sometimes you have to do the mediocre stuff to get to the great stuff. Building on properties like this help me build on other places around the board.

4) Jail is a Sabbatical

Alexa play “Weary” by Solange

Depending on the stage in game play, going to jail can be a gift. You get to sit there for three turns and collect your coin. You can also avoid others’ properties and save some money. It costs something to get out of jail but the benefits can be paramount. I see going to jail as a sabbatical. Sometimes we all need time off from game play. But it’s worth it to have our needs met while doing so.

5) Winning isn’t Everything

Alexa play “Boss” by The Carters

In a society plagued by instant gratification, winning can sometimes feel like nothing. Especially in monopoly. Patricia Deana on threads said, “They don’t even understand that the game of Monopoly has no real winners. The last one standing is just left holding stagnant money on a dead board.” You can play the whole game and then realize it was for nothing. I think that’s okay and it’s just a part of playing the game.

6) Ctrl + ALT + DELETE

Alexa play “Broken Clocks” by SZA

You can always quit if you don’t like the way the game is being played.

When I wake up, I want to give glory to God and acknowledge my ancestors. Thank the sun for shining and the moon for blessing us with its presence the night before. I am appreciative of the thousands of ancestors that have come before me, I appreciate that, for the most part (minus discrimination and slavery), they lived full lives. And now I get to live my best life. So when I wake up, I would thank the universe and all the conspiring actors for that. Myself. I would thank myself too.

Next I have to feed my cat. I love watching her eat. She’s so focused. I’d drink my cup of coffee - light and sweet - while she munches away. And talk to her about the day before and the day ahead.

I’d journal a bit, or do some writing like I am doing now. I’m partial to books like The Artists’ Way or The Poet’s Companion. I love prompts and thoughtful exercises. And writing. I love writing, so naturally, that’s how I’d start my day. After writing I would go for a walk, maybe to a bookstore or a library and pick up a book or a magazine to read in the park. That sounds lovely. I’d head to the park with my new book or magazine and do some reading. I’d get another coffee either to sip in the park or on my walk home. Once I’m home, I start prepping for a midday poetry class I teach on zoom. This class is about writing the divine. It’s a two hour class. One hour of teaching and one hour of workshopping. Class is spectacular and I thank God after that I get to do what I love, especially from the comfort of my own home. After class, I’d have my first meal of the day. Buttered toast and boiled eggs. This time with water as my drink. I draw my limit at two cups of coffee a day. After brunch… I’d take a nap or spend some time scrolling on social media. Maybe both. After my nap, it’d be time to get ready for dinner with my friends. We head out to a nice restaurant, casual, but delicious. After dinner, I take a walk along the promenade while I listen to my favorite songs. After my walk, I’ll go home and play some games with my cat before we go to sleep and get ready to do it all again.

While this is a snapshot of how I’d spend my day, I also look forward to learning new skills like learning to play an instrument, taking singing lessons, and ballet classes. I would go to museums, travel the world reading my poetry to audiences and discovering new (to me) culture and art. I’d write that novel I’ve been dreaming about and I’d go to every concert that piqued my interest because I love live music. I’d go see Sonia Sanchez speak at the local college and I’d ask her to sign her tattered book of poems. I think I’d be a lot like I am today, curious and creative. Just freeer.

Blessed be the doorknockers and acrylics, lipgloss and warpaint

Blessed be the durags, and the gold teeth, the fitteds, and the kicks

Blessed be the keyboards, and the notes, the books, and the margins

Blessed be the riff raff, the felons, and the ones that got away

Blessed be the bulimics, the hypotheses, the wisdom, and the bright ideas 

Blessed be the drawn curtains, the deep cleans, the baseboards, and the gospel

Blessed be the volumes, and the metrics, and the mountains

Blessed be the unshook horizon, the outlook, the castles on the hill

Blessed be the cows, and the card sharks, the recipes, and the disasters

Blessed be the script, and the improvisation, the jazz, and the blues. 

Bless the blues.

Blessed be the moonlit and the fireworks, the poppers and the vines

Blessed be the veins, the carriers, the interlocutors, and the intertwined

Blessed be the arrangements, the spontaneous, the fantastic, the divine

Blessed be the spectacular, the stupendous, the serendipitous, the conspiracies

Blessed be the entertainer, the siblings, the coaches, the mentors

Blessed be the vehicles, the airplanes, and the people. Bless the people. 

Blessed be the orange blossoms, and the peonies, the lilacs, the sunflowers

and the bees, bless the bees. 

Triptych

1.

I can’t think of Palestine

without thinking of everything I love, living

2.

We are the third war

3.

our bodies are requiems

Roman Capitalist

masses for the dead

I assumed empires fell

like thawing ice

from a spring roof

rather they unravel,

knot by knot

noose, by motherfucking noose

a stronghold to give me safety,

for you are my rock and my fortress.

O my God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked. - Psalm 71:3-4

From our conceptions in our mothers’ wombs, to our inevitable returns to dust, God is always with us. In Psalm 71, an aging King David pleads for the protection and refuge of God. As his body weakens and his enemies try to dethrone him, David calls out, making sure God is still there. While David’s cries draw God nearer, he remembers his testimony and the times God tempered the bitterness of his life and amplified the victories.

In the season of Advent, I am reminded of Mary, Jesus’ mother. I imagine how frightened she may have been and remember how close she came to having Jesus alone. In seasons of insecurity and vulnerability, the saints remind us that the rock we seek and protection we desire is always available to us. We learn that just because we haven’t used something in a while, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Prayer: God gift me the memory of your love for me. If I forget, may it only be to remember again.

Recently, I started working a job that I am in love with. The students are great, my colleagues are generous, and the salary is salarying! But, since my contract is at will, everyday I’m worried it will be my last. I’m hypervigilant, people pleasing, and self conscious. Which, ironically, may cause me to lose the job quicker than anything else. I also recently moved into a new apartment where rent is not cheap. I have this overwhelming fear of running out of money before I can pay my rent. Reader, there’s no evidence of me possibly losing my job or apartment, but am I scared shitless? Yes.

I do not know where this anxiety stems from. But, given that growing up my guardian was an abusive alcoholic, it might come from the eggshells I walked on in the beginning of my life. Or it might come from losing a job and my home in one day last year. I don’t want to live in fear, especially when things are going right. This has got me thinking how I really don’t know how to think or behave when I’m in the midst of blessings. My first inclination is impending doom. Either way, the anxiety is overwhelming, even, unfortunately, when things are going right.

Even though I do not know exactly where my anxiety stems from, I do know that I want to change my behavior. When things are going right in my life, I want to be happy. And maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know how to be happy. I want to remember these days as days I was victorious. I survived homelessness, I survived unemployment. How do I enjoy these things? What does joy look like for me?

The bible describes joy as a fullness, inner contentment, a profound and abiding sense of gladness. I can ascribe these feelings to the same ones I feel when I finish a good book, or finish a conversation with a loved one, or after a workout (not during, Lord). I can also liken this feeling to a passionate kiss, finishing a poem, hearing good news from someone I love, or volunteering and giving back to the community.. Now, how to bottle that feeling up and drink it when I’m feeling anxious… The trick might be (and I had this revelation as I’m writing) to do those things that bring me joy. When the big things are settled - rent is paid, job is secure, my needs are met - do those things that bring me joy. Finish the poem, call my best friend, apply for that grant, go kiss a cutie (easier said than done). I worry too much. And, I believe my worrying is robbing me of enjoying my life. Now that I’ve identified it as a problem, I’m delighted to live out the solution. I’ll keep you posted.