Power

“"Got treasures in my mind,
but couldn’t open up my own vault
My childlike creativity,
purity and honesty
Is honestly being prodded by these grown thoughts"
-Kanye West

I think there's a misconception that I don't value my friendships and that I don't follow-up on them. I just let things go, progress, and whatever happens, happens. And out comes a lesson I learn to make my heart strong. And it shouldn't be that.

Whereas family is where safety and love has come from.

Friendships are where my voice, power, and philosophy were created. But the friendships come and go, whether it be their fault or my fault. At the end there's a lesson to it. How to support. How to empathize. How to see society differently. How to also think about my own needs and desires. How to move past pain. How to "grow". Picking myself up and moving on... not seeing the impact I had on someone's life and them not seeing the impacts they made in mine because of our different trajectories and because of mistakes.

And I suppose that's how the world works but I'm not interested in going into situations to create life lessons. I don't love hard to create a life lesson; I do it because I'm a person and that's what people do. I think the revolving I have which one friend after another enters and exits has never been what I wanted, and it will take its toll. It's a balance between putting up/ "empathizing" with "inconvenience" and negligent mistakes or walking out of people's lives and watching them walking out of mine. Because everyone is fucked up in the head and everyone is imperfect.

To see people smile and to see people progress, to see the impact I've made on someone's life is very fulfilling. To have conversations with people after 10 or 20 years and to see them become a better version of themselves, that is beyond a blessing.

I've grown from a door-mat to less of a door-mat to not really a door-mat. From shy, to quietly stronger than a lot of people I know. And that strength has made it so I can gain "perspective" and have "thicker skin." But I think it's also created less sentimentality, some coldness, and a little bit of an attitude that says, "this won't shake me- it's just a life lesson."

The thing about young kids is that they jump into everything with all of their faith, all of their love, all of their passion, and without doubts. It's green but it's also very beautiful and endearing. Every time I build my wall up, there's that reminder of "yo, give people a chance. Don't be afraid to hurt. Allow them to be a friend rather than a lesson."

I'm trying to expand my horizons in my poetry. It's difficult.
---
If you slip

There is no segregation between the shallow and the deep end of the pool
But the dudes coming to my party with no wives are a little sleazy
I have qualms about them.
Because jumping in the pool won’t wash away their stench
‘less they end up drowning in the deep end
Yet they drone on drunk in the backyard barbecue
And Pops is grilling ribs but I don’t eat meat…
Where’s my honey to help neutralize my bowel movements
and grow back the hair the chlorine’s killing?
Ahh, he’s standing by the shallow end watching
grown men swim with their bellies full of guilt
and their hearts full of appetite for love
And so he swims over, I think he’s joining them.
Drunks at my pool party telling bad stories about what coulda been
What woulda been if their chicks only knew about come-
passion
What mighta been if their children showed appreciation

But see, they said, what had happened was…
The kids turned into spoiled intellectuals of the white world
From their blue dollar
And the strangers are robot maids folding up the linens they laid on top of
with other women and no protection

So that their liquids could swim deep inside empty souls,
So they can self-loath as soul mates to sob stories and feed lust to drown love.
But I’m not a lifeguard and my love aint even 22.
If he's, I hope the pool floods and drowns away his ugly stench