November Poems Cont'd

November 5, 2022

This year, I have been blessed with clarity and closure. I had never had that before. And while it doesn't tie up in a nice little knot the way I envisioned, it is generous. Sometimes cruelty provides closure. Sometimes silence does. However it shows up, it has provided direction and opportunity. I had prayed and prayed hoping closure would come another way, but I thank it for the heartache and I thank it for weight it has lifted from me. 

Some themes: 

Empathy: We decide who we give empathy to, since so many people are suffering. Sometimes, we use that empathy to hold onto people we need to let go of or to make ourselves feel more important to certain people than we actually are. It is not always about them. It is about our stubbornness. It is about the years that we put in. It can be about our struggle with perfection.  

We do what we know is wrong because... people need empathy. We prolong because... empathy. Sometimes I wonder if empathy is just a synonym for fear. For me, I wonder if my empathy was a beast manifested from trying to keep up with the Jones'. I wonder if I let things slide because I needed to give people grace so I can bring them along on my dream of house, marriage, kids. 

Admittedly, it is unkind to me. Admittedly, it is also unfair to them. I thought that at my big age of 34, I would be feeling less obsessed with the grind and climb. I tell people consistently through my poetry and through my personal philosophy that these benchmarks, these capitalistic goals, will ultimately leave you empty. A relationship is just a connection, good or not so good. A house is just a space. A degree is just a paper. A job is just a title. But I also know myself. I know that I'm not a Gen Z. I know that the benchmarks are part of my spirit. I am working on understanding my relationship with the benchmarks and to give them the proper amount of grace and gravitas.

Poetry: Though, subjectively corny... Really freeing. I am glad I am writing again.

--

Thanksgiving

I want my grandma to see me get married and have kids

before she passes 

 

I have never brought home a partner to her

And she fears for my loneliness as her eldest grandchild

 

I thought I might bring you home in November 2018, after the chariot ride in New Orleans,

And the mindblowing sex

 

I thought I would in 2019 after fights of silence and the fight to make up

 

Or, over zoom in 2020, as we breathed relief that the pandemic did not kill US

And I breathed relief that my favorite person was ok

 

Or 2021, when you stroked my hair as we shared some gum

And you told me, you'd try

 

I will not bring you home in 2022 either

 

After apologies, attempts at friendship,

After expressions of love and loss and secrets

And birthdays always missed

And words always held

 

Sometimes, Grandma, things happen when they happen

Or happen IF they happen

 

I am still happy with a pinch of life lived

And the men whose DNA coil through memories

who you will never meet

 ---

Moroccan Curl Defining Cream

My hair has been shedding with the introduction to the cold and the looming alopecia

But it is still beautiful

So I straighten it

And curl it

And color it and grow it

To let it fly in the wind of your open-window car

To let you grab and pull,

Your hands sticky from the vibrations of our bodies and the moraccanoil curl defining cream and 

Garnier Fructis butter cream

The combination of classy and cheap

Of easy and hard

All in your hands 

--

Conversations with Dad

 

Dad: What happened?

 

Me: Umm, he didn't understand me. He didn't hear my needs.

 

Dad: It'll be ok sweetheart. Sometimes, they don't get it.

 

Me: I think I date Black men because growing up, I didn't feel connected to my Black roots. Our family didn't explore it or know how to. I don't want that for my future kids.

 

Dad: I know.

I know. I know you love Black men but it'll be hard. They hurt you because they are hurt.

 

Me: I know.

The Myth of Closure

February 2, 2022

With years, I've come to realize that closure is a rare thing.

Really, we live in this state of solitude where we don't understand the choices other people make and they don't owe us an explanation, nor do we owe them one.

 There's no bow tie and things and things don't get wrapped up in a mutual understanding.

So, in my 20's, I began to think, I hope they become better people. I hope they evolve and don't continue cycles of trauma that their younger selves dolled out.  

I think that line of thinking too, has evolved. 

People are a product of all of their inputs, in often unequal and unpredictable ways. The early inputs and the inputs of trauma far outweigh anything else.

When they leave us, the myth says, they grow from their time with us, and they become a better, though flawed version of themselves to the next people in their lives. 

But, I don't know that that's true either because the real work comes from internal motivation and an internal reflection, to be more and to be better and to make oneself vulnerable enough to seek resources.

We live in a world where people are defensive because they are hurt, and those defenses hold strong whether we are there or we are not. The only way to shift is to get to the roots that become more and more covered and protected through the years...

through therapy and through having hard conversations.

But most of us just leave our blueprint, good and bad, on people until we die even as the idealism in us believes in the potential of human goodness and humanity.

I believe none of us are completely good and none of us are completely evil. We're all hypocritical contradictions. We all live in a mush of nuance and pain compounded by all these social systems: race, class, sexism, gender discrimination etc so one of us can gain control through manipulation, conscious or unconscious, to make ourselves feel better, that is what we choose to do.

And the unlearning of that is years, if it does happen.

 For me now, it's a matter of being at peace with things taking its course and with wishing others the best, knowing that only they and their world can define it. 

 I live on the corner of hope and pragmatism, knowing one needs another, just as humans need one another to move about this world, whether or not it creates an imprint or an impact. 

---

Seasons

They say

People are seasons

Yet I let you orbit around

My sun

 

Keeping warm as I shine my light on your dark spots

Your hard spots.

 

Rigged.

Hidden.

 

I kept returning with the lighter to unthaw you

Though the ice caps kept you safe

So you would always freeze up again

 

Afraid to drown in the warmth of your own coursing blood

 

Keeping distance from a star that burned

 

Unabashed, defiant

For you

 

Beautiful, bright, brilliant man

Preserved by winter