You Are (…in progress)

You are..
Only what u believe yourself to be
No one can control u
No one can do u better than you
No need to chase the dreams of others
Embrace your own dreams, give them your all
You are capable.

You are
More than a big ass, vagina and tits
Treasure your body and all its parts
Compliments shouldn’t make your legs part.. they are to fill your heart.
Baby girl please know that your pearl is more precious than those ever made by an oyster
Protect it as u protect your heart
You are holy.
You carry life in your womb.

You are…
The product of great people.. the offspring of kings and queens..
Know your history and own that greatness.
Your ancestors dance for u… they share your joys and pains
Pay them respect and listen for them in the breeze.

You are…
A genius! Your mind processes more complexities daily than the average white woman processes in a week.
You are gifted.
Dancing, singing, teaching, mothering, birthing, creating, destroying, mending, healing…
You are capable.

Me/She/We

I love her..
Like a fish loves water
Not a co-dependant love but a complimentary love that allows both of us to exist. Allows us to be in the same presence of each other and still be Us while she be She and I be Me.

I love her…
Like a book loves its spine…
She helps me hold myself together… as I help her.. our pages turn and blend together.. we are writing our story.

I love her…
Like a teacher loves their student…
We take turns learning from one another I listen and learn she hears me when I reflect we absorb one another’s words.

I love her…
Like a narcissist loves their mirror… because when i look at her I see us, our future, our past, our present… and whatever dreams may come.

My Lord’s Prayer…

Lord Please remove this pain from my chest and this knife from my back

For I did not know what harm a so-called friend can do.

Being all smiles hiding lies and wishes of ill-will

Lord please hold me for I don’t know how much damage my hands can do.

Lord open their eyes so that they may see that I’m not the weak willed woman they presume they see..

Keep my temper under the surface Lord and take this heat off my skin Lord…

Command my fists to relax and not draw blood from my palms Lord

Lord take the words from Jill Scott’s … Getting in the Way out of my head because all its doing is helping the devil win right now…

Lord holdfast to my tongue. Holdfast to my arms. Console my heart.

These things I ask of you Lord in your son Jesus’ name…

Amen.

EL

No Sleep… Shit on my mind

so i had a conversation today… with someone who doesn’t really know me that well..

she knows i’m queer

knows i am in love with my gf

and knows we work for the same company…

i shared something with her that not many people outside of my girlfriend and some extremely close friends know…

and well now the cyber world will know… i’ve considered fully transitioning… but right now i’m looking into it heavily…

i love myself.. but i have a poor self image… i don’t like my body… or the way it looks

now seeing as that i was just in the hospital in late August of 2011 i have had every blood test known to man run on me and was given some very shocking but kinda awesome news…

typically they measure the levels of naturally occurring testosterone in the bio female body on a scale of 5 to 45… ya boi’s results came back as a 69!!!

awesome ass number if i do say so myself… they put me on a medication that was supposed to decrease this… it was supposed to help “regulate my cycle” and “decrease the growth of my facial hair”… not that i ever said my faicial hair was a problem for me…

So its like i feel i have a leg up in this journey already… like… hell i’m naturally producing “too much” of this hormone that i will eventually/possibly have to inject into my body…

why not use what i already have and see if that’s already enough? why not just commit to getting my body the way i want it?

I haven’t found the energy that i need to commit to making my body appear the way i want it to…

i need that spark of inspiration… i need that motivation… i need direction…i need encouragement… and i need support…

Inside…never out…

Its moments like this that I understand why the little girl sits in her room with a razor blade slicing into her flesh.
Let’s the blood run down her leg, she feels it, she’s alive.

No amount of emotional scaring, abuse could ever feel as good as when the blood reaches that crease behind her knee where her thigh and calf meet.

No words said to her about how she needs to grow-up, needs to choose this, needs to do that, needs to make a decision, needs to grow-up, needs to be more open, needs to be more accepting, needs to grow-up… can hurt her

They can’t prick at her soul when she’s bleeding while she’s blood-letting allowing all that is her being, flow,
Flow down hwe legs past her ankles and pools at her feet.
She is free. From the mental restraints and socially acceptable expectations of other people

You see, as a giver she’s always given her all to all, but to herself she’s given none.
Because they don’t teach that in school.
Setting boundaries ain’t as easy as setting goals and boundaries don’t help you get nowhere they just keep you in the same damn place; in that same space.

Where all you do ain’t for you so you aren’t capable of just honestly and truely “doing you”.

I admire that little girl that sits in her room.. finding a way to cope with her short comings based on the wants, needs and desires of others. She won’t explode in a flaming rage… next time she might just cut too deep…

Out My Window

Today I saw what to me seemed like an odd site on San Pablo Ave at about 8 Am on a Saturday morning.

5 men of hispanic or latin descent, sitting at a bus stop surrounded by what appeared to be 6 Oakland PD uniformed officers in 3 police cruisers and 1 OPD SUV.  There were no signs that they had done anything wrong, they weren’t hand-cuffed and no guns were drawn.

Now this stood out to me because.. the cop uniforms looked strange they weren’t that typical blue/black color. They looked more navy blue and looked more tactical.. more military like… I wondered if these Latino brothers were being harrassed by ICE agents disguised as police. To me they looked as if they were day laborers waiting to catch the bus to another location ( the bus came but couldn’t stop @ the stop because of how the police vehicles were parked).

I’m kicking myslef for not taking a picture of this instance… I was driving at the time.. but I guess the whole point of this is that no one is safe from harassment based on assumption.

No Promises

I find it more difficult to make promises as I’ve gotten older.
As life’s responsibilities grow and free time fades it becomes harder to keep things straight in my calendar let alone my mind.
As a child I was promised trinkets of little value for achieving or completing some expected task.

I didn’t need promises of fancy things to feel acomplished then… nor do I need them now.

Don’t sell me dreams , don’t say you’ll do something and have no intention on doing.

With me your word is your bond. With all the means of communication in today’s world there’s no excuse for not letting me know you’ll be late or that plans fell through.

I’m not asking for perfection.

Just don’t make me no promises.

Just Believe..

“Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.” – Mahalia Jackson

You can’t make it in this world without believing in something. I’m not talking religious structure but just believing in at least one’s own self. It’s a must. Survival of the fittest starts with defining what u want for urself and going for it with the faith that you will get it.

growing up black and “butch” in the bay…

Disclaimer: This post contains purely my experience and my ideas feel free to repost and comment. I apologize for the jumbled mess of thoughts.. this was a take two as the first post got delete by accident…

There was recently the discussion of Butch and the lowering numbers of women that identify as such. This is a recount of my experience with the word Butch and as I’d known it to be adapted and used.

In high school i had a tomboy female friend of Mexican descent. She isn’t queer but her family nickname was “butch”. This was the first time i heard the term and really ever had the chance to associate it with anything. She hated it. So much so that the first day of Senior year she had changed her whole persona. She was wearing makeup and tight clothes and her hair was tightly curled and flowing… she looked uncomfortable as hell but she asserted that this was the new her. When i asked her why she simply stated, “cause i’m tired of everyone thinking i’m gay when i’m not”.

So from the jump i had the assumption that “butch” was not cool or acceptable. When i began looking for a sense of community.. i looked around me and found… well nothing. I turned to the internet but when i was seeking other women that looked like me… because i had no term for it or label to identify with all i found was this word BUTCH… and when i saw what this word was associated with.. it wasn’t me.. because all i found was images of White women… no latinas, no asians, no blacks, no islanders, no middle eastern women… just WHITE women…

Growing up in the SF bay area i found little to no Black, Out Queer women to look up to. I found myself feeling isolated and alone for quite some time. When i did find other MOC/Tomboi/non-femme black women they all identified as Stud/Dom/Ag. Butch wasn’t a part of their vocabulary. So i guess its safe to assume that even within my initial knowledge of the Black LGBTQ community racism or adapting “white” labels was a no-go.

As i grew of course i found that the term “butch” could be applied cross-racially it was still never something i could hold on to or claim fully (meaning that’s not all that i am in my masculinity). To me it’s like the difference between Womanist and Feminist, there are certain cultural aspects to me that one embraces and the other doesn’t. I to this day don’t find many women of African descent that identify as butch, however in my experience i have found more API, Asian and Latina/Chicana women that have… i know there are those black/African-Descent women that do solely identify as butch so i’m not ignorant to their existence i’m just simply stating that from what I’ve lived they aren’t in abundance and i’m wondering if there is an inherent “race” associated with the label/term.

I strive to be that strong Stud/Butch/Ag/Dom role model that i didn’t have for this new generation of queer babies. I just hope that i’m doing a good job.

Testing… testing…

I know its been 3 months since I’ve posted and a ton has happenened in that time. I intend on posting the happenings in my life lately and getting back on the ball with my poetry.

I thank my subscribers for staying attatched and I promise to get u something to think about real soon!