if i design my ideal man, do i find him when i get to LA?

if i wasn't constantly listening to music would i be a better writer?

is film school really for me?

starving artist. period?

singledom

i've been single for a year and 2 months.

april 10th 2009-june 8th 2010

this is the longest i've been single since i was 15.

i was celibate for 6 1/2 months, longest i'd been since i was 15.

these numbers and statistics might not impress you.

but they are for me and not you anyway.

but for those that know me...they are interesting and shocking statistics.

and so now i am reporting back to the world and myself what i have learned.

in re-reading my old notes, poems, writing, whatever i should call those relics of high school...all 64 pages of teenage angst that i've been recently retyping, i'm not sure i've learned much.

every new revelation i could have had in the past year plus seems to be a conclusion i came to 4, 5, years ago. but maybe this time i will listen to myself.

i broke up with musiq because of all the pressure i felt in the relationship. but i realize now i think it was pressure i put on myself. i wanted to be a good girlfriend, i wanted my logic to make the most sense. i wanted to be able to have my cake and eat it too, while feeling completely supported in the relationship. he explained to me what he could give, what he could handle, and what he couldn't. arguably he was what katt williams calls a 98% good man, but rather than have a 98% good man i decided i'd rather be alone.

but our life philosophies were so different. I couldn't be with someone who feels that all of your good friends in life you already know, who didn't leave the door open to meet more people, who feels there is one way to do things, who didn't embrace spontaneity of seek to challenge me spiritually. i needed someone who could push me and pull me, not just stabilize me. he was good at stabilizing me, which is most certainly a challenge in itself, but i don't think i was really challenged.

i'd also say his dad was right, that we were too young. that i was too young. when i first arrived in college, and we were both doing our own thing, the relationship with him was the only thing that really slowed me down, but i don't think the allure of the game was completely gone. it crept in sometimes, much to his alarm, an alarm which led to my frustration...how could he not let go and trust me.

i trust you until you give me a reason not to.

he doesn't trust you until you prove your trustworthiness.

so we were at odds.

but also i was in college, we both were. we were supposed to be growing and forming, undergoing changes and becoming more of ourselves. but we were only becoming ourselves in the context of each other, and this was the issue. i didn't know who i was without him. i didn't go through a daily routine without him. i wasn't sure if i was listening to the music i listened to, eating the food i ate, choosing the television shows i watched, deciding what to wear when because it was what i wanted, or because it was what i thought we wanted. it had become an issue for me. maybe it wasn't for him? i don't know. i don't know that I "tried to make it work"

"But if you believe you'll do best without me

I'll let it go girl it's over but before we say goodbye let's give it a try

If you leave then baby I'll leave
I'll let it go girl it's over but i have no doubt we can work it out"

musiq soulchild & mary j. blige

but until recently I was never of the mindset that a relationship took work. I thought a relationship was just when you and someone who you were drawn to became very good friends and then naturally more. i am a believer in 97% platonic relationships with a 3% crush that can be very easily contained and ignored. but the idea of having to "work" on a friendship or relationship is something new, something i experienced in college, something i am now putting into practice. sometimes i think to myself that if i had wanted to make it work, had tried, then musiq and i would be fine and be together. but in the end i think this period of singledom has been so important for me that I don't regret the loss of the relationship with musiq, even if i could have made it work.

its unfortunate that he resents me.

thats a dispassionate way of admitting that i miss him terribly and wish we were still at least friends, he means so much to me, has been one of the most stabilizing and important figures in my life in the 3 years leading up to this last one. then he transformed into a source of pain and discomfort that i tried to relegate to my inner world...perhaps i was successful. but it is unfortunate nonetheless.

what have i learned? perhaps i don't have to be 100% whole to be in a relationship with another person. perhaps it is okay to feel somewhat broken, and share this with someone else. but this person needs to allow you time and energy to feel broken (though not dwell in it) but to feel broken and be in a state of self-improvement, without feeling somehow responsible. i should have listened when musiq asked me how i knew that it was the relationship causing me the most grief over the past months. i didnt know, it probably wasn't. i'm just not good at asking for help, not the best at allowing myself to feel dependent on someone else, and so rather than delve more fully into him and us with my issues i think i chose to pull back into myself, to deal with it myself, to try to understand myself.

was this the right decision? i dont know. i don't necessarily think it should have been the most surprising one. it isn't the first time i've failed to open up and share and instead pulled into myself when i feel the most alone. sometimes its too easy for me to feel its me against the world. me and god. and no one else can really help, so why bother allowing them to try.

this is why the word community has become so important to me this year. it is a novel concept. on i love and hadn't allowed myself to become familiar with previously. imagine, relying on a network of other people (also imperfect, but striving for wholeness) who you trust. this concept of community has never been me, i've always been secretly afraid to rely on anyone, i wasn't sure what this reliance asked for in return, required of me, i was selfish.

you can't be selfish in a community. but you can protect yourself, you need to. i'm still nervous and scared, i want to be in a community but i don't want to be taken advantage of, or find myself in a situation where i am willing to give to others who aren't willing to give to me.

leaving the beloved nyc

it has been a moment since i have really written. one of my mentors told me months ago that i needed to stop and write, but the confusion of the shadow cast on mentorship allowed me to ignore his suggestions.

what has happened. i have reached a crossroads, a period of time where I watch myself moving and living as if from a bird's eye view. i am freaking out. yet by acknowledging this fact i feel more able to have a handle on the things i'm most worried about handling.

my family is doing well. this is exciting. everyone is changing, making changes, excitedyl moving forward in a healthy manner. it makes me feel more able to leave them.

my friends and i all graduated. every one of us made it out. most of us have jobs, or school ahead of us, some sort of known future lurks ahead, both inviting us into it and terrifying us with the unknown future within its discomforting uncomfortable shadow.

i'm fleeing in three weeks. it doesn't necessarily make sense, but i am. i'm leaving this coast of love, claustrophobia, memories, childhood, education, old world old school oldness. to the west coast, best coast. i had so many plans. the past four, arguable six years i've been biding my time until i would be living in my beloved nyc. maybe more than six years. when we first moved to new york, age eleven, i used to be so excited to go down to 125th and buy absurd amounts of hot 97 mixed tapes. since then i've been obsessed wit harlem. then it was as a visitor, then as washington heights crept over me, 128th became stomping grounds, dollar cabs in queens, the block in inwood, and even the buses became familiar on weekends and weeks where I escaped to friends houses I was sure I could claim new york, if i could profess to claim anywhere.

new york. new york city. the only place where beautiful, hippie, obviously not from new york because i cant help but make eye contact, remedied with stunna shades and headphones, "i know you hear me girl", bad lady, educated, bag, pockets, rolling luggage, backpack, rasta sack, army duffel, me could dip into h&m, forever 21, nicholas's, the chiney shop, jimbo's, golden krust, and feel unseen and noticed. the only place where trinidad, panama, jamaica, honduras, upstate, connecticut, and even boarding school lumped into one special place for me. the place of my first date, my first casual sex, my first fake id, my first time staying out all night, my first time realizing the people bringing the "coke" weren't talking about coca cola, my first experience with devil's springs, blacking out, awkward hookups, the place i used to roam to get myself into trouble. the place where i walk down the street, feel the sun shining on my shoulders and feel the most alive. the only place in the u.s. it feels like i'm ever really in the majority. and now i'm leaving it. wondering if i got all i could get, and knowing i didn't, haven't, couldn't possibly...wondering if i ever will.

"never darken the steps of the white house"

and this is from when I was super angry

re-reading it was shocking to me!

early one november friday morning in 2006

when I was walking across my campus to grab some grub before class

and some man said to me in passing

"never darken the steps of the white house"

a 3 part poem then ensued...but this is just a snippet

the rest of the anger is just far too much...

"is it worse to give up on myself, on my people, on my color, on my struggle

is it fair that nobody wants me-nobody wants me-I’m just a color

a shade, just some sort of shadow that’s there

my presence is always offensive-doesn’t always make the majority

feel awkward-not mine, not me at least. They find me socially acceptable

on their plane, cuz I can present myself as such

even my closest white friends don’t know

don’t know how they are being manipulated

manipulated by me, by my pigmentation

manipulated so they never have to feel awkward

while their parents are so impressed with me

and won’t admit to themselves-never would

that it’s because I’m black

that they want to cradle me-help me

they figure I need it, they want to help me

why. To feel better about the state of the world

I play my role well, I don’t notice

I’m not unoffended, they never are offensive

I just get whats…

I want to turn on BET in their living rooms

I want to be an invisible man and laugh

I want to make them feel so uncomfortable

Make them confront my blackness

I want to be ten shades darker

Want to like baby phat and rap music

I want to be their idea of a typical black

Person from a low income area with little education

So that my success will sting them more

I want them all to sting like I sting

When an ignorant man steals my joy early Friday morning

And I just stand in silence because what can I do?"

early 2006.

after the first breakup.

space

lately I’ve stopped missing you

wanting you, stopped reaching out and wishing I was holding you

and most profoundly stopped resenting you

for the space that you fill

the space that you fill in my mind

the voice that I still hear in my thought

somewhere between my ears

between the thumps of my heart

between my empty fingers-that space you fill in my life

and its because you filled it-that I found myself rendered helpless

or running away from any figure who could fill it just as well

or maybe better, or even half as well

because how could I allows anyone to occupy your space

and how can I allow you, even after a year and nine months

to keep filling it

and worse expanding it-which I only just realized

cant be healthy for my heart

and I feel like because I still missed you

I was running some kind of screening process

And allowing myself to conduct so many interviews

To fill this position that cannot be filled by any other

But there’s only so much space filled with substance I don’t understand

That I can take in my life

And what I really need now is to be contained and get rid of all of the excess

And I’m sorry but yes that means your space too

That means the time, the thoughts, the tears, the reach, the wish, the hope

The waiting, the wanting, the wondering where you are and when I’ll see you again

Wondering why you don’t call, why I don’t, if I can

Why we never ever have that awkward silence

Why you think the way you do, say the things you say, and make the decisions you make

If you feel the way I do

At least at some point I know we did

The problem was the space once again

The space between us, the spaces that filled with so many other things

That we as the other couldn’t understand

The spaces that filled and changes as we changed-if we changed

And the space where we used to fit perfectly like a puzzle

Now filled with unsurity, insecurity- too much pain for us to keep trying to take the puzzle off the shelf and put it back together…

And at this point we can’t even recognize what picture it once made, so I give up

Its like spring cleaning, house cleaning, time for a yard sale

To conserve more space-cuz-maybe cuz it hurts to be so spread out?

Or maybe I’m just selfish

And tired of allocating you so much space

And feeling disappointment for one reason or another because of you

Or maybe its not selfish and I’m just tired

Just feeling so much fatigue from continuing to reserve your seat

To make this reservation for you

To stay so emotionally reserved

When its hard-when I wonder if I shouldn’t

Certain words and feelings are so heavy

And I’m just tired of feeling so weighed down

my 2nd boyfriend:

shocks

its as soon as I get back to my room and see my frizzy hair

I wonder about sticking my finger into some sort of electrical socket

No, not that

Standing in the rain and being struck by lightening

That’s what happened

I’m sure of it

Shocks though!

One after another, after another

And people must lie

Because there is something so pleasant and sweet

So giddy I can’t stop smiling from being struck

And shocked!

His smile, laugh, teeth, voice

Singing boys to men at the top of his lungs

This fuzzy headed flannel loving farm boy

Who I love to be with

Who never leaves room for a dull moment

Who makes my hair stand on end

Spins me in circles, pulls me close, winds me in and lets me go

So proud and loud, I don’t know what’s happened or what to do

Yet there’s only one thing to do-run into the air, the rain-and I love it

And soaking and dripping from electric shocks all through my body

I get back to my room and look at my frizzy hair in the mirror

And wonder why people are afraid of lightening

finding old poetry

well...i found some old poetry today.

then i dug up some more.

there's quite a bit.

some is good, some is bad

its weirdest to be reading it though and thinking about how young i was when i wrote it

this comes a year after my first heartbreak

apparently i was still experiencing the pains of it.

even now I think about you

and realize your absence is still so much a part of me

as you always were

so much of my struggle

to regain that I’m the shit reek confidence mentality

that I once could claim to myself eeked from me when I entered a room

and claim even in the humblest way

I was

I was so me

The me I was and understood myself to be

And we were so perfect

So us, so in love, so solid

And then you left and I dissolved into a little child

My life melting in my fingers like ice cream

And though it seemed simple enough

I just couldn’t do anything about it

So now I’m me without you

Struggling to merge or morph back into a whole person

Knowing things aren’t the way they once were

And maybe never will be again

And so I wonder

Who I will be

Because I will regain that confidence

It’s a struggle, but yes I will win

And I will be me even without you

Just not sure what that me begins to look like