Are You Happy?

The D Train

I saw you tonight waiting for the D train. I was going uptown to Harlem and you were headed to downtown Manhattan, or Brooklyn, I don’t know, you were on the other side of the tracks so I couldn’t ask you.

You looked dead at me though, like you had something you had been waiting to tell me and you finally got the chance, but I was just out of whispering distance. So, you walked to the edge of the platform

like you wanted to jump. Not into my arms or anything, but like you realized you were about to get on the wrong train and you needed to hurry and get to the right side of the tracks. There was something you needed to tell me.

It’s an impossible leap, you would never make it. Plus, now the train is coming. I guess you didn’t care because you did it. HOLY SHIT, YOU DID IT! You actually ran to the edge and jumped

like you had been practicing your whole life for this. Like a gymnast who had never won a gold medal in anything in her life and now this were your Olympics. Just as you jumped, you opened your mouth to say something

and the train came and cut you in half. It was intense. There was confetti everywhere. I couldn’t wait to see if you were ok or anything because I had a train to catch. It was late and the D train runs funny at this hour.

I mourned you all the way to 145th Street until I remembered that you don’t even live in New York. Neither do I. I came to this island just to get away from you. I guess I should have chosen somewhere slightly more deserted.

8 million people in this city, I was bound to see you somewhere, in someone. Now I’m bound for the Bronx because I missed my stop and I have no idea how I’m going to make it home, or if I want to.  

I asked her who she voted for in 2004, we were discussing politics and religion and that was the first election I was old enough to participate in. I said, Gore, she said that was the year she stopped believing in anything, but she still went to church just in case. She still voted in every election after that just to be safe because she didn’t want to be blamed when things went wrong, and things always went wrong. And knowing she wasn’t the reason why helped her sleep at night. I asked her how she’s been sleeping lately.

She asked, why do you put so much pressure on me to dream when I’m still stuck between feeling lost and feeling free? Forced to get along with those who arm themselves and dream of harming me. Sold me a house with a lawn and picket fence, but made copies of the key so you can come and go as I sleep at night and my dreams can be policed.

I told her I had been struggling with these dreams of my own, on the verge of packing up and selling everything I owned, but it was still too comfortable to pretend.

She told me I sounded like a politician campaigning for an election I knew I would never win, and American woke up a while ago and wasnt letting anymore new dreams in.

But I was just trying to get her attention…

Ever since I read The Alchemist I have always associated wandering the desert with searching for your dreams. It’s a book I come back to over and over again, each time leaving me a little more confused, but I keep reading expecting one time I’m going to figure it out the same way I keep coming back to the desert expecting to find… something. But every time I come I leave a piece of myself, each time bringing more and more of me to share, and every time I leave I take a piece of the desert back for me until one day I have it all figured out, or until the desert and I eventually swap places.

On September 15th, 1970 the New Orleans chapter of the Black Panther Party held their ground in the Desire Housing Projects against law enforcement in a shootout that lasted over 30 minutes. At 8:00 am over 100 officers in military gear stormed down on the Panther’s headquarters located at 3544 Piety St. and unloaded gunfire in an attempt to eradicate the Black Panther Party from the State of Louisiana. Miraculously no one was killed in this standoff.

Law enforcement made another attempt to raid the headquarters on November 19, but thousands of Desire residents circled the building in a successful effort to protect the members and fend off another violent attack.

In August of 1971 all of the members were found not guilty.

Finally got to paint both of my grandparents for their birthdays.

We're the lucky ones, the ones who love the ones who lost the ones who stay up late the ones still trying the ones in debt the ones who are sorry the ones who create the ones with regrets the ones still changing the ones still looking the ones who die over and over again for their art, we're the lucky ones because we have so much to look forward to.

Muse

I've never felt so used. All I do is write and paint  and say beautiful things about you

and what do you do besides break my heart? Sure you inspire me but at what cost?

I’ll never own you but I feel like you belong to me.

I’ve called you home for far too long

far longer than these transplanted seeds.

They don't have any roots here they haven't grown any trees.

Yea, they sing you songs but they do you wrong, too.

It’s hard having to share you with those who have yet to shed their leaves.

When they come for a visit and they don't stay I'm the one that sweeps your streets the next day

and how do you repay me?

With hurricanes, and apathy and summers that last too long and disregard but I still hang you on my living room walls  

and invite everyone I know over to see that you're the one who inspires me even if you don't care at all.

Who shot ya!? Hey, Pac, I’m still on the case because ever since they murdered you none of us have been safe. Was it the police? Was it your homeboys? Was is the KKK? On the Vegas Strip after a fight I’m surprised nobody got it on tape. I remember being nine on the cusp of defiance, rejecting all the heroes I was assigned in my sociology class. I told my teacher they were all murderers or murdered or make-believe, then I played her “Only God Can Judge Me” before she ran to the stereo and threw my cd in the trash. And that’s when I knew you were the hero I’d look up to, somebody not in the history books someone real I could grasp. And then I saw the news you had been shot you had been killed. Then I came back to school and my teacher just laughed. She said I should pick better heroes, somebody not as aggressive, someone on a much better path. Then I had to remind her of Malcolm of Martin of Huey of Fred of Medgar etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and told her it didn't matter, black heroes don't seem to last. Who shot ya! Hey, Pac, what are we gonna do? How are they gonna find who kills us if they can’t find who killed you? I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto, verse three you sounded something like a prophet. You predicted 20 years ago that police would be out here killing us and we couldn't do anything to stop it. You said, “cops give a damn about a negro, pull the trigger, kill a nigga he's a hero” and now, “the streets are death row.” The cops are judge, jury and executioner and apparently every bit of it’s legal. And I don't know if Heaven’s got a ghetto, but I know its got a long line and there’s some people waiting to get in that could use your comforting because we know Tupac cared when nobody else did. I’m sure we keep you busy up there, we’ll make sure you died for something. Who shot ya? Hey, Pac, your killer is still on the loose. I don’t know if you heard, but they got BIG too. They’re killing everybody that we looked up to. And I know there’s people who will hear this that won’t understand “He was a thug” “He got what he deserved” “His music should have been banned” And those are the same people who fear us when we band together in death. They mock us they incite us when we riot or protest. Who shot ya!? Hey, Pac, maybe it’s best we never know. Jokes on them because they will never be immortalized and you will forever be the hero.

The Woods

Your dreams will take you into the woods and when they do don’t get lost when it gets dark put the fire out they’ll come for you they smell you with their fangs out or their hands out they want from you I see you struggling what to bring but dont make noise or draw attention pack light move swift they track you by your footprints they’ll call you don’t turn back don’t slow down or get taken they’ll bait you they’ll love you don’t fall for it don’t give in when they howl at the moon they’re lonely and they’ll tell you you’ll be just like them lonely too don’t believe them they’re bitter they’re broken once hopeful now hopeless they wear disguises dressed as sheep they try to blend in hide their teeth don’t tease them they’re weak you are what they used to be but they’ll love you they’ll lie too they want to be just like you they’ll tell you about their dreams sleep with you then devour you lick your bones clean but listen to me if you don’t make it or can’t outrun them don’t become them I’ve been there I’ve been you now I’m among them one of them once they see you they’re coming they’re coming this is a warning