Where Are You?

Be Safe

I’m superficial, I know, and I’m growing, but I felt something last night when I hugged her bye. Maybe because I was drunk and she was high, but I didn’t want to let her go. She’s so cute and so stranded and so graceful and so damaged and so ready for whatever is about to happen next. She laid her head on my chest and said “be safe,” and I knew she was talking about more than just the drive home.

I'm always here for the people I hurt.

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.  

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.

Where Are You? Please Don't Leave Me Here With These People: a love story

Lately I've Been Falling In Love

I try to fall in love at least once a week. Lately I’ve been falling in love with music and cities because people don’t always love you back the way you want them to. Instead of setting myself on fire, I’d rather buy a ticket to New York and fall in love with the view. Or listen to Coltrane and fall in love with the blues. Or run my finger across a map and fall in love with the idea of falling in love with someone new, somewhere new, in a place I’ve never been and in a language I’m not that fluent. But sometimes I can’t help myself and I still fall in love with you. All of you. Over and over again. I fall in love with the memories. I fall in love with the possibilities. I fall in love with cities I’ve never been to, like Montreal, or Paris, or Little Rock, Arkansas. I fall in love with new Prince songs I’ve never heard before. I fall in love with bad advice. I fall in love with that missing hour of sleep I lost last night. I fall in love with the people who love me every now and then just to see what that feels like. 

Happy Birthday 2Pac

I remember riding the subway in New York around this time last year and overhearing a kid, no older than 15, say "I really look up to Chris Brown. He can dance, he can sing, he paints, he does it all. He's my hero," and my first thought was - poor kid, he is about to have a rough life. Then my second thought was - this is probably how I sounded some 15 years ago when I told my parents and teachers how much I idolized 2Pac, that he was my hero. And he was. I had every album, every documentary, every book, and almost every movie he was in. And luckily for me, I had a mother who didn't condemn my idolization of 2Pac, but would take me to Blockbuster Music on Carrollton to get his newest albums the day they came out. Yes, 2Pac was my hero, and he was an important one because he was the first hero I chose, the first hero that was not assigned to me by my elders. Sure he was flawed, contradictory, extreme, and sometimes vulgar - but he was also unapologetic, genuine, caring, and determined to uplift those in his community. He made songs like "Keep Ya Head Up," and "Smile," and "Dear Momma," and "I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto" that can still put goosebumps on your neck when you hear them today. Sitting here at 29 and looking back on a life that was cut short at 25 almost two decades ago, I still consider 2pac a hero for the impact he was able to make on an entire generation at such a young age. Sure he made some mistakes along the way, but those mistakes I can learn from without exemplifying them. Pac, the world is a dimmer place without you in it, but a much better one for having you here. Happy Birthday. (Takes sip of Hennessey)

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.

Are You Happy?

I never fully understood this question. Happy with what? Happiness sounds like an ending to me, "and they lived happily ever after." How can somebody who has more life to look forward to than to look back on honestly comprehend that question? Ask me in 50 years and maybe I'll have an answer for you. 

3:00 a.m.

The sky tonight was an electric shade of blue and it reminded me of you, and that’s funny because your eyes are brown, but your personality has that certain kind of hue to it. That’s right before the clouds opened up with noise and thunder, you're so similar. 3:00 am and I wonder if it's possible tonight to get any sleep. This rain fights the same way you do, beautiful, and wont stop until its listened to. #poetry #prose #3am #therainiskeepingmeawake #ADreamForSale