for the Mothers of the earth.

my heart beats with my history. shaped like africa. chisled out of flesh thick and smooth, so red and rich that iron condensed soil couldn't give birth to the roots i produce. the nile, long and neverending, pumps its glittery waters through the depths of my veins, the source of my strength and the existence of my pain, emptying itself into the mediterranean waters of my soul, replenishing my anscestors with every rising tide. every breath of air i inhale is fraught with the cries of forgotten mothers, raped daughters, bastardized sons and murdered fathers.

my throat is grooved with the smoothness of a rope that can't be seen. but it suffocates me all the more. i am lynched everytime someone supresses my thoughts, leaving me with sore skin everytime i remember the muting of my voice. no longer should i ignore the bass of my beliefs and the treble of my emotions, a dangerous combination when they rule in harmony in a room full of criticism. i have beautiful high notes to accomplice any arguement that counters my beliefs. i'll pierce a soul so deeply that i'll never be questioned again.

every mind i alter, every thought i change, reminds me of who i am. every feeling that is prevented from breathing, i induce into birth with contractions of pure love and clean spirits. my saliva is a truth serum that will set free the secrets of the earth. the winds whisper violently in my ears, telling me the lies that men try to hide deep down in parts of the earth that man has never seen. taste the electric touch of my lips and i will find the honesty that's been stretched thin for so long in the realms of evil ways.

i'm familiar with watercolor-based minds whose pale-colored frames fade with wearing and time. i'm familiar, too, with acryllic-crafted souls that weaken and crack under peristant force and fury. i've learned to surround myself with only oil-based beauty, one that the turpentines of the earth would have to fight to erase. because i am created from the best of the earth; the reddest soils of ancient nile valley civilizations; the bluest skies trapped in the darkest of nights; the blackest of pupils that see the truth, and whose sockets well up with tears from the salty realization that the colors of america's flag will never live up to the justice of my hues. because mine are the shades of the universe, ones that can't be charted on a map of hexadecimal values.

i can sift through the complexity of any simple man, because what he presents to the world as enigmatic is merely a geniously disguised human who is afraid to be found floating in the vulnerability of weakness. grains of sand from the sun scorched sahara seal my eyes during the moments i sleep. when the sun rises and awakens my soul, i am reminded of my undying devotion to the world. don't tell me i can't fly, don't tell me I can't soar. i drape this planet in a love that could never be extinguished. and one day, one enhanced step at a time, i will rid this place of the evil that plagues it.

tell me i'm not beautiful. tell me i'm not human. and i'll stare you in the black of your eyes and tell you the truth you are afraid to face. I'm flawed in the most beautiful way possible. and still, my love survives.

boxability

imagine you are placed into a black box. you aren't aware of your environment, and your eyes are subconsciously shut; you don't realize that your pupils are sheltered because it is too dark inside of the box for you to even notice. you aren't afraid, nor are you uneasy. you feel as if you belong there because the walls, although made of an onyx that you can't experience, are radiating with warmth. you somehow become flexible, able to fit perfectly into the six walls that surround you. the box never moves, and you never move in it. instead, your form becomes a shadow of the minds that exist around you; what people think of you is what determines your appearance. The walls of the box are opaque and it would take only your vision to see what you really look like inside. however, given your permanent state of entrapment inside the box, you are unable to see yourself. people picture what you must be like all the time, and you change your form with each proceeding thought. you may bend over backwards; you may flip head over heels, remaining stationary for as long as a thought exists.
one day, when the truth arrives, you will realize that your eyes are indeed shut. you will realize that you have a stiffening joint somewhere in your body, although you will not be able to place its exact location because the stiffening, in fact, lies deep in your soul. you will suddenly be aware of your senses, and the warm walls of the solid box that houses you will suddenly become cold, filling your space with a thin coat of ice. you will then become afraid and will feel uneasy in your skin, wondering how you will free yourself from this box that had decided to enclose you within its walls without your permission. you search with eyes that are now open and sore from the brightness of the truth that consumes you, looking for some sort of hinge that would suggest where the opening of the box is. you can't find one, and it is then that you realize that the box has no opening, almost as if it was formed with you inside of it. you can't even tell that you are the size of a marble, stuck in a box no bigger than dice rolled in the dirty hands of gamblers and greedy men. your existence has been diminished. what's worse is that you have become this way because you allowed yourself to. you think hard, trying to collect the thousands of opinions and thoughts that have escaped you but are still floating in the condensed air surrounding you. you catch them, one by one, regaining your conscience and reforming the backbone that, in its absence, allowed you to be so flexible to the wants and opinions of others. slowly, you acknowledge your submission to what's around you and you, in all your anger, melt the ice that has stained the box's inner walls. you remember your personality, your outspokenness, your fervor for life and undying belief in yourself, a belief that somehow became diluted in the salty presence of weak minds that simply envied your greatness. as a result, the onyx walls glisten in the glare of your pupils, becoming mirrors that reflect, for once, your true form, as you grow into your perfect and deserving shape. you remember your beauty, your brilliance, your self, and these mirrors slowly start to shatter, allowing you to break out of the box and regain your existence.

you have reclaimed your definition. you interpret yourself, not the unyielding stains of others. you are magnificent. and your boxability no longer exists.

ringtones

It's funny that the inspiration for this post is actually the result of numerous hours spent on hacking into my phone so that I could get away with not paying for ringtones. I just got a new phone on Sunday, the Verizon "V", and let me be the first to tell you that this phone has brought SO much joy to my life. So much, in fact, that I find myself getting excited with every phone call because I love being able to hear a REAL song play instead of cheap polyphonic imitations of the real thing. So being the computer nerd that I am, I found a way to transfer real tones to my phone. As a result, I have a beautiful collection of 30 songs that represent, in some form or another, the most important people in my life. It wasn't, however, until I started setting everyone's personal rings that I realized how I subconsciously have been placing everyone in my life into a certain box. Let me not discuss how I'm able to place everyone into groups (such as associates, family, Sorors, colleages, etc.). That categorizes people enough. But something as personal as giving someone their *own* ringtone so that I know exactly who's calling the moment my phone makes noise...well that's something serious on its own. I found myself giving certain people the most beautiful ringtones, and it wasn't until I caught myself deciding who deserved what song that I realized that certain people mean much more to me than i realized. The reason I am writing this post today is because I've realized that I tend to take for granted the people that I care about. Truth be told, I am used to having my own way, and when I don't get it, all hell breaks lose. I didn't realize until last night that I may have just lost the one friend who is capable of putting me in my place...and I didn't realize it until he did so. Thus, I'm sitting here, looking at the ringtone that I gave him, and realizing that I probably will never hear that song play because he'll probably never call again. The result? Well, I feel like crap and it's spreading through my entire existence. I don't even know how I'm writing coherent sentences right now (must be the innate English Major in me). Either way, now I'm reevaluating the importance of these ringtones...because it seems that although we may get excited to apply a nice, suitable song to those who are most important to us, it is even more important to value that person for their friendship and undying devotion to you, whether they be a sibling, friend, or lover. I took something for granted last night. And as a result, I lost it.

And all I have to remind me of this are some pretty ringtones.