Nipsey. Dead. Today.

Nipsey Hussle was such a powerful man and was doing incredible things in our community. He owned many business in L.A. Was an educator trying to teach the community about owning property. Being educated. Not following the path of gangs. Yes he had been in a gang but he had changed his life and stayed here in the community trying to make a difference. He fed so many people. An amazing voice in hip hop. He was only thirty-three years old. He died today in front of his store on Crenshaw and Slauson. I was in Leimert Park when he died just blocks away. This is a sad day.

Be safe out there, family. The streets are hot.

Pretty

He told me
He always wanted
A pretty woman
But he never got
Lucky and
I was like
What am I
And he told
Me not to be so
Sensitive
So ok

Hustle

Will work for food
Will fuck for money
Will suck for a shower and a night out
Anal for a months rent
I will be your pretty girl

I will call you Daddy
You can be my Superman
Keep me safe off the ground

Do you know concrete women like me
Do you know how we live
Do you know what we do for a tampon
A cheeseburger
A shake

I will kiss you slow
I will wear my hair long
You want a skinny woman
You wanna see how fast I skinny

You seen me before
Women like me
Sleeping on bus stops, under trees, no shoes
I clean up well
I pretty up nice
I fuck real good
I have given up on this life
Can't you tell

Tell me what you want me to be and I'll be
Tell me what to say
Take me to your place
I'll sit nice and quiet

Do you want a queen
Do you want a whore
Do you want a slut or a cunt

Do you want me spread all over your body
Do you want to know how I got here
Do you want to know my story

Will you give me a hug
Some fries
May I keep the change
Will you save my life

You ain't nothin'

I know shame when I see it
I know a black eye under make up under glasses
When it slithers in a room
I know the smell of a punch in the gut
The slap on a face
The squeeze on an arm

Because you ain't nothin'
Because you can't cook
Because the food was late
Because he looked bad in front of his friends

I know that hole in the wall was meant for you
I know you pray to make it home on time
Gotta be there on time

Bitch, where you been
Bitch, it don't take that long to go to the store
Bitch, fuck your feelings
Bitch, dry them tears

Because ain't nobody never got time for what you got

Because you ain't never gon be nothin'
Because you ain't going nowhere
Because you ain't cute
Because you better take what I give you
Because you better like it

Dont let him be drunk tonight
Don't let him hit me tonight
Don't let him call me a lazy cunt in front of the kids tonight

I see a prayer all over you
I see hope fading fast
I see you staring at the gun

I know you are planning for just the right
Time

Reading

I'm reading Thursday with three other badass women. We're going to be at The Last Bookstore downtown L.A. Wednesday at 7pm. Come out and join us. The tickets are $20 and you get a copy of Carol Anne Perini's book. I hope to see you there.

Pills

I have stopped measuring my life, good or bad, by the day / more by the hour / the minute / like this is a good second / and this one too / that way I have more thumbs up on my chart / because thumbs up and charts are good things

God's voice is fading inside my body / but I know it when I see it / in the wind / over the ocean / the smell of Jasmine

Do not send me a Bible verse to read / pray for yourselves / send me a lily / tell me you love me / sing me a song

I am not ashamed or afraid of the ugly in me / I am beautiful too / like a rose / like a river / like a cloud / like a book

I have gone to taking too many pills at night / one wasn't working / two didn't put me to sleep / three wouldn't stop the voices / four / five

Judge yourselves

I write to release the words clouding my head / poems get in the way / block my dreams / disturb my appetite / I have to let them out

What about you / what do you do when the voices come to you / what does God feel like on your tongue / what do you do / to live

New stuff

I've been writing some new stuff and I want to share it out loud in an intimate setting with a few folks who like my work enough to come out and experience it. I'd like to have it somewhere in the L.A. area as soon as possible. I'm ready. If you know of a place please let me know.

Pomona. Rent. Stroke.

Friday, March 22, 2019 6:04pm. Pomona. Home.

It's been a long two days. I went with my mother yesterday to Las Vegas because we had to meet up with my uncle regarding some paperwork she needed him to sign about blah blah blah. My mother and I shared the driving duty but I was still tired. Plus I'm so stressed out right now.

I tried to use yesterday as a time to have some good one on one time with my mother and we did enjoy each other's company. Just for me it seems like EVERYTHING is due right now. Water, rent, lights...and everything is due like next week.

What's crazy is I've been applying for jobs and going on interviews and getting turned down left and right. Hell, I even applied at McDonald's and they turned me down. It must be me. Part of me feels like I'm jinxed on getting a job or something but there's another part that knows that with these really high up and really low down spells I have I don't know what job I can hold on to. I do have my teaching job at USC that I've had almost six years and I've been with WomanPreach almost ten years. And I've had some college gigs. So, some money is coming in. Also, Uraeus is working. Just still, next week is a hard money week.

A long time good friend of my mine just had a stroke this past Sunday. A bad one. He's still in hospital now receiving our thoughts and prayers. When I think about him and also a WomanPreach sister just had a stroke and is in hospital also. When I think about them I get scared or at least a little nervous because I don't want to stroke out stressing about what I have to come up with. I don't know how it's gonna happen but it's gonna because I sure don't want to be homeless again with Uraeus. Or by myself for that matter.

Ok let me get off of this blog and make and allow some things to happen.

I hope you're well.

Love yourselves.

Serious

Busy as death
Serious as fucking
Weapon as shark as teeth as war
I am an army
You should believe me when I cry

Quiet as creek
Ripple as air
Steady as hand as star as rock
Do you hear me
Can you feel my drumming
How I rhythm for you

If you listen you know I been trying to tell you
Life got me down sometimes
I am science as magic
Still I can't get my groove
This ain't living

This hustle is murder
I am too old for this shit
Too fly for this giving

Why am I like this
Like this awkward
Like this freak
Like this down
Like this blues

You see this mask I wear
Gotta pretend to be sky when I am clay
But who believes a black woman can be in pain
All nappy headed and feet and hips and thighs
Girl you better get in that kitchen
Girl you better clean for your man
Girl you better act like you like it

Allow me to introduce myself

I am lonely as fire
Safe as math
I am run as slave
Can I get a break in this piece

Can I borrow a dollar
Can I kiss a prince
Can I live a life

Me with Michelle

It's 3:52pm on Tuesday and I'm in the parking lot at Uraeus's job waiting to take him home. I also have a call scheduled at 4:00 to talk to my friend Michelle Williams. I'm looking forward to this.

I don't know how long I've known Michelle but it's been years and her presence is always a present. We met at The World Stage in Leimert Park in L.A. I think that's where we met. Yes, she's a poet too. She's that and so much more. A wonderful cook, a great listener, an incredible mother. The list goes on.

Me: Hey, boo.

M: Hey. (I hear a smile. She always sounds like she's smiling. I know she's not always, but now I think she is.)

Me: So one of the things I always ask when I'm talking to poets is why poetry?

M: It kept me sane. It kept me through my relationship with my mom, my kid's dad. It...kept me.

Me: Why cooking? Are they on the same level?

M: My great grandmother was a short order cook. Back when black women could only work in white women's kitchens. And she would cook for us too. She would make fish that she just caught.

Me: That she caught?

M: Yes. She and my grandfather would go fishing. She really caught the fish. He was drinking beer.

Her house was like an escape. They lived in Riverside in a big house and we lived in L.A. She would cook hot water cornbread in a cast iron skillet flipping the cornbread with her fingers. (She smiles. I can hear it and see it through the phone). I wanted my kids to know that feeling growing up.

M: That's beautiful. One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because in addition to being mothers and poets we connect in a very dark place. Do you mind speaking on that dark place and what it is for you?

M: Not at all. Well I have a friend who has MS and depression and I talked to her and she was like "I tried to kill myself and my husband had to do CPR." She encouraged me to not hold things in.

Me: Do you talk to your children about it?

M: Yes. I've always kept it age appropriate. But I want them to know. They make sure I eat. Oymn kisses me on the forehead and gives me hugs. When they were little I would just say "Mommy's tired."

M: I understand that.

*We go on about it (depression). About looking for signs in our children. About how living with this thing ain't easy. About things I choose not to include here.

Me: So me, I hear the voices in my head. The not good voices. The bad thoughts. You call yours a ringing in your ears. Tell me more about that.

M: I was raised Jehovah's witness so let's start there. I always had dreams and got messages and it was interpreted as demons. After I got pregnant with my son and I didn't repent or act like I had something to be sorry for I was shunned from the religion so my mother stopped speaking to me too. The ringing in my ear is like I'm getting a message.

*Michelle and I were talking on the phone at another time when I had called her. I was feeling really down and I needed someone who I knew understand me to listen to me. She listened. She got me. That's what I needed. After I talked to her she wouldn't let me go until she gave me some information. She said her ears were ringing and that she had to tell me. She offered me a gift of crystals and bath salts and other things. That was the first time she told me about the ringing. She told me that if she didn't do it the ringing wouldn't go away. I understood that. I don't get a ringing but I do get bad thoughts that fucking push me. I have to fight through those thoughts because they are not my friends.

Me: Where is your dad?

M: He's in a halfway house.

Me: Ok. (Because what else could I say?)

M: Yeah. He's serving out his sentence there.

I got to see his people. His mother and auntie. There's a whole set of people who wanted me. My mom and I have always had a difficult relationship and here were all these people who were there. His auntie cried when she saw me. I halfway jokingly call myself a pseudo orphan. Now I know that you adult to the best of your ability. All I do is do the opposite of what my mother did.

Big Mama is great grandmother. Ghani is grandmother. She's a diva and her nails are three inches long.

Me: Ghani's nails are not three inches long!

M: Yes they are!

*We laugh.

M: All the diva things about me, my nails, how I walk...All that comes from Ghani.

*We talk more. Then switch topics.

Me: So where are you on "
'A woman can't raise a man'
 thing?"

M: Well, my thing is I'm actively doing it.

Me: Right!

M: And I think I'm doing a good job.

Me: My thing was, I'm trying to raise a good human being!

M: And he'll be a good man.

Me: Oh, my son's coming out. Can I call you when I get home?

M: Yes, I'll be here with my pajamas on.

*Life happened and I haven't called back yet. I owe her a call. I just wanted to introduce you to her. This amazing woman who lives with this thing I live with. This dark cloud that comes. She understands and I appreciate her.

Love you, Michelle. We'll talk soon.

Sweep

I will fill your empty pockets
I will sweep your attic clean
All those thoughts
Like a school of red fish blue fish
Swimming 'round your brain
I will slow the chatter in your head
I promise to be dangerous
You will want to leave
And I will let you go
Only prisoners I keep
Are secrets in my poems
The dust between my toes

And you will dream of me
You will remember the day
You dared someone to love me better
Better than you
Better than God
Better than all the gods

Someone has loved me since you've been gone
Someone ran his fingers through my hair
Counted each gray stand
Rubbed my belly while I slept
Prayed to the Moon above head
His Pices fingers
Between my Virgo legs

I still remember though
Remember your name
Way I used to say it nice and slow
I call for you in my sleep sometimes I admit
But we are better off than we were before
You over there with all your demons
Me right here
With what I have to do

I will paint your picture
Set it in my backyard
Let the squirrels watch it fade
I do not love you anymore
Will not wish you good long nights
Just want you to know
I grew from every way you refused to touch me
Way I wanted you way back then

I will write a song about your lips
Kisses I will never crave again
I do not miss you anymore
Just think of you from time to time

Salt

My body is the moon tonight
Full and unashamed
My body has been landed on by a man whether you believe it or not
A flag was planted
I have not been the same since
It did not make me a woman

2. I am a pile of salt
A bottle of Lorazepam
A spoon of cocaine

3. My body is good for you
It moves oceans
It moves the water in you
I control your mood
I am super bad

My body will not be ignored
Not even in the dark
I am screaming
I am here, bitches

Watch me glow
Watch my titties fall
All this milk flood the land

6. When you cannot see me
I am behind the clouds
The mountains
I be on my shit sometimes
Life gets to me too

7. I do not apologise for not being sun

8. My beauty will not be ignored
Hold your head up when you pray

9. My body is mine
You cannot touch me
You may only admire

10.

There

There is no way over there. There is nowhere that is over there. It, the good and bad is happing here, where human beings are.

Him

Uraeus: You ok?
Me: Yeah, I just had a headache all day today.
Uraeus: Did you eat today?
Me: Yeah I had a little bit of that.
Uraeus: That's nothing. That's probably why you had a headache.
Me: I just wasn't hungry.
Uraeus: Mom, if I was 6 years old and I told you that that was all I ate today, would that be ok?
Me: No.
Uraeus: Well then, you gotta treat yourself like you're 6 years old.

All true. All real.

Alone

Sometimes being alone is the shit
And then sometimes being alone is the shit

Dream

I had a crazy dream last night
About nighttime and outside and bridges and streetlights
I don't know

But I was ok
Then all a sudden I wasn't
And I was on a bike and I was peddling fast but I still too late
A Los Angeles late
And they done towed away my car
And I was going across the bridge
Then the woman
The crazy bitch
Crazy Chinese bitch on my handlebars
Told me I wasn't never gon make it on time
And that was all I could take
What the fuck does she know
About what what I can do
Story of my life
Somebody telling me what I can do and what I ain't able

Then somebody had to suck somebody's dick
And maybe that's too much for a poem about a dream
I don't know
And what do you know
I coulda had a dick
Bitch made me so mad
I'm doing the best I can
She tell me I can't do it
I pulled it out right then
Told her
Bitch you gon suck my dick

And I told you it was a crazy dream
What do you know
What do you know about a poem
About a poem about a dream
A crazy nighttime dream

You don't know

Then I woke up and I didn't feel so good
And this was one of those times
Like a guy I dated long time ago
Told me he hated the way I would disappear some times
Go somewhere far away
My body be sitting right
But I be gon

What the fuck I care about
What all he hate
What he know about the voices in my head
About fighting off taking all the pills
The fuck he know
About what I have to do

Maybe I couldn't write a poem
Because I have to write
To get it out my head
What the fuck do you know
About what kind of space that I can hold
You don't know nothing
Maybe I'm the smartest woman you know
Maybe I'm trying to get somewhere fast
Peddeling hard as I can go
Doing the best that I can do
Then a crazy dream
Got me getting all these words up out my head
You don't know

Song

Poetry is rhythm. It's like a song except it's its very own thing. It is not background music. Though background music is important first lines are important too. Poetry is like wind. Like cold. Cut right into your middle. All the ugly that we tell. Pretty come out too. Ain't no need in hiding from a poet. Find you right between your lies. All the stanzas. Every hum. Every ahh. Each mmm. All meant to be in there. You find me in some poetry house on some stage telling the tales that I do know. Some smoky room. Some tattered notebook. Holding all my secrets. You find me in some coffeeshop. Some living room couch. Writing out my blues. Poetry is weapon. It's a tool. It's a gift. From the great good God inside. You find me at the beach. In the sand. With a stick that I done found. Telling all my business. Hiding behind some worked out metaphor. This ain't no simple gig. Pasting feelings on a page. You find out if you do try. You tell how you do. Tell that girl you love her. Give that boy your blood in some haiku. I tell you how to forgive. I'll teach you how to love. Poetry is dance. Take one step and life take two. Poetry catch you slipping. Catch you crying in your blouse. Poetry is like a whistle. Whisper right through the thin air. Put a poem in your bra. Stuff one in your pants. Put it in your purse. Carry it around in your torn wallet. Tomorrow morning you look up into the sly. Tell me the rhyme that you did say. Poetry is like a candle. Burning all throughout the night.

Zimmerman. Angry. Demons.

I remember when Zimmerman was found not guilty in the murder of Trayvon. I was so angry. So angry. I wanted to do something and all I felt I had was poetry. That is my revolution. I wanted to fight with that. It wasn't just Trayvon and his precious face and precious life. It was all the Trayvons. Back to back. I wanted to stand on the steps at City Hall and scream my poertry and raise my fists and show them just how crazy black women could get. How out of our minds we already were. Are. Will be.

These are the demons there are to fight. All the boys and girls with their cut short lives screaming at me, at you too. Telling me that poetry is not enough. That nothing that we do is enough enough. And on some days I just have to remind myself that we have to keep on. Fighting how we fight. Loving how we love. Because love is important too. Yes love is revolution too.

So what now? What about the voices? The screaming babies in my head. Well I'm gonna keep fighting. I'm gonna keep writing. I'm gonna keep loving. I'm gonna keep living. I hope you keep living too. We have so much work to do.

Gone

When you start off with "I don't care about the R. Kelly interview" you lost me.

Pomona. Humans. Offense.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 2:31. Pomona. Shopping center parking lot.

We are human beings and things offend us for whatever reason (because the things are offensive). Stop telling people they are easily offended. Let sebody say something about yo mama, yo daddy, yo two panty granny and watch you tizzy.

Violation

Thursday, March 7, 2019 3:01pm. Pomona. Home.

In January Uraeus and I moved out here to Pomona. Shortly after we moved in while the car was parked inside the gate very close to the front steps, someone broke in the car and stole some things. This has made me feel uncomfortable sometimes being alone here, even in the day. I'm more and more comfortable the longer I'm here but sometimes I get that uneasy feeling. I had it earlier when Uraeus left for work but I feel better right now. I've been a little uneasy period lately so it wasn't just the robbery although that didn't help. But like I said, I'm good right now. I just had to go through a process where I'm used to being alone again.

I'm cleaning up now and hanging pictures on the walls and slowly making this my home. It's temporary though because we're both trying to make our way to L.A. But we are gonna be home while we're here.

I hope you're doing well.

Love yourselves.

Preacher man

Dear preacher man
Preacher woman
Preacher boy, preacher girl
Where yo oil at
We fighting off demons down here
We piecing rent together
Trying to stay alive
A hundred dollars here
Two hundred there
Five here another one over there
You care about my soul or not
You care our kids eat or not
What you gonna do about these girls missing
These boys coming up dead
Deacon Johnson fingers between her legs

Preacher man, preacher woman
Lean in real close
Lemme tell you something
Don't nobody give a good damn about yo Cadillac
What you gonna do about these cops around here
Take away my daddy
Take away my ol man
Try to take away my son

Preacher boy, preacher girl
Where yo microphones at now
Sister Bessie's baby selling her body on the corner
Brother Rufus boy buying it up
Only one they take to jail is her
Like she ain't got a family to feed
Like my tags ain't bad while I'm driving to see you
Like we ain't fighting through drug dealers
Just to see the ushers march
Hear the choir sing
See what good news you got to say
Give you all my money
You driving us to the polls or not
You gon make sure these kids eat or not
How you gon pray all day
And they taking my abortion rights away
Who gon feed this baby
Who gon give it clothes

Preacher man, preacher woman
Preacher boy, preacher girl
What you care a man kiss a man
When these babies being bullied
Taking they own lives

Preacher man, preacher woman
You better hear what we got to say
Like we don't know what we talking about
Like we ain't seen the devil hisself

Preacher man, preacher woman
Preacher boy, preacher girl

WomanPreach. Atlanta. Waiting.

Sunday, March 3, 2019. Atlanta airport

I had a good weekend at the WomanPreach event in Atlanta. I missed much of the event because I wasn't feeling well so I rested in my hotel room. The poetry section went well and I'm really glad about that. They asked really good questions and gave awesome comments. I just didn't have the enerye for all of the sections of the program. My loss.

I'm waiting to get on this plane and go to sleep. I'm still not a hundred percent. Here's hoping we have a safe and easy flight tonight.