Why I feel like a hypocrite

For all my talk about community, for all of my focus on how love comes around and is best known through a tight relational body, for all my belief that true friends get in your face - no one has asked me the difficult questions recently.

Not that my friends haven't been calling me or responding to my calls. I've not been neglected or trotted off to failure. The cold, lonely hands of time are not within sight or sound. I haven't been left begging for contact in the streets or hungry for conversation.

But I haven't been asked the difficult questions. I haven't been handled aggressively, shaken for all my fruits. And a large part of that is my intentional fault.

Really, who wants to be rankled? Who wants to be condemned, abused, mistreated? Who wants to be uncomfortable? Who wants to worry that a slipped word in conversation can lead to an ill-proportioned gossip-monster?

But I think the problem is, who wants to trust? Who wants to stop doing what he feels is convenient, comfortable or pleasurable? Who wants to be held accountable?

God is not mocked, we reap what we sow. I think, in some ways, I've sown the whirlwind.

I need a confessor. Good Lord.

Drive (unfinished)

sometime 'tween the beginning and the driving
we were trying for the very first again
a shoving, easy pulley out and in
like a baby had lost her legs
i don't know which way
i should shop this grin

somewhere 'tween the end and the bends
between the engine 'n' the lead
found myself pulling for breakfast
made room at the top of the drag
ice don't bear enough friction
spun camaro pulled
close into the snow

how often i travel faster than friction
found in the relationship of the grooves
and the gravel, pavement, is loose
before fact pulls its queen of fiction
before the devil's secretary takes diction
and i'm trapped between blue lights and no pavement
no race, no movement

*taps on mic*

Did a look at the whore scare you all?

Have we abandoned this blog?

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!

lol, sorry had to put that there.

I just wanted to come here and say HAHAHA, I'M GRADUATING, SUCKAAAAS!!! IN YOUR FACE DEVIL! Cuz you know, Satan has had a hit out on me since I was conceived (like *really*, he really doesn't like me!) But that's cool. I take it as a compliment.

Recently I wrote A-dizz and told him that I wasn't excited about graduating, and at the time I wrote the email I did feel that way. I was actually quite bitter about it all. But today, after waking up with tears in my eyes over a highly distubring dream (about my ex, ugh), encountering my mom's recent depression, having to deal with the heartaches that come with being a young aunt, and facing troubling woes with my father head-on, I HAD to pray. Prayer was the only thing that would keep me from crumbling into my own weary pit of hell. (You see Satan was attacking my emotions, because he knows that I'm an emotional person.)

Whomever said prayer doesn't work obviously doesn't know how to pray. I've never been so instantly relieved. God has been revamping my prayer life in miraculous ways...it's like a whole new creation is taking place in me. And my question is finally answered: A Creator never stops creating.

I got up off of my knees and understood that: I'm graduating with a degree in Grace. A little Christology certification at the side, and a minor in Abundant Life. God is setting me up for the big bad world, and at the same time, setting me up for greatness.

I prayed for my family.
I prayed for my friends (I prayed that we all continue to develop in courage, success, honor and integrity).
And I also prayed, for me.

I prayed that everything I touch, do, become and encounter will be blessed. And not only that, but strengthened with power that can only come from up above.

I thank God for that.
And I thank God for my graduation.

It's nothing to take lightly, and I realize that now.

I'm learning to walk in victory y'all.
And it's a journey that I hope to see all of you on, right along with me.

B"H.
BS"D.

Shalom.

A Look at the Whore

Perfume wafted in the air, heavy like the steps of a man too heavy to walk home after carousing. It threatened to take down the unsuspecting, but to the familiar, to the one willing to part with some silver or gold, its bearer would willingly lay herself down like an old horse.

We had talked about her in the shadows, and deliberately avoided her name in the open - for fear that people would know that we know of her existence. She is a nomad, with no home; as one of our poet-prophets spoke years ago, "Like a rolling stone, no direction home."

There are other reasons we do not look in her direction. It is not so much fear of the elders. For maybe we know too much of the elders. Maybe we've smelled a bit of a waft on them also, as if they were washing their sleeves in her hair. No one wants to be brought out in public, or embarrassed, but it would not be a shaming finger from the elders that do us in.

I think it is her eyes. Not the mascara. Not the bruises that the mascara covers. Although we've wondered who these men are that would or could treat a woman in such a way. Or rather, how low a woman has to be before she is no longer considered a sister, an aunt, a mother, a daughter.

It is not so much her eye color, not the hazel, the rich light coffee. It is what is inbetween her eyes, the darting pupils. It is the slightest touch of life, as if she knows she deserves so much better and one day she will awake and demand much better, she will leave everything and everyone in her path like the furious winds that drag our homes into the sky, she will demand - no, she will forcefully receive - her dignity, her grace, her children, her true lot in life.

She is not of this world. She should not be trapped in it.

Wouldn't it be really funny...

...if you came here one day after a few weeks of absence (as we all do), only to find that Gabi has been blogging here everyday, and drawing huge crowds and comments?
That'd be the business!

Chu'ch Girl (pt.1)

Disclaimer: This is a lil graphic. But it's REAL. And this DOES happen in churches all across North America, from what I know at least. I don't want any of y'all to be offended, but ummm...well, just let the story speak for itself. It's fiction of course, like ALL my stories on here. (Bet ya didn't know that!)

~

Sit up straight. Smile when they talk to you. Make sure you show how happy you are to see them. Make them believe it. Make them think you are genuine. And for Pete’s sake girl, make sure you’re face is washed and refreshed after the sermon. Nobody likes a sweaty little girl…

Instructions were what I was used to every Sunday. This wasn’t an intrusion on my daily life though, because this was the spiritual alternative to what I dealt with all the time.
My mother.
Head deaconess.
Children’s and Youth Choir Director.
Head Chairwoman of the Outreach Committee.
And when the Nurse In Charge was sick on any given Sunday, she became the replacement. Her skills didn’t even reach past 2nd year nursing school in the Virgin Islands.
She was Mrs. Williamson-Smith. The most respected and applauded churchwoman since 1927, when the Holy Ghost fell upon her in front of family and friends, and she began to prophesy. Up to this day, most members of the Southwind Holy Spirit of Fire Baptist church still don’t know what really happened that faithful day of March 16th, 1927. But older members proclaim it being the most spirit filled performance to date in the church.
That word rang out annoyingly to me: performance.
Did God execute church productions?
I never thought so.
But knowing my mother, I’m sure she made it seem that way.

_________


-It’s cramped in here Carlos.
-Shhh shh shh…just undo your blouse. Quickly. Hurry!
-Okay, okay. Relax. Just remember that—
-I know, I know ‘it’s your first time’—
-Right. Please don’t rush me. I feel strange enough already…

He picked out the prayer closet by the empty storage room. We were on the second floor of the administration wing at Southwind. It was Sunday. 12:30 in the afternoon. Right when the hooping and hollering started up before the long winded sermon, I let out the most daring scream. It bellowed down the halls of the abandoned wing, but no one caught it. Or caught us for the matter.
I lost my virginity at 13.
I got pregnant at 14 and a half.

____________


-Ahhhh Deacon Randolf, nice to see you again.
I forced a smile.
-Same to you pretty little miss, how have you been doing?
-Fine.

I stopped myself from saying anything else.
He caught my taut jaw, and my glance down to floor. Slowly, I looked back up and saw his neck crooked--face incredulous--expecting me to say more.

I bet.

-You sure you’re okay little lady?
-Yessir, today is the day that the Lord has made…

I faded off in hopes he would continue, and surely he did. With a wide mouth, head back, laughing gauntly with eyes shut tight. My eyes were black and pressed on him. He touched my right shoulder gently and said that my momma sure done raised me proper. That I’d be a fine deaconess one day. That God sure has favor on me. Maybe one day I’d even run the choir—
Nausea hit me at that instant.
I smiled ghastly, and said ‘good-day’ hurriedly so I could run to the basement bathroom. I didn’t want to be questioned why my puke was green with the cabbage sauce and saugage links I cooked up this morning. Or why when I peed it was yellower than usual. Or that my breasts were awfully full for a young, wiry thing like me. Or why Mrs. Delloware often heard gasps and grunts every other Sunday since June…

I swear on the Holy Book, Celia. People are in that prayer room during service. Oh why I was there? I needed to get art supplies for the children’s activities.
Where is Lucia anyway? She hasn’t been in the front pews lately…has she?

I heard my mother smiling from across the atrium. I glanced over and bowed my head politely. Everyone was expecting me to glow on Sunday’s, and I never let them down. I saw Carlos by the secretary office and he smiled at me. I looked at him quickly, then dazed. I didn’t return the gesture, it would’ve looked too obvious. Everyone at Southwind had a second pair of eyes when it came to me and the boys. I was the prettiest little black girl to ever exist they said. Too bad I was so dark though. Black, but pretty.

Deacon Smith should’ve produced a lighter child…

I heard the pastor’s wife whisper that to the treasury lady one day after Sunday school. I rolled my eyes in my head just for the satisfaction.

If they ever knew how their sons wanted my bluish-black body. How they craved it. And came to my room at nights sometimes just to taste my flesh. But I wouldn’t let ‘em.
Blackberries are the juiciest they say.
Carlos had his fill more than anyone else...

Sometimes at night I could feel Satan lurking in my closet.

He's the one who chases all of the monsters away.




TO BE CONTINUED...

Life is...

My camera never took good pictures on perfect days. Sunny, warm, fluffy obese clouds. It just couldn’t focus, and my pictures always had a purple-red glow emanating from them. I just couldn’t give it up though. I was always entranced by the blue up high.

“Azure!”, said the voice beside me.

He was mumbling Italian words before, but I never heard him clearly because the stinking sweet of Amaretto filled up the space he occupied. I quietly enjoyed it. Covered my face in disgust so he couldn’t participate in my delicious delight. I once loved Amaretto, and I miss its soft burn in the bottom of my belly.

“Azure, bella, azure…toe-day deh sky, it breze.”

I turned around and looked at him straightway, and his head was high in the cloudiness above. Smiling this ridiculous smile as the wind guided itself across his face. He breathed it in as one would lap up water after a midday’s jog. He was talking to me but he didn’t even have his eyes on me. Much less open.

“Bella, toe-day you see juss how much azure can fill yourrr pam!” and he held his hands high, attempting to reach its impossible heights, but his determination almost made me think that he could.

He stretched for a long time, stopping short of a breath.

Then he decided to climb down and slump. Looking ahead in an almost dead stare.

“I hold deh key to life, you know, miss…I hold…deh secret toe all living tings.”

I started to gather my things. Clearly, this man was lost from his permanent psych ward residence. How he landed in the middle of Thornhill was a little disturbing.

“No, no!! No leave! I give you…look, look! Look, miss, I give you!”

I calmed down and sat back down. Looking at this old, dingy Italian man, rummaging through his little paper bag of God-knows-what. He was digging for gold it seemed. Rapidly, fast paced and breathing as if it was his last, he crumbled that bag in and out, upside down, rightside up and in and out again…and then, he smiled. He grinned and laughed aloud. So loud the men at the full service gas station across the street took a second glance at his commotion. I was mesmerized and a little weirded out by this dingy old man in his linen beige top. He wore brown pants, with one distinct hole right above the left knee. Black sandals, black socks. A fedora hat, but half of one, almost. Looks like part of it was burnt off. And there he was laughing his might away, clutching this unseen object in his little paper bag.

He was laughing for a good 2 minutes, until I decided someone needed to say something. As I was about to politely tell him where to go, he stopped abruptly and looked at me. His eyes were blacker than before and he held out his palm, stretched tautly into a fist-full of his God-knows-what-secret-of-life-and-all-living-things thingy.

He asked me in the softest, most paternal voice “You shure you want to see it?”

“Yes, geez, just show it to me already!!!”

He slowly moved his hand close to my face, opened it up finger by finger…and then, I saw it…

…in all its mystical glory…

I beheld the key to life.

And it was a…