#3030challenge poem 11

When you don't count someone as human 

you often forget they need things like rest as well/

Yes I woke up at 2:30 but I didn't sleep until 10am/

I wish you could remember/ 

I am also human/ sometimes I need rest/

and I do my best to be better everyday/ but it's impossible when you give me no leeway/

I'm not commuting murder or robbery/

even when I steal from Peter to pay Paul/ it's just the nature of the game I'm forced to play/ 

I never wanted things to be this way/

but hey,

 look who I'm talking to/

my explanations and apologies are inaudible/ 

with someone as determined as you

to keep me down. 

#3030challenge poem 11

Sent from my iPhone

#conundrum

In the future
I wonder if
we'll still love in this way
A broken ship to endure the lengthy journey
I was told forever was the destination
Must our love be
A fight at every turn?
Lessons learned from scornful words
With hindsight leading us further from the safety of the shore?
Why does black love feel more like
A head under water where we think we're breathing just fine
Unable to take a breath accepting the blues with our black because this is just how he loves us?
Will these broken down cycles of apathy and counter intuitive thinking always be what it's like to love a black man?
Will I always be too much and not enough at the same time?
Hypocrisy seems to turn him on
Wild goose chases for unicorns
Driven women who balance home cooked gourmet dishes
and creating their champagne wishes
All by ourselves
We're out here
A lady in the streets, freak in the sheets, & nurturer in between
a rock and a hard place
I'm right here
But I can't stroke your ego while I hold your hand
Black man,
please hold my hand.

Another question
Why is it that kinky hair and full hips translates to complicated?
As if you fear my complexity
I'm just being the queen
I was meant to be
The one you said
you'd wish I'd be
because that's
what you said
a king really needs
So what is it about me that's so intimidating?
Will I always be expected to keep
offering up apologies for the anticipated tragedy of loving me?
Can lost black girls find redemption in a heart and not in the heat of passion
Instead of actin for these peter pans clocked in black man skin?

I'm asking
cause I'm tired of the past
I'm tired if not being enough
when I've poured it all out
The thousand times I've runneth over
I'm tired of being bitter by proxy of my race
I'm tired of holding my anger a steady pace in place of a steady heart beat
And beating myself up for being my mothers daughter
I'm tired of rebirthing his existence yet still be discounted in favor of women of simplicity
I don't want to someone he wishes he never met
The one he's actually unable to forget
And one day may regret his decision to leave.
Because we both know he'll never find another me
Yet even knowing this
Is not comforting
Cause I've still got kids to raise
on my own
I've still got to be the anchor
and cornerstone of the home created
and we broke
and yet
I don't get the luxury
of giving up on trying to solve this puzzle with your piece still missing.

-JSC2014
www.artlovesher.com

Sent from my iPhone

#inspired

Inspired to write of the delight I get from being around you
No one else has the effect that you do
Bag it up and sell it
Mami you are a drug
You got me lifted
Gifted
Feigning for you love
Wondering what it smells, tastes, feels like
I be like
Those addicts on 25th
Only breathing because it feels right
And I want you
Every last drop of your body
Probably
The liquor talking for me
Saying all the things
I'm too shy to say
You've been the bright

Bus rides on Harlem

I've decided 

That from now on

Every time

Any time

I am met with unwanted stares of passerby 

Be it curiosity, bewilderment, adoration or side-eye

I will smile

A small defensive action of grace

For them 

An opportunity to save face

Who knows

It may be exactly what they needed today. 

-jsc 2014

Sent from my iPhone

Winter in NY

#dearnewyorkers

(Natives not transplants)

Stop acknowledging the weather as if this cold was unexpected

As if winter was a lark only spoken of in fairy tales

You knew it was coming

Don't act surprised

Nor be unprepared

Break out the goose down and strut yourself wherever you please

Because one day you'll wake up

And suddenly

It will be spring

-JSC 2014

Sent from my iPad

Sour grapes

The real shame of it is that I will write love poems for you until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east
In a fickle attempt to turn back time
And unmake these oceans I still shed in silence
every day
As I watch the gap between us ever widening
With growth spurts and short skirts
I chase empty love affairs to fill the canyons you left
Captured in Polaroid image
Their faces fade in record time
Recollections of names get mixed in with memories of our early days
Heinekens & Jameson shots,
Dancing in the dark
Tangled bodies
Cigarette breaks without ashtrays during 8 hour marathons
Like
The first time you said you loved me
I lived until I died at your hands
Yet still I will write you love poems until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east
Until am young again and a woman you desire
The woman I aspire to be is the one of your dreams
I slave away for you
Chained to a greatness too huge to hold inside me
So I birthed it into reality
For you
Only for you
I died a little that day
Sacrifices what was meant to be the best of me
Of us
Because you said it was necessary
I selected the worst case scenario
Believing it was best for us
Because you said it was
Because you said it
You loved me
And left me
To be an eye
Peering through the looking glass of hindsight
Makes perspective skewed
Cause I still write love poems for you
I celebrate our creations
The joys of life
Kissing boo boos
hugging colds into oblivion
Battling Lego robots on snow days
Anything for a smile
Giving all I have and finding what I don't to provide security &
Comfort food
Painting trails hoping you will follow
And find me home
waiting for the sun to rise in the west and set in the east
Writing love poems for you.

-JSC 2014
Www.artlovesher.com

Woundedhood

Before anything,
I am black.
After that
I am woman
But talk to me of black womanhood and you will find a black girl lost
Stuck in a haze of the worlds making
Pinocchio in the grand scheme
Confused by all the outside voices
Pulling me to their depictions of my beauty
What it should be
Lighter then dark
Straighter then kink
But curly is ok
Curly is ok?

Ok

Twist me up a new do
Remake me over again
Self declared masters of the universe
so arrogant
to believe they can improve upon perfection
If we're made in gods reflection at what point did we decide her design was not good enough?
I have had enough
My appearance is not neglect
It is love
Care for the gift
For nature was already made perfect
Only humans seem to not approve of what has been provided
Rather we
Would prefer to be divided.
Split into clicks over petty differences
It's all oppressive
These systems in which we live
We cling to like mothers tit
Mother culture,
please hit me again .
I'm faded
And my high is coming down
Black girl lost in a haze of the worlds making
Don't make me over
I love my black
Make me know more
I love my womanhood
You should:
-Know better
-Be better
-Better yet
Learn to see me first.
I am black
I am woman
And I ain't changing for you.


-jsc 2014 www.artlovesher.com





Sent from my iPhone