Oddballs Don't Bounce.

moving to tumblr.

2011-01-17T17:28:00.001-08:00

won't be posting on here anymore- find me here: http://oddballsdontbounce.tumblr.com

=]

Chapbook Review by Simone Carlene

2010-12-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

from www.simonecarlene.com

"

Chapbook Review: “Vandalism” by Safia Elhillo

I’ve been looking for inspiration everywhere for a while now. Underneath the sofa, on the E train and behind Eric’s Will Smith ears. I purchased a few books over the summer that were recommended to me by a poet and breezed through the first two. Those were love stories and if you know me, you know I’ll read ANYBODY’S damn love story. The third one, written by a hardcore feminist, was just too much for me. I couldn’t follow what she was saying. I left that book in an African Hair braiding shop on 125th st in Harlem and didn’t even care to go back when I realized it wasn’t in my bag.

Safia probably won’t remember this but I met her once. One of her friends decided to give me a preview of what it was like to be surrounded by positive energy and at the time, I desperately needed that. It was actually around this same time last year and one of the most memorable nights of my life. I was quiet but I listened and soaked up every word and movement as if it were my responsibility to study the inner beauty these women wore proudly on their collar bones like three dimensional butterfly tattoos.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon her blog and nearly rolled off my bed when I found out she was publishing a chapbook. Paypal was being a hater at the time but after resolving some issues with my login, I snagged it up.

I carried it around for days thinking I’d have time at work to read it. Major fail. I was too busy trying not to roll my neck and keep calm and carry on and all that. It was a rough week. lol

Last night, I started reading and by the end of it all, I was in tears. Vandalism isn’t just a book of pretty poems sprinkled with iambic pentameter and alliteration. It’s a handbook for love, for being beautiful without permission slip or green light, for never forgetting where you came from, for keeping your ancestors proud no matter how much the times have changed.

There are some things that never change.

There will always be moonlight and hardened hearts who dream of melting into finally. There will always be that one boy who changed everything and those mornings you wish he would have been courteous enough to mail you your old self back.

There will always be poets who can piece your entire life back together in one line. On one page. And break it down to the size of a rice grain on the next. Safia does that each and every single time. There’s something for everybody and I can only cross my fingers, toes and eyes and hope that Vandalism is just the beginning OF the beginning.

She inspires me to be a better writer.

Purchase it HERE.

Chapbook Reviews!

2010-12-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

Two words: Literary magic...no literally, this is magical. Safia liquifies the memories of her universe and pumps them directly into your veins. As you turn the pages of "Vandalism?!...and other ways to make people see things," her words blow softly, purposefully onto you, into you, like the sands of the Sahara. In her unsatiable wanderlust through the countries of her soul, this poet weaves a collection that ends way sooner than you'd like it to.
-Suhaly Bautista

... is one of the best chapbooks I've ever read in my life. The writing is poignant, beautiful, elequent. There arent enough words to say how her writing has moved me. And I feel blessed to know her and experience her writing. So here is piece of a poem from her chapbook, that has changed me. Written by Safia Elhillo, a beautiful talent-filled, 19 year old, Queen.
-Heather Thomas

Safia Elhillo's chapbook "Vandalism...and other ways to make people see things" can only be described as "what an electric storm looks like on paper". There is never a dull moment in this book. You will travel to the Sudan, speak in arabic, I hear the fears, hopes, and observations of a 19 year old coming into her own womenhood. You will find yourself in Safia's lines and walk away feeling inspired. This book is just a preview of what's to come from this writer, she will only get better.
-Nicole Najmah Abraham

A book that needed to exist in the world a long time. Words that enchant a person's eyes. Imagery full of magic that explodes a persons mind. Sounds that are too hard too hear because the beauty that is consisted within them is something we're not used to hearing. My favorite peace is "10 Things That remind Me of a Thunderstorm." That piece reminded me of vandalism and how truthful and pulchritudinous it can be. In plain words, she found majestic ways of making me see things.
-Pricelis Perreaux

Safia intricately paints pictures of the way the women in her bloodline taught her how to love. It's among the most sincerely written chapbooks I've read. Each page reveals forgiveness and a brutal honesty that will remind you of your first kiss and the moments thereafter. Best use of money for a broke student like myself next to a lottery ticket.
-Lauren G Parker

If you want your heart to be covered in chiffon, coated in sand, dipped in hot sweat, and kissed forcefully with just the right amount of tongue, read this.
-Eric Silver

Safia's "Vandalism...and other ways to make people see things" parallels traveling across seas to familiarizing oneself with the contours of the human body. A nomadic experience carrying love as a knapsack.
-Thomas ‘Tommy D’ Dilworth

if you have read the book and have a review, please send it to safasifu@hotmail.com

if you do not have the book and would like to buy a copy, here you go

chapbook is ready and for sale!

2010-10-11T13:19:00.001-07:00

buy my chapbook, "Vandalism?! ...and other ways to make people see things" here!

because oddballs still don't bounce

2010-08-14T14:35:00.001-07:00

oddballsdontbounce.tumblr.com

chapbook.

2010-08-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

i am working on a chapbook. it will probably look something like this

=]

women of my world.

2010-08-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

i love my team.

DC BNV Speak Green Piece. Kaylah and Jinahie. my loves.

2010-08-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

Found in the archives. Malik-a-leek and Saf Bundles insomnia, circa 2007. <3 <3 <3

To-Do List #2.

2010-08-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

Make war look like dance.
In the thick curl of your fists,
Remember always
That you have calligrapher's hands.
Dip the pen of your story
Into the Nile swirling in your veins;

Don't ever forget your body
Even on the nights that make it hardest to claim,
Pinned beneath the sculpture of a boy from three worlds too close
Who won't kiss you the way you like because
He sees some forgotten daintiness in you

Wear your callouses proudly
Parade the cracks in your heels
As testament to a lifetime of breaking
Prove that you are even more beautiful
When whole

Stop sabotaging beauty
Learn that men who harmonize it with your name
Are not always here to take something

Do not forget the afternoon of your life
A sun-stained love story
Sung by a boy from Brooklyn
With the most healingly beautiful hands
Remember that love is not possession
Claim the home you will always have a room in
In his chest

Meet the women of your bloodline
Warriors in jewel-tone chiffon armor
With henna-floral war-paint
Creeping up their hands

Learn from them
How to make war look like dance
Don't let anything caress the fight out of you
Paint silence on your strength

Never again kiss a boy
Who has never seen the ocean
He will know too much of boundary
Not enough of sky
Don't ever lose the sky in you
Or let anyone with silencing hands
Close enough to your scalp
To unravel the thunderstorms from your hair
There is too much drought rooted in your blood
To ever give away the rain in you

There's been too much Sahara on your cheekbones
Ever since you let the numbness in
Reteach yourself to cry
Reattach your soul to your body
Let sunrise call you home

And one morning, birth a girl
Named for a Coltrane lullaby
With calligrapher's hands
And a country all to herself
In the middle of your chest

10 Things to Ask a Stranger.

2010-08-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

[thanks to Jamaica and Asha for the prompt <3 ]

1.

What secret could you tell me
That would scrap away the glossy beauty of your anonymity
And make you commonplace, familiar.
What facts make you three-dimensional
Which parts of you do I get acquainted with
To know enough of who you are
That I fall out of love with the possibility of you.

What is your name?

2.

What characters has your body played in your story?
Did you let your heart be narrator, omniscient,
Distant, seeing all but never interacting?
Or were your hands protagonists, heroic,
Smooth and strong.
How do you set your mouth before you lie?
Where do your eyes go after you tuck them behind your eyelids?
What songs curl themselves to sleep
In the soft hairs at the nape of your neck?

3.

Do you know how beautiful you are?
How beautiful do you know you are?
Do you think you are?
What mirrors measured the allegiance
Between your face and everything housed behind it
Do you ever look at your fingers and see
Everything that has written itself into their roughness?

4.

What is your favorite time of day?
And what time is it now in the hourglass of your life?
Have you found someone to call sunrise
Are you at peace with all your twilight
When you see a sunset
Do you think of blood
Or roses
Or both?

5.

How did your lips taste
The first time you lied to your mother?

How many tongues have you invited in since then
Attempting to rinse away the guilt?

6.

Would you open an umbrella if it rained
Or do you relish the ablution
Open your mouth and invite all the thunder in
And let raindrops string themselves along your eyelashes-

Has water ever taken anything from you?
Have you forgiven it?

7.

Whose voice kisses you into each day?
Do you love it?
Is it your own?
How often do you talk to yourself?
Does yourself ever talk back?

8.

If your actions and habits and experiences
And favorite foods and past lovers and songs from your adolescence
Make you what you are,
Then who are you?

9.

When you are happy,
Does warmth spread itself through your chest, to your fingers?
And have you ever seen anything so beautiful
That it made your stomach ache?

Can you tell me about it?
--the anything AND the ache.

10.

Have you ever considered any of the answers?
Do you think that the questions themselves are what matter?

Have you considered that the questions are my attempts to fall in love with you
Do you think that the answers might reveal
The reasons I shouldn't

you should let me sell you some earrings.

2010-08-01T20:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050985&id=1092600148&l=3ba967c144
^click to browse. most have been sold, these are the remaining styles [i will be making more soon] :

[on hold]

Dadaist 1:
[Side A]
[Side B]

[on hold]

****

2 Stupid Dogs:

[Side A]
[Side B]

[on hold]

****

Dadaist 2:

[Side A]
[Side B]

$7

****
3-Step Program
[Side A]
[Side B]

[on hold]

****
Mouthful studs

[on hold]

****

Daykeeper

[Side A]

[Side B]

[on hold]

****
Norma(l)

[Side A]
[Side B]

[on hold]

****

Vandalism?!

[Side A] [Side B]

$7

****

Bandit

[Side A]
[Side B]

[on hold]

****

Wrapped Hoops
[custom made to order. include up to 4 colors with your order]

$12

****

to order, send an email to safasifu@hotmail.com with the name of the earrings and your mailing address. expect a $1 shipping/service charge. i will respond with a PayPal invoice. i will be out of the country for the entire month of August, so transactions/deliveries will be on hold until September, but i am still taking reservations.

love

wow.

2010-07-02T10:02:00.001-07:00

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
-Tom Stoppard
[thanks Murk]

3.

2010-06-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

I. Bedouin

Nomad woman, I
Never learned how to stay, for
I am for the world.

II. Atlas

Planet-sized burdens;
Your shoulders are beautiful
And the world is yours.

III. You

You caught me, I stayed
But never felt that I’d stopped
So I am for you.

[I am for the world
And the world is yours
So I am for you]

on copywriting and other mundane things of that nature.

2010-06-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

someone read my poem, "Foundling", at a poetry event in Philly on Friday. one of my teammates happened to be in the audience. this made me realize that I'm not very possessive of my work, but I figure I should put it out there that all my work is
© 2007-2010 Safia Elhillo

now back to the fun stuff:

www.MDGFive.com

this website allows you to combine photos, film, music, and poetry by artists from around the world to make a video to advocate maternal health awareness. you'll find a solo poem of mine, as well as a song I did with some Urban Word poets called "Life for a Life", on there. enjoy

#17.

2010-05-25T12:59:00.001-07:00

(first draft)

The women swimming in my veins never cry
Nor do the ones circled around the coffee tray
On afternoons where the birds swirl song in their throat
The way we do coffee dregs in our saucers and glass cups

We gather around each glass
Eager to read each others’ fortunes
Eyes starving for proof that tomorrow
The wrinkles will smooth themselves out and
The boys will come home and
Haboba will be able to walk again

Anything to forget that
The men are all ghosts or
Martyrs in training and
We’ve been suckled dry and
Most of our hair has been stolen
By brush bristles and shower drains

That the coffee cups aren’t real crystal
And haven’t been since the coup,
That the house, for all its marble and high ceilings
Is but a mocking echo
Of the royalty in our bloodline

That we were married off too young
And the boys never want to come home and
Our cheeks are hollow and
“Pass the sugar” and
We never smile with our teeth
Anymore.

Summer Uniform pt. 2

2010-05-23T09:06:00.001-07:00

#132.

2010-05-23T06:30:00.001-07:00

(second draft)

Dear Lover,
You are not the kind of man who
Can walk into a heart
And make the women in its bloodline cry,
Because I am not the kind of woman
Who cries.

There is nothing open-armed about me, 
No hinges in my shoulders to uncross my arms from this glass chest 
I have no softness in me 
No prettiness, no vulnerability 
Nothing you can unscramble and stick back together with 
The mortar of warm hands and good intentions  

Everything gentle that birthed me a girl 
Has hardened over, and calloused me into a woman 
There is nothing docile for you here.  

I always played with the boys, 
Fought like one;
 I am rough behind the eyelids  
And everything glossy about me wrinkles and stains by midday
 And everything you’ve been taught
 Affirms that women love warm and quiet like tears 
But I love like sobs, ripping chests and rubbing rawness 
Into the pinkest parts of the throat; 
Nothing about me is woman to you

  My mother loves me, 
With soothing hands and such softness; 
I’ve made everything tender-fleshed and smooth-haired about me 
Into armor and callous and grit; 
I cannot love the way my mother does 
Everything about me protects the way my mother loves

 There is nothing eyelash-and-dimple about me 
No slope of waist or arch of the back for you here
 I am not mother enough to balance love on one hip
 I only know how to balance things on my shoulders
 I only know how to love with my shoulder blades
There will be no pillows for your burdens
No lullabies for your fears
I have no warm hands for your brow, no wet tongue for your wounds
All I have are elbows and fingernails and teeth
I do not know how to love you
Like your mother did

My mother loves so bare-heartedly
A soft-skinned magnet for men whose cracks
Are jagged and bloody
Never again will I watch her flesh snag on their edges
Her headscarf stain with their chaos
Never again will a man walk into my house
And make the women cry

So I cannot love you with my tears
With my eyes, or my chest, or the nape of my neck
Everything soft about me belongs to my mother
I know nothing of gray
Only the starkest of black-and-whites
So if you are not staying, you are leaving
Do not linger
There will be no mothering
For you rest on
Here.

#82.

2010-05-22T15:04:00.001-07:00

There is no beauty quite as uncomfortable as
The one that came to be when
The girl with far too much trouble remembering where she is after blinking
Met the boy who hates the father he meets in the mirror every day
And the walls around their hearts were architecture for the picture books
When they collided it all crumbled and
Left them in love amongst the ruins

I am ruined. I have far too much trouble
Remembering where I am after I blink
I do not know how to feel and was
Never taught to cry prettily,
The art of the single tear perched upon the cheekbone; no
I am newborn in my emotions- messy and uncomfortable for anyone who watches
Flailing and screaming and throwing things
You’ve made all of this beautiful with your eyes

You have your father’s eyes and this hurts you
Though you are iceberg in your mannerisms,
Stoic in your shell, with the hat-drop fickleness of a Gemini
You credit the battlefield of your exterior
To the twin asteroids of your astrology
An armor made of stone, smooth and cold
With vinegar and baking soda for a temper
Bubbling just beneath the surface;
Has anyone ever told you
That your hands are so beautiful?

Their is an art to preserving ruins,
And I am learning to museum my process
And restore the missing parts of me
I am aware of the gaping holes they left
Because you love everything around them
You love me, and this makes me want to be whole

You’re not as winter as you’d like to think
Proof lays in the summer of your star sign
And the warmth I found tucked into your chest
And how I feel beneath your lips.
You are all the faces of a diamond in your fickleness
Catching the light with every change.
Brush the last of the shadows away;
Look how beautiful you are.

beginnings of a piece

2010-05-21T08:06:00.001-07:00

in light of recent talks of South Sudan seceding, and Sudan being permanently split.

Daughters and sons of sun and sand
The most broken things come in fours
And we’ve been halved our whole lives
Sons and daughters of a broken land
Cracked by a river in two
In twos, we are cracked but not yet broken
Halve us again and we are fragments
Four pieces
Of what was once everything whole and strong and home

It’s been said that secession is inevitable
That, on lands greased with blood and oil,
It’s but a matter of time until we slip
And fall and break our home
We’ve always been the children of a broken home
Without borders between brothers
To remind us, born of lands split by a river in two,
To step on the crack
And break our mother’s back once more
The most motherless things come in fours

to be continued.

I shop at Forever 21, BUT...

2010-05-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

...this is not okay. Their latest Twist capsule collection, "Techno Tribal", is made up of pieces like the "Techno Tribeswoman Sweater Top", "Wild Tribeswoman Tunic", "Beaded Native Dress", "Tribal Fashionista Top", and "Joy of the Hunt Tunic".
The product description of the "Ivory Coast Love Tunic" is, I kid you not, as follows: "This soft cotton tunic features the graphic print of a monkey in a gilded cage underneath the phrase, "Love in the Ivory Coast" written in French.". Monkeys, animal prints, "tribeswomen", hunting... Africa?
On behalf of the "wild tribespeople", "natives", "tribal fashionistas", and people who know that Africa is NOT, contrary to what the Twist designers may believe, an exotic faraway land of savages and monkeys and cheetah-skin loincloths...WTF?

really though??
not okay.

maybe i'll finish April's 30/30 after all.

2010-05-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

I've been in a writing-rut, craving something new, so most of my writing is weird experiments these days. Lots of prose, lots of playing with spacing and punctuation. Lots of poems that just turn into journal entries [funny, I never was one to keep a journal]

Day...24?

I expected to cry more,
But all I am
_____is
Full to the throat with such tightness-- constricted
__________and
The tears don’t even feel like crying
___Leaking,
_________maybe.
i need to sob and wail and be messy, but i can’t and so maybe this isn’t really over because i can’t rip it into pieces and wash it away. maybe it isn’t over.
(maybe i just don’t know how)

Lacoste x Married to the Mob

2010-05-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

I went through quite the sneaker phase in high school. The only reason I really outgrew it was that it was HELL trying to pack all those shoes up to go to college. Now that I'm done with school for the summer, I feel a relapse coming on. These are beautiful. Like actually BEAUTIFUL. Lacoste x Married to the Mob "Hiromi" sneakers:

sigh.

I don't have a TV

2010-05-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

...but I, along with some of the most beautiful people I know, will be featured on MSG's Knicks Poetry Slam documentary series. Here's the preview- I had a feeling I was really incoherent in that interview:

http://www.watchmojo.com/tv/Grab/Madison%20Square%20Garden/4112006/

and what would life be without bootleg screenshots???:

official request for Damien Rice to ghostwrite all my poems.

2010-05-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

seriously though. and maybe marry me while he's at it.

"Still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
Still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
Still a little hard to say what's going on

Still a little bit of your ghost your witness
Still a little bit of your face I haven't kissed
You step a little closer each day
Still I can't say what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball"

-Cannonball

"Don't hold yourself like that
You'll hurt your knees
I kissed your mouth and back
But that's all I need
Don't build your world around volcanoes melt you down

What I am to you is not real
What I am to you you do not need
What I am to you is not what you mean to me
You give me miles and miles of mountains
And I'll ask for the sea"

-Volcano

"Silent night,
Broken night.
All is fallen,
When you take your flight
I found some hate for you,
just for show.
You found some love for me,
thinking I'd go.
Don't keep me from crying to sleep
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night,
Moonlit night.
Nothing's changed.
Nothing is right.
I should be stronger then,
weeping alone.
You should be weaker then,
sending me home.
I can't stop you fighting to sleep.
Sleep in heavenly peace. "

-Silent Night

aghhhasdljwieo;njkew;o!!!!!

wow.

#131.

2010-05-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

(fun fact: i tend to give my unfinished poems numbers [in no actual order] instead of titles)

There is nothing open-armed about me,
No hinges in my shoulders to uncross my arms from my glass chest
I have no softness in me
No prettiness, no vulnerability
Nothing you can unscramble and stick back together with
The mortar of warm hands and good intentions

Everything gentle that birthed me a girl
Has hardened over, and calloused me into a woman
There is nothing for you here.

I always played with the boys,
Fought like one;
I am rough behind the eyelids
And everything glossy about me wrinkles and stains by midday
And everything you’ve been taught
Affirms that women love warm and quiet like tears
But I love like sobs, ripping chests and rubbing rawness
Into the pinkest parts of the throat;
Nothing about me is woman to you.

My mother loves me,
With soothing hands and such softness;
I’ve made everything tender-fleshed and smooth-haired about me
Into armor and roughness and grit;
I cannot love the way my mother does
Everything about me is to protect the way my mother loves

There is nothing eyelash-and-dimple in me
No slope of waist or arch of back for you here
I am not mother enough to balance love on one hip
I only know how to balance things on my shoulders
I only know how to love with my shoulderblades
My mother carried me on her hip
And for those moments I was allowed the only softness
That I would ever know
I am building a throne for her on my back
Never again will we love
On our backs
There will be
Nothing flat, nothing paved,
Nothing road and travelled and bypassed
About us
If you’re not staying, you are leaving
So do not linger-
There will be no soft
For you to sit on
Here

because I should be studying...

2010-04-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

...so naturally, I'm not. Adding to the accumulating spring/summer wishlist, aka "I need a job" part 2.

F21 Graven Linen Blazer

StyleSofia Ally Long Tapered Pants
(I've been stalking these forever, but PayPal is not my friend)

Topshop Bralet

F21 Boatneck Striped Top

Deena & Ozzy Pin Stud Boot

80's Purple "pointer" vintage sunglasses

Gojane crinkle leatherette strappy wedge

80's Purple "le vash" round vintage sunglasses

online window shopping will be my downfall.

this woman of my heart.

2010-04-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

"Pride" by Warsan Shire. Her words, over the past year or so, have become an integral part of my days.
She has a heart to write/sing/create/pray about.

Pride

I do not beg you to stay
because I am begging god
that you do not leave.

-Warsan Shire

http://warsanshire.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-8.html

I have destructive impulses.

2010-04-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

I recently bought a pair of bleach-streaked jeans from Urban Outfitters. Not because I liked them, not because they were flattering, and not because they actually even fit me. No- I'm not that practical. I bought them because they were $9, and I wanted a pair of jean cutoff shorts that were baggy enough to make up for how short they were.

I cut the jeans. I now wear the shorts almost everywhere. But I don't like wasting anything, and the shorts are short enough that there was a LOT of leftover leg fabric from the original pair of jeans.

In the 11th grade, I bought a hooded pleather jacket with fur on the hood, in a size XS because I thought it was cute to wear tiny clothing. By senior year, I'd cut the fur off the hood. A few months ago, I realized that the sleeves were too short- so of course, I cut them off and was left with a hooded pleather vest. And then never wore it.

I somehow decided to sew the legs of the jeans onto the vest as sleeves. It worked. I now have a leather-and-denim (one of my favorite combinations) jacket, which I wear everywhere.

I also need to stop cutting up all my clothes. But I know I won't. So, the next project is this Slash-Back Tank from the F21 blog (click the link for the instructions):

Also in the process of cutting up one of my mother's old kimono-bathrobe things (which, fun fact, she wore while pregnant with me) into a jacket. She told me she wasn't attached to it, and was okay with me cutting it. So of course I cut it. Pictures soon.

Moral of the story: someone needs to confiscate my scissors.

Summer Uniform.

2010-04-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

with an Arizona sweet tea and a beef patty.

CUPSI cipher.

2010-04-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Reading "8." [click the link for the full text of the piece] at one of the MANY ciphers at CUPSI, with my lovely Murktarat singing "The Truth" by India Arie- impromptu group piece.
"Really? Really? On the first try though?" -Murk

On Men.

2010-04-19T00:03:00.000-07:00

“...with him, in his presence, they could cry. Cry and tell him things they only told each other: that time didn’t stay put; that she called, but Howard and Buglar walked on down the railroad track and couldn’t hear her; that Amy was scared to stay with her because her feet were ugly and her back looked so bad; that her ma’am had hurt her feelings and she couldn’t find her hat anywhere and ‘Paul D?’
‘What, baby?’
‘She left me.’
‘Aw girl. Don’t cry.’
‘She was my best thing.’”

-Toni Morrison, Beloved.

"Scalding" at CUPSI.

2010-04-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, Preliminary Bout #2. NYU Slam Team group piece with Tonya Ingram. We love each other.

90's comeback. Thank you.

2010-04-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

from ApparelNews.net

"Play Me Jeans Debuts With '90s Styles and '90s Pricing

by Erin Barajas, Manufacturing Editor April 02, 2010

LIKE IT'S 1990: Body-conscious cuts meet stone washes and sequins.

PLAY WITH US: Play Me founders Eric Espinoza (left), Christine Lai (center) and Tom Hirota (right)

NOT JUST JEANS: Play Me's offerings include sweats, leggings and sequined pants.

Sometimes less is more; sometimes more is more.

Los Angeles–based Play Me Jeans, founded by Christine Lai and Eric Espinoza of UNIF and Tom Hirota of Joyrich, falls solidly in the “more is more” camp. Inspired by the ’90s (when models wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000) and priced to sell, Play Me Jeans launched for Summer 2010 with a full collection of men’s and women’s fashion bottoms, including jeans, sweats, shorts and novelty fabrics. Wholesale prices for the collection range from $27 to $45, with retail prices topping out at $95.

“Between UNIF and Joyrich, we had a large account base, and many of our retailers have been asking us for bottoms,” Lai said. And while $100 jeans are a big focus for many brands, Lai said, a lot of those jeans are super-basic. “Ours are more fashion-forward and cheaper.”

Made in China, Play Me’s ’90s-inspired jeans are anything but basic. Women get shredded denim shorts with sequins peeking through slashes, acid-washed skinny jeans covered in animal-print patches, and high-waist denim biker shorts featuring faded floral denim cuffs and waistbands. Guys get in on the fun with jeans sporting tonal studs on the knees, white jeans printed with lines of text, thrashed jeans with studded underpanels and leopard-print skinny jeans.

Lai—who designs UNIF’s women’s offerings and has a background designing private-label denim for companies such as Charlotte Russe, Urban Outfitters and Forever 21— said Play Me hopes to land in better boutiques, surf/skate shops and online at shops such as Karmaloop and Nasty Gal Vintage. Distributors in Japan, Australia and Canada have picked up the line and are having success selling it. “The pricing is very popular,” Lai said.

For more information, visit www.playmejeans.com."

yessssssssssssssssssss.

30/30.

2010-04-05T08:27:00.001-07:00

I'm 5 days late. But I want to start.

#81.

2010-03-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

I.

I have met the most beautiful pair of hands
To ever fingerprint graffiti claims across the territory of my skin.
Hands like vandals who know, to their very core,
That they are artists

II.

Daughter of Diaspora that I am
I rarely unpack my heart, so it sits
At the bottom of a well-worn suitcase
Waiting for the nomad song that swirls my blood
To remind me just how good I am at leaving;
I love like knowing
That I’ll be gone in the morning.

III.

I found you/ you found me
Time stopped to watch it happen
I keep having to remind myself to blink.

IV.

There must have been a time
Before your voice. Before I poured my tired bones into your arms
And watched your breath form the cloud cover
Over my mountain-range goosebumps.
Before the kiss that set New York City ablaze,
That burned the skyline of my “I don’t give a fuck” to the ground.

There must have been a time before you
But it doesn’t matter anymore.

V.

Tonight we are in a dorm room
In downtown Manhattan
Soaking in the moon

Your eyes on my skin
Feel like sunlight
A reminder of why I prefer being tan

VI.

In this very same room,
With the moon seeking silence behind the skyline
There are things I want to say to you in Arabic
In the language that I love in
In the words that sculpted me a heartbeat
Before I put it away for safekeeping

VII.

I love you past my hand-me-down English
Past language, past accent, past mispronunciation
I love you, past “I love you”:
أحبك

VIII.

You have the most beautiful hands.

Update.

2010-03-17T00:23:00.000-07:00

a) I'm in Miami. Sunlight and starfruit [no, really- it grows fresh in the back yard]. Brown skin goes with everything =]

b) I've been on hiatus. Taking care of myself. Sleeping, praying, waking up with the city. 7am yoga classes. Bubble baths and du'aa and reacquainting myself with my space. A reminder of why I'm so possessive of my alone time- I love it. I am happy. Well-rested, clear-minded, full-hearted. As it should be.

c) 3rd [and last] year on the DC Youth slam team. Tryout video:

d) Latest obsessions:
-Pandora. I can listen to endless playlists of cheesy 90's R&B (THE BEST!!!) and old-school reggae.
(gojane)
(jeremy scott for adidas) these are legitimately an obsession. this pic was the background on my phone for awhile. it's serious.
-Alice in Wonderland in 3D. One of my favorite stories anyway- bonus points for incorporating parts of the poem "Jabberwocky" into the script. I had to memorize the poem in the 5th grade, and still know parts of it-
"'twas brillig, and the slithy toves, did gyre and gimble in the wabe. all mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome raths- outgrabe. beware the jabberwock my son, with claws that catch and jaws that bite. beware the jubjub bird and shun the fruminous bandersnatch".

these are the things that take up space in my mind. I am not ashamed.

RIP Umi Munira

2010-01-31T17:58:00.001-08:00

A eulogy for my great-grandmother, written by my mother:

"Thank you for your kind support and messages of condolences. My grandmother would have turned 90 this year. She was an incredible woman of strength and will. She was educated at the American missionary school in Khartoum and completed elementary level (that was the highest education provided for girls at the time). At the young age of 16, she became the wife of a statesman. Notwithstanding her young age, she managed a home open to the masses from all parts of the country displaying the best of Sudanese hospitality regardless of rank. Her home hosted tribal chiefs and poor citizens who came to the capital for services or support as well as foreign officials and royalty. She accompanied my grandfather on trips across the country, meeting farmers and their families and in Europe and the Middle East meeting kings and queens. She took every opportunity to learn as she recounted to us once how in a state dinner at a fancy restaurant in Italy, she asked about a dish and requested to meet the chef who demonstrated how the dish was made; that dish became a favorite that she prepared for the hundreds of guests who ate at her home. In the 1950s she established an NGO with a group of women to help the unfortunate members of society. Despite her social activities, she gave birth to six children and brought them to be successful members of society. She managed to gracefully merge modernity with tradition. She was literate and played piano when most women at the time were denied education and were invisible in public space, and she took seriously her role as wife and mother. She leaves behind six children, 26 grandchildren and 32 great grandchildren and a legacy of a truly exceptional woman."

To-Do List.

2010-01-27T11:31:00.000-08:00

inspired by "Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair" by Jeanann Verlee. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCErQ4bviIY

To-Do List. (to be continued)

Write things down until you can remember
Do not write poems in your journal
Be straightforward

There is a reggae song
That makes you happy somewhere in the middle of your chest;
Play it often.
Learn to sing in the shower
Learn to think out loud
Talk to yourself
Talk more
Show the upperclassmen in your research seminar
How big your voice can be from the back of the classroom.

Wear your hair out. Your eyeliner bright.
Make your presence known.
Acknowledge that the blinds will always be broken, will never close.
Appreciate the natural light they usher in
While considering calling maintenance,
But just in case,
Learn to match your panties to your bra.

Flirt all you want
Reclaim everything that went missing
Reclaim your body
Release the tainted fourteen-year-old from your hips
And let them swing.
Wear your hair out. Let them tell you it smells like jasmine
Don’t let him near your lotus
If it’s for him and not for you;
Don’t ever let him call you greedy.

Stop feeling guilty about things that don’t matter
Apologize only when you mean it
Stop being reckless if it is only for the sake of poem confessions
Only sleep when you’re tired. Stop missing out on daylight.

Remember what happened.
Tell him exactly where it still hurts, then hang up before he can answer;
Show you no longer want anything from him.

Tell your mother that you love her so much
That your chest aches. Tell her that was not a metaphor.
Stop saying you don’t know love
When you have a brother whose existence
Is enough to teach you exactly what it is

Go to his basketball games.
Think of how bright your mother glowed
In the front row of your first open mic.
Sit in the front row of every game.

Tell The Boy exactly how
The beauty mark on his lower lip makes you feel
Suck the black-and-mild taste from his mouth. Don’t smoke.
Hold his hand in public.
Look at his hands as often as you’d like
Say every poem they make you think
Breathe with him.

Spend an hour of each day
Thinking entirely in Arabic
Embrace the loudness of your laughter
Laugh open-mouthed.

Don’t forget how to pray
Look your reflection in the eyes and thank God for your face
Thank God for your body;
Twice on days when you have no breasts and an oily forehead.
Wear your hair out. Let it catch the wind.
Put coconut oil on the ends
Drink coconut milk as often as it makes you happy. Often.
Shed your coconut-shell exterior
Say what you feel
Remember how to feel
Remember
Remember
Write things down
Until you start
To remember

WE ARE TRYING TO GET THIS TO CNN SO PLEASE SHARE!!!!!!!

2010-01-19T12:32:00.000-08:00

"Haiti" by Carvens Lissaint. Love you, love you, love you.

Haiti.

2010-01-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

(pics from, and more on: http://haitiliveradio.com)

"If you have family in Haiti you can also try contacting 888 407 4747 for more information on them."

"Subscribers of participating wireless carriers can donate $5 to
American Red Cross disaster relief efforts simply by text messaging the
keyword “GIVE” to “2HELP” (24357). Donation...s will appear on customers'
monthly bills or be debited from a prepaid account balance. Message and
data rates may apply. To opt-out, send "STOP" to 24357"

"If you are in the US text Yele to 501 501 and 5 dollars will go toward earthquake relief in Haiti"

"Red Cross needs Creole speaking volunteers for a 24 hour PHONE BANK! Br. Wilford @ 305-776-6900"

"Medical professionals needed. Airlines are working with consulate. Call 212-697-9767 to volunteer"

donate. volunteer. reach out to someone. pray. do something.

important.

2010-01-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

this makes me feel too many ways.

"Questions for Miriam" by Warsan Shire.

http://warsanshire.blogspot.com/2009/12/questions-for-miriam.html

FGM.

2010-01-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

There will be no heroes here
No gods, though the stench of sweat
And the drip of blood
Will hint at creation

How long
O flesh
O knife
O muffled screams
How long will you taint the air of our lands
With your echoes?

There will be no transgressions here
Only girls
Trapped forever at the cusp of womanhood
Sliced up and stitched back together
To cut the sins out and keep the virtue in

Where are the heroes
While our daughters are being circumcised
And I will judge, though
Circumstance gave birth to me in the audience and not onstage
Though I have never seen the tip of the knife
The eclipse of a neighbor’s face blocking the sun

But how long
O sky
O land
O grim-faced mothers
How long can you watch without seeing

The battered virgins decorated in tattered skins
Scabs and stitches to keep out the sins
When even a mother’s embrace is not tighter
Than the embroidery on her
Pretty
Pure
Painless daughter
When does this go too far?

There will be no heroes here
With their t-shirts and their picket signs
This will be no fashionable cause
Because these are the wars that lie hidden under skirts

No poverty pornography
Of big-eyed babies posing beneath their coating of flies
These are the scars of a society
That the documentary crews
Do not have the stomach for;
There are no gods here

Though every outsider’s view is judgement day
I’m going to judge today though I
Have no bruises on my thighs
No suspicious mother listening at the bathroom door
Because the volume of her daughter’s urine
Was testament to her innocence:
If she could only manage a quiet trickle
She was still stitched up tightly

And if she wasn’t,
If she wasn’t, o honor
O stones
O broken face
If she wasn’t, her father would find
The power to crush her life to liquid
Encased in a bruised sack of skin

The newscasters
Will call it an honor killing,
Disdain for “those people” crumpling their features
As the cameras pan with a zoologist’s fascination
Speaking as one would of another species
About those barbarians and their bloodlust

Or was it an act of love by father and brother
When stones smashed into tainted skin to
Release the soul from its dirtied casing
Gazing tearlessly at the husk of what was once their baby girl

Before her thighs were taught to mash so tightly together
That bruises bloomed on the insides
Before scarlet letters spilled monthly from a joyless womb
A loveless girl
Soaked crimson in her own sin
Punished preemptively for the hips and breasts
Soon to come
Of which her twelve-year-old frame already hints
For the way she will soon make monsters of men
Revenge will paint itself
As ritual
Carving the joy out of creation
Into a tradition of loveless wombs
Of mothers who find no pleasure
In the creation of their child

And so,
There will be no lovemaking
No making of children born from joyful unions
Only manufacturing
Of loveless generations
No creation
So, no-
There are no gods
Here

Eat Real Good and Get Real Brown.

2010-01-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

Back in Egypt. Meaning another 30/30 is probably about to happen- in this city I find all the contradiction I could ever ask for. Thanks, Cairo.

It's winter here, and 70 degrees outside. Time to fix the libary-light-and-"I-can't-see-the-sky" yellow that New York has inflicted on my skin.

To brown skin and good food. And being close enough to home (Sudan-home, not New York-home or DC-home) to be close, but away enough to be away. Perfection.

and completely unrelated, and also late:
from the DC Slam Team Reunion Show

indestructable boots and unwashed hair. let's not talk about it.

Wishlist. [or, "I need a real job so I can buy all this without feeling guilty"]

2009-12-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

F21 Mesh Lace Underwire Bra

Silence & Noise Mixed Suede and Tweed Jacket

Deena & Ozzy Colorblock Wedge

Kimchi & Blue Lace Back French Terry Pullover

Snack & Stack Utensil Set

#124.

2009-12-08T23:43:00.000-08:00

You don’t have to stay forever,
I’ll be gone by the end of the night
Back to my life
Please stop trying to hold my hand;

You held my hips
With a dancer’s practiced grasp
I curved into your touch
And we silhouetted a skyline
In the Kingston of your sweat
The Harlem of that night

The song ends,
And morning hurts my eyes
Messy makeup and last night’s dress
Torso stained in a stranger’s sweat
And the memories make no sense
In the context of my daytimes.

The sun is judgmental,
A reminder that you hold on too tight
My dress is wrinkled from your grip,
My phone is shivering with your attempts
At spilling into my real life;

And without the music,
Without the sweat,
Without the dark,
We lack the anonymity
That lets us work
Please let me go;

My legs are tired and suddenly
My heels, too high
My dress too short;
I’ve laid out so much for you to hold
But nothing for you to keep-

Don’t hold my hand.

You held my waist for three songs straight;
I wound my hips ,
You wind your watch
And suddenly,
It’s morning
And I don’t know who you are.

You do not know me
When I wipe the sweat and return
To my life;
So many things do not sound right
Over the pounding of the music
And I don’t know how to make myself
Make sense to you.

I never made you promises
We never made eye contact
Just music
Just magic
Just a slip of a hand when the lights came on

And when the silence comes
Who are you to everything else that I am
To the poems and the Arabic
And the sand under my nails
And the half-second too long
Of thinking before I speak;
You’ll never know.

There was never room in this equation
Of nothing more than
My hips and your hands
And your accent and those cheekbones
And that music.

This was never going to outlive the night,
Outlast the song;
I was never here
For you to fall in love with me.

Harmattan.

2009-11-29T19:59:00.000-08:00

Of the western-bound trade winds, the driest, blowing every fall from the Sahara to the Americas, is known as the harmattan.

I arrived in September
In a hurricane of a migration.
This half-life across the Atlantic tainted by the fact that
I’d never meant to leave
In the first place
And I never quite managed to shake off the dust
Of the road that led me here
Paved in cheap apartment hallway carpeting:
Stained sunset-blood red at the starting side
And concrete gray at the destination;
It was here I met Diaspora

The harmattan carries large amounts of sand and dust over the Atlantic Ocean, oftentimes interfering with aircraft operations and settling on the decks of ships.

A coating of native sand lines the soles of my feet
Forever a barrier that never lets me
Fully settle onto this new concrete soil
Setting the scene for the “almost” that will define
The rest of my existence here:

The way I wear my features
With no memory of their source,
Has rid me of the burden of being ethnic
And left me comfortably exotic,
But I dream nightly of faces too familiar to remember
In a language that I do not speak;
And it is the sharpest awakening when
My tongue twists fail to fully pronounce
The stories folded into my name;
Harmattan

Thought to have derived from the Arabic word “haram”, meaning “forbidden” or “evil”, North Africans often blame the harmattan for bringing about bad tempers and poor decision-making.

Tricked by new lands into
Thinking I’ve forgotten,
But lost language resurrects in my accent
A quiet cadence that wafts of hurricanes
To those who know what to listen for;
Every mispronunciation a tale
Of the chaos that birthed an exodus
An uproot too messy for a clean break,
Trailing whispers of family legacies
That taste mythical in my mother’s lullabies

The consequent sweeping of dust into the air is known as the harmattan haze, and is attributed with impairing visibility and, at its heaviest, blocking the sun.

Had I had time to
Properly pack my culture before leaving,
I could have justified myself an ambassador
A hurricane of history and pride
With roots crisscrossed deeper than the subway trains that
Never seem to take me anywhere

But mama treated the worlds we left behind
As things lost in the fire
Never brave enough to look back and
Resurrect heirlooms of tradition and language-
So I could never be Sudanese enough
And will never be American enough
A presence as purposeless as that
Of foreign dust on New World concrete.

The harmattan carries dust and sand

And girls with sand-colored skin

Across the Atlantic Ocean.

Harmattan dust is known to settle on the decks of ships

In a way I could never settle anywhere.

Symptoms of the harmattan haze often consist of impaired visibility

I don’t know what to look for in a home

And, at its heaviest, this blocks the sun

My tan is fading faster than my memories.

Harmattan: Derived from the Arabic word “haram”, meaning “forbidden” or “evil”

I would have known the danger if I’d
Ever learned the language

But I am learning
That the most dangerous winds
Are those strong enough to snatch you from home
But too weak to fully deliver you anywhere
And this is the painful limbo that I’ve been left in:
Features without a culture
Dreams born just out of reach of memory
An accent, but never quite a language

The harmattan

That was almost a hurricane

Lately.

2009-11-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

"As a co-worker in the great divine plan you can't allow yourself to be attached to anyone. Learn to recognize the divine, the earthly, and the demonic characteristics in everyone. Don't love a person, but love the divine within the person. Tolerate the earthly, and go around the demonic. Whenever your task demands it of you, you must be able to leave without delay the person you love the most because you must always remember that the lovable characteristics in him are God, not the person himself. The person is only an instrument for the manifestation of God. You can find and love the same manifestations in other people too. Love God in everyone; then you will not be attached to anyone"
-Elisabeth Haich

and

(f21 [i know, right?] )

and

The 14th annual Dr Martin Luther King's Legacy of Environmental and Social Justice Slam at the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, CT. January 18th, 2010

and

"the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it"
-James Baldwin (courtesy of Murktarat Yussuf. I'm now writing a research paper based off of that quote)

and

Yar's birfday dress. Shoulderpads by yours truly, using bra cups, fringe, and lace ribbon.

that sums up the inspiration for tonight. poems soon.

The Scientist.

2009-11-24T06:51:00.000-08:00

I can't remember how it happened, but somehow I came across to the lyrics to Coldplay's "The Scientist" long before I heard the actual song. I thought it was a poem. And I thought it was so beautiful:

Come up to meet you,
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are.

I had to find you,
Tell you I need you,
Tell you I set you apart.

Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions,
Oh lets go back to the start.
Running in circles,
Coming up tails
Heads on a science apart.

Nobody said it was easy,
It's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard.
Oh take me back to the start.

I was just guessing at numbers and figures,
Pulling the puzzles apart.
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart.

And tell me you love me,
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start.
Running in circles,
Chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy,
Oh it's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be so hard.

I'm going back to the start.

This makes me write too many poems.

Powerline.

2009-11-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who thinks that Tevin Campbell should have put out a whole album as Powerline? Rewatched A Goofy Movie this weekend and fell in love with the music all over again. 2 of the best songs to come out of a Disney movie (note the hightop and the laser lines)

PS: this look needs to come back

Malaika.

2009-10-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

I can't even fully speak on this right now; it's late and I have class in the morning. But I had to share. This song has been a part of my life since-- well, forever. I hadn't heard it in years, though, until a few days ago. And never with subtitles. And never with the backstory:
"It was while at Pumwani, he said in an interview, that he fell in love with a beautiful girl, "an angel," to whom he composed and recorded Malaika (Angel) to console her when she was given away to an older man who could pay bride price."

Original by Fadhili Williams. Amazing cover by Angelique Kidjo:

Another Michael piece, in progress

2009-10-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

Your voice
Sounds like song but
Hurts like goodbye;
You’ve been gone for so long but
I can’t bring myself to remember you
As anything but
That beautiful boy,
Brown like I was brown
Gliding across a TV screen somewhere in Dar-as-salaam

I remember 1994
My uncle’s red leather jacket
And wanting to come to America
Where I thought everyone would be like you

You were a culture:
The arch of a foot your ritual
The echo of a note your language;

You were
A rewinded tape of the “Remember the Time” video
Over and over and over
I was four and
You were magic
A shape-shifter
A legend

A boy

Singing grown-man love songs
Taught to say it like you meant it
When you didn’t mean what you said
So the mask became a part of you
Long before your faces changed

We knew every word, my country and I
Feet dusty and bare
Moonwalking in the hot courtyard.
And though our heels were cracked and dirty
We thought we could be beautiful
Because of you,
Brown like we were brown
It was years before we got the news
That you’d changed

We were still brown;
Did this mean that one of us
Had stopped being beautiful?

And by the time I made it to the America
That you’d sold me on
You’d long since gone out of style

It hurt to look at you
So I listened
And there, you’d never leave
I could almost forget how your eyes looked
Blinking out of a face that wasn’t theirs

And I know,
It’s natural to try and hide when
Everyone is looking at you
Without ever seeing who you are

Larger-than-life as you were
We could only ever look at you in sections
So you were
Broken down into pieces
In an attempt to understand you
Rearranged so many times
That parts of you were lost long past finding

Like the boy
Who wore heartbreak
So nakedly in his voice
That the whole world knew the words
Even before they started listening extra close
To make up for the fact
That we couldn’t look at you

The culture the world made
From the boy that they broke
You were an arch of a foot
An echo of a note
So many faces
Because this was bigger
Than one of you could ever be

Your footsteps
Sound like dancing
But hurt like leaving;
It’s been misleading like that
Ever since this world taught you not to say
What you meant

I’ve written you too many eulogies
For too many Michaels,
Too many deaths,

You’ve been gone since
Long before you left

Manchild VII- Almustafa. (a continuation of the series for my brother)

2009-09-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

I dreamt last night of your hands, palms up
The space between your fingers like
Light between rays of sun,

And you looked to me,
The gap in your teeth splitting your smile into
Half for now and
Half for when you’re gone again-

When I awake to remember the ocean that cracks us in two in a way
Never nearly as beautiful as that smile of yours,
Your gap, an Atlantic
Between the Africa and America of your teeth
Between the baby brother I left in Egypt and
Whoever the man you are now may be

I’ve been able to breathe again
Since you escaped this land that
Hunts boys as beautiful
As I remember you being;
I wonder what you look like today

Mama says you’re a man now, pushing 6 feet
That the facial hair will only increase
But all I’ll see when I look to the East
Is a baby boy with a gap in his teeth

I dreamt of your voice, in song
High-pitched as you left it on that middle school stage
You never did skip a beat
But you skipped the years that turn children to men
In the crack of a voice you grew from
The dimpled baby I loved to
The glowing boy that I miss, the sturdy man I barely recognize

All the while smiling a map of our homeland
Broken by a river in two
The split in your teeth, our Nile,
Spilling onto the banks of your smile
Even when your lips cracked into DC sidewalks
You made it clear who’s child you were

I remember your palms as I last saw them,
Curved to a basketball almost as tightly
As the brown curved onto your skin
If you’re as tall as mama says you’ve grown
I can only imagine your excitement;
Echoes of the boy who
Needed a running start to jump for the net

Are you ever asked if you are an only child and
Do you tell of the sister left
On the other side of the world
Of the days when she was tallest, and the poems
That you still do not know
She writes for you by the dozens

Mama tells me of your growth, I feel her disbelief
The pride in her voice hides nostalgia underneath
When asked where my family is, I point to the East
Towards a little boy with a gap in his teeth

better late than never: Days 24-30

2009-08-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

Day 24

I.
I’ve packed the books in which I
Hid from this city,
And the shoes with which I walked it:
Exploration and escape;
These are my memories.

II.
My grandmother says she will miss me
We
Compare the pictures in our coffee dregs
Proof that I don’t have to leave to seek my fortune
But I’m
Already packed; I promise not to forget.

III.
My grandfather loves the gentleness in me
So it must exist;
Proof that I don’t have to leave to find myself
But I’m already packed.
I promise not to forget.

IV.
I’ve overpacked;
These promises are heavy,
These books are thick,
The shoes are sturdy
And I, shaped by the love I leave behind,
Am not collapsible.
Exploration and escape, endings and evenings;
Everything.
I’ve overpacked so I don’t forget
After all,
These are my memories.

Day 25

It seems but a rumor
That we existed before the madness
And all the silence
But I know that even then
We had nothing

And so it was out of spite
And greed on your part
That when you left,
You took everything.

Day 26

In the new light of
A world stripped down to its most honest,
He is speaking in truths,
And they are beautiful

With an eloquence,
Of thoughts to words
In a harmony worthy of Coltrane,
And if I am mermaid he is
The shoreline of worlds I can’t wait to call familiar;
A sky, cobalt blue
And he,
The skin of the sun kissing light onto the natives
Painting sparks into the waters
In such colors that I
Never want to go ashore

In the half-light of
A morning poem, an afternoon conversation,
He is speaking in metaphor,
And he is beautiful.

Day 27

I do not have
The self-restraint to write you
Only one of these

Too many eulogies
For all the times you’ve died

The baby boy you once were, beautiful and brown
And what you did to him
The murder of his face;
The ensuing guilt, the reason
You would never again hurt a child;

Your many deaths that followed.

I struggled to piece your
Faces and phases together
Into one man, and never could

The Afro, kinky and proud and as
Thick as your young lips
As upright as your young spine before
The world climbed onto your shoulders and took root;
This is how I remember you in your youth

The curls’ slow loosening,
Subtle drooping of that
Front lock of hair that then took
To kissing your brow;
The many women that envied its place;
You were a different Michael
But a Michael nonetheless

Your features shrank
Your burdens grew heavier
And in response, the curls,
Like I knew your shoulders would,
Sank and slumped and
Unraveled; I saw you follow suit.

Saw you coming apart at the seams

As the thick hair that once
Bound all of you together
Thinned, loosened,
Came undone
And let all your pieces spill out
Into the world

We trusted in the knowledge that you
Always landed on your feet

But the fall was hard;
The breaking of each piece,
Another death of yours

And each heartbreak
At each fall,
Another eulogy.

Day 28

Faith in your beauty
Allows appreciation
Of your ugliness

Day 29

Safia,

Hi;

I didn’t know how else to reach you
And you’ve always been a reader
Knew that if I put this in your line of sight, you’d never
Resist the lure of words

It’s been awhile since we’ve spoken
And if it weren’t for your eyes, I
Would not have known that this was you
The girl who,
From birth to age sixteen,
Had the same face.
Cheekbones emerge and lips curl
Into perpetual smirk. You’ve changed.

I taste liquor on your tongue, and
Heart-blood on your fingertips;
Where have you been?

There’s a numbness in your lips, and I’m
Looking for the milestone marking
When it was that you stopped caring.
Yes, we’ve always been impulsive,
But there was once a time
Before action and consequence parted ways;
There was once a time,
But you never had much of a memory

Slipped the stability from your soles and
Schooled them in ways of leaving
As skills sharpened you learned
To use travel as an excuse

Conjured the nomads of your ancestry
And watched them manifest in habit

It’s too much to ask where you’ve been

I don’t want much; I know
The silence has been too long to justify
Asking anything of you at this time

But I’ve lost you;
You’ve been gone for so long
And we’ve been so separate that I
Can’t quite remember when you left

Or if it was I
That did the leaving

We never liked the pressure of
Being chased, so I’ll stay;
I’m just letting you know
That if you’ll have me,
I’m here

That’s all I wanted to say, but
We never could resist
The lure of words.

-Safia

Day 30

Late enough
For never to be just
Around the corner,
But here I am,
If it still matters.

Day 23.

2009-08-26T00:03:00.001-07:00

Summer ends
In a city that was almost mine;
In spite of June promises of forever,
I’m leaving.

I’ve plucked my memories from the walls
Dusted my pathways from the streets
Pointed my feet to the future
And packed light

August is beautiful
In the way that only endings can be
The bite that makes the brilliance
All the more striking

Come Sunday
Nine years will have nothing to show for me
But smudges on the walls from
Sharpie fingerprints, never proven to be mine

And soon the wind will wash the scents that
Wafted into the city from my hair

Endings arrive as I leave
A city that was never mine
Nine years spent living with
No evidence of doing so

August, all in burnt gold
Taunts at the doorway of this Sunday
With wind-songs almost familiar
Of staying that I cannot do
Nostalgia that I won’t remember
But will recognize
As the teasing taste to the goodbye
Of a city that could have been mine

Atlantis.

2009-08-25T01:51:00.000-07:00

here's the text:

We claimed the desert
Because water reminded us of loss
Of Halfa and how now no one can know
That my people built pyramids too

That we were Nubia,
The terra-cotta love child of
The Mediterranean and the
Vanishing kingdoms of Black Africa;
High brows like dunes, and our Nile
A single trickle of sweat down the planes of our faces
Our Nile
Made us an oasis;
The floods made our history a wasteland

Whole kingdoms, untold stories
Sleeping 300 feet beneath the suffocation of Lake Nasser
The cruelest irony of an Atlantis in the heart of desert country
When water ceased to be salvation and instead showed nothing
But reflections of our loss, our Nile
A single tear trickling from the planes of the 1960 excavation
Uprooting our monuments like orphaned infants,
Too massive a force to be kept in one family

Drowned our stories of a time when
We monumentalized our people,
Before genocide characterized our culture
And blood pooled in any spaces
That the flood may have left behind

I swear to you,
We built pyramids too
And Egypt built the dams that damned us into
The deepest pits of anonymity, a lost culture
Desert Atlantis, and at last it’s
Coming to the surface of a memory from
Before my time; Aswan’s guilty past robbed me of a history
Of the possibility of postcards and textbook references; now
My Sudan is known for nothing more than
Our deaths and Diasporas and our Niles; our loss
While Egypt can bask comfortably beneath a crown as
The treasure of North Africa
I can only reach recognition
With references of Darfur
But enough:

Dear Dam of Aswan, know that you
Set the bar that the janjaweed would follow
In the mass exodus of a people that you began
Katrina’s ancestor, first in line of an era where
Natural disaster became the term when
Humans harnessed nature as a weapon
And a return to the era where
Our histories were stripped from us
Erasing proof that there was ever a time
When we were kings and queens and
No one seems to see the consequence of the blank pages:
The self-hate, the genocide
Because we have no proof that
We were ever anything but disposable

And yet they dare say that
Black people can’t swim; how could we when
Water reflects everything that was taken from us;
Every ripple a reminder of New Orleans,
Of Nubia
Of every ancestor that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic,
Our legacies too heavy to stay afloat long enough to
Make it to slavery;

So we were rinsed into worthlessness as
The water came and washed clean the
Pages of our legends, the proof of our greatness
Of temples that stretched skyward by the hundreds the way
Drowning necks stretched to the heavens, gasping stories for the air
To remember us by

But any traces that lingered were
Muffled by the echoes of the waters of our loss
The gunshots of our uproot
And our Nile, a single tear
Turned terror
Turned on us, and now nobody can know
That my people had history too.

Day 22.

2009-08-19T09:16:00.001-07:00

I’m in Cairo,
You’re probably somewhere in Brooklyn,
But that doesn’t matter anymore

We’ll never be close if we
Don’t speak the same language,
So I wrote you a letter,
Hoping you’d listen

You didn’t.

I almost gave in and said
“Look what you’ve done to me”
But I refuse to be a product
Of your problems

It was enough that I served
As a vessel for your ideals
Though there was never room for them
And my soul
All at once;
One had to go. Your ideals stayed.

Yes, I stayed,
Two years, not because I loved you
But because I thought
You loved me,

And I wanted nothing to do
With the blood of a broken heart
On my hands

Accepting the power you gave me
To hurt you beyond repair
Enslaved me in guilt;
Yes, I stayed

You gave me the power to break you
But you’ve been broken since
Long before we met
And I’ve been contorting to fill
Your shapeless, endless voids
But I never quite fit;
It hurt to try

I wrote you a letter
You mocked its verboseness
And never once did you address
Its content

I haven’t been happy,
I’ve never been in love with you
And I’m afraid of what you see in me

Repulsed by what you bring out of me

Maybe sincerity was lost
In the honesty;
I’ve always found it far too easy to hide
Behind words
But you’ve put so much into
This mask you’ve put on
That I’m not sure if it
Comes off anymore

I’ve feared masks since childhood,
And your eyes always seemed to be
Looking out of a face that wasn’t theirs

So it was meant
For everything that you couldn’t see
And everything that you couldn’t be
When I told you I hoped that you’d find
What you’re looking for.

Day 21.

2009-08-18T19:34:00.001-07:00

I cannot help but wonder if
You are able to be
As beautiful as you are,

To
Spill words that carve your
Marked place in my memory by the sentence,

To
Tell me exactly how you feel
About any and everything,
And about me,

Because you're sure that we
Will never see each other again.

Rwanda

2009-08-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

My beautiful Bianca Davies (follow her 30/30 here: beeayedee.blogspot.com), Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam 2009, Chicago. No introduction needed, no disclaimers necessary, just watch.

Bianca Davies- Rwanda:

Day 20.

2009-08-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

For Lubna Hussein

(http://iamlubna.com.venus.dnstemplate.com/index.html)

The case was never

About you; Rather, their fear

Of unimportance

Intimidated

By the throne you carried in

The seat of those pants

Day 19.

2009-08-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

Liquor biting your breath, you

Play with boy-hearts tucked into men’s bodies.

Tonight, the malice is

Barely distinguishable in your smile.

And those who once loved the innocence in you

Are nowhere to be found.

Day 18.

2009-08-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Summertime Chicago,

When I left before I’d

Finished arriving,

A beautiful boy

Marked the end of an era where

I’d had no sense of distance,

When every city in my memory

Took on the same shade of left behind,

I remembered

The Chicago of that summertime,

The boy of that city

A July that has spilled

Deep into August

Painting the late summer haze

With a face and a skyline,

A pair of eyes and a mind that

Stripped me of the ability to forget

That I’d once been so proud of

It is summertime,

On a street corner in Chicago,

The shadows of the buildings cast a chill.

And a boy

With a face like July

Keeps arriving

Long after I’ve forgotten

How to leave.

Pangea.

2009-08-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

A piece close to my heart, with a woman even closer. Ade Giwa-Bello and myself, Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam '09, Chi-town =]. Excuse the stumbling, it was the piece's first time onstage.

the text:

Pangea was an embryo

Twin coasts ripped from continental placenta

The Atlantic is a two way mirror

Reflecting Yoruba essence:

New Orleanians are Liberians

-add water

Haitian creole is Sierra Leonian creole

-add water

Patois is pidgin

-add water

And there are Brazilians that speak better Yoruba

Than some Nigerians

Like how

The letter ‘R’ never quite settled in to Cuban Spanish

because it never existed in Yoruba language

Africa, the heartbroken mother, her

Twin children broken by an ocean in two, so brutally that

Blood blurred vision from the parallel in

Cheekbones and jawlines whose

Strength held the might of an entire history

-You look like me

Fuck an apple,

Mangoes don’t fall from trees

Homecoming disguised as kidnapping

But we only ride ancestor winds

First will be last, last will be first

Where we end up looks like where we begin.

Roots twining from the birth of civilization,

Whole legacies to draw on for explanation,

So there is no such thing as coincidence.

Shadow of that from which you came;

Our culture is, your culture was:

The connection between cancerless bodies,

And food that’s homegrown;

We never ate anything from

Soil we hadn’t touched,

Never smoked anything we hadn’t seen grown,

Didn’t break up,

And didn’t roll,

Our great grandmother says.

116 years old and shes still not dead;

Culture is no such thing

As coincidence

Like how

Our best and brightest were taken

In history’s clumsiest uproot.

Coated the bottom of the Atlantic in the blood of

Scholars and kings;

An erasing so specific that it

Cannot have been anything but intentional .

They told me you sold me

Savage

Traitor

You’re everything they taught me

To hate about myself

Wove african braids to our skulls:

The only foundation strong enough

To hold tracks of strands

Straight enough to sweep

Mutant pride into vulnerable minds;

Turning our crowns from gold to blonde.

Replaced our witch doctors with drug dealers,

Our tribes with gangs.

Broke our backs for chains

--You call your diamonds 'rocks',

Because once they were just that;

You don’t even realize how much you remember

Replaced Orishas with white Jesus

Oshun - Santa Maria

-add water

Xango - Jesus

-add water

add water

Modeomi

Afefe

Olewa

Ogun

Oshun

Xango

--You don’t even realize how much you remember.

Re-buying our wealth

Re-claiming your humanity

On soils they broke us to build.

Your griots now gather by liquor stores to cipher

The djembes in your heartbeat broken into 808s

But we still cure

Hunger pains with plantains

-I mean platanos.

Because Pangea was an embryo

Twin coasts ripped from continental placenta

The Atlantic is a two way mirror

So where we came from will

Always be in sight

-I never left.

Day 17.

2009-08-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

For Anaya Amani; For Malik.

Beautiful girl,

You have come into this world

Well-equipped,

Your father’s ever-beating heart, yours for the taking;

A wealthy woman.

And in you will manifest all that he loved in womankind;

The emotions he understood, and the

Processes that he did not, but accepted anyway

And so

He gives you journey as a birthright.

Beautiful,

Listen closely whenever he says your name,

And you will begin to recognize the lilt that

Distinguishes lips that fully understand

The legacies tucked into the syllables;

And when you hear it spoken casually,

Do not allow this to devalue;

Understand that you are more than

Some tongues can fully appreciate

-A lack on their part,

Never yours.

You will be the girl that

Makes sense of every one of your father’s love stories,

The one that they ultimately became about;

The tiny heartbeat that reminds him of when he

First fell in love with his favorite songs;

Take his hand,

And hear his story

To fully understand

The legends that swim in your blood;

Look at his face and

Pay attention,

Learn the look of a man in love;

You will need it later in life when

They get harder to distinguish

You have taught him the greatest love of all,

And generosity at its purest;

You are his gift to the world,

Life’s gift to him

Beautiful girl,

Understanding will come, all that matters now

Is that you know

That you are loved.

a break from the poetry; back to reality.

2009-08-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

ridiculous. ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous. please sign the petition after reading.

from "I am Lubna" (http://iamlubna.com.venus.dnstemplate.com/index.html):

"We are the National and International Campaign to Eliminate article 152 of Sudan's Criminal Code. This website is created in solidarity with all Sudanese women and with Lubna Hussien and the 12 women arrested on July 3, 2009 under article 152 for "indecent dress".

Petition to Eliminate Article 152 of the Sudanese Criminal Code

To: The Parliament of the Republic of Sudan and the Ministry of Justice.

This petition is requesting your support to eliminate article 152 from Sudan’s criminal law. This article is what the Public Order Police (POP) in Sudan uses to harass women about their dress code. Article 152 has been implemented in Sudan since 1991. It stipulates that any conduct or clothes in violation of public decency should be punished with 40 lashes or a bail or both.

Thirteen women were arrested on July 3, 2009 in Khartoum under article 152 of the criminal code. The 13 women in question were arrested because they wearing trousers. They have been sentenced to 10 lashes and a bail of $100. Three of the women including a well-known journalist-Lubna Hussien- refused the punishment and asked for a lawyer and a court case. The first court hearing was on July 29. Lubna and the other three women were granted a presidential pardon, which the women refused. They have instead challenged the judge to eliminate article 152 of the criminal code.

Article 152, implemented in Sudan since 1991, stipulates that any conduct or clothing in violation of public decency should be punished with 40 lashes. The article is vague on what constitutes indecent clothing and stands against the country's Interim National Constitution that came in place after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005. However, it is still being used to harass women in the streets of Khartoum and around Sudan.

Harassment of women by POP is very common in Sudan, yet extremely under-reported. POP are often abusive. Many women lack knowledge of their rights, fear social stigma and therefore do not resist the consequences of going to a police station, having a criminal charge against them and signing a paper that says that they will not repeat the offence. In addition, the bail of $100 is a load that the vulnerable and poorest women cannot pay easily.

We need your support. Please sign this petition to support women’s rights in Sudan."

Day 16.

2009-08-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

Dear homeland;

The more demanding the need to

Defend my love for you

Becomes,

The harder it is to

Conjure up images of the gilded sands,

The glistening people,

The sun whose burn I

Try to recreate by

Chewing hot peppers by the fistful;

I love you, yes.

But your antics have taken their toll, and

My poems lose their meaning;

People no longer want to know

How I love you,

Just why.

Day 15.

2009-08-12T12:40:00.001-07:00

This is the city of

Dusty children

With the most beautiful eyes,

Clear-faced men with

Stained teeth;

Sons of women still

Rounded by youth,

With hands gnarled by early age.

A home that teaches the lesson early;

That ugliness is just as

Important as beauty;

The contrasts

Make us three-dimensional.

Day 14.

2009-08-12T12:12:00.001-07:00

Your conception

Probably seemed like

A good idea

At the time.

Day 13.

2009-08-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

a pantoum.

I asked where you’d been,

The answers lay in the inks soaked into your skin

Your stained arms, a canvas

Of stories better shown than told

The answers laying, the inks soaked in; to your skin

These tattoos gave visual value to the scars

Of stories better shown than told

And I’m listening

These tattoos gave visual value to the scars

Turned bare stretches of flesh to memory maps

And I’m listening

To your life story, just by looking at you

Turned bare stretches of flesh to memory maps

Just as you left stains on every soul you added

To your life story, just by looking at you

You pay homage to stains the world left on you, ready answers to where and when

Just as you left stains on every soul you added,

Your stained arms, a canvas

You pay homage to stains the world left on you, ready answers to wear; and when

I asked where you’d been.

Day 12.

2009-08-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

catching up before the internet gives out again.

They didn’t tell me

That you were sick

You didn’t tell me that

You were dying

Aged revolutionary, you

Fought and you

Survived

So what is this?

Their bayonets could never pierce you;

Ruggedly scarred but

Ever-smiling

And I wanted to call today to

Make you smile, to

Make you proud, but

They say you’re gone,

That you’ve been sick, that

It doesn’t have to hurt

Anymore;

It still hurts.

I’m bridging the canyons that

You’d explained, that

Separate poets from

Activists

Separated me, the pretty wordsmith

From you,

Aged revolutionary

But look

I have a voice now,

Just like you’d taught me

And I wanted to call so

You could hear it

But they told me to

Be quiet

To stop crying

Stop wailing

Let you go in

The peace you’d earned

But their bayonets could never pierce us

Like this new silence does.

technical difficulties.

2009-08-10T10:05:00.001-07:00

--bear with me.

Day 11.

2009-08-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

a collab piece with Sean Battle.

“You my nigga.”

-Method Man

Somewhere

Is a list of beings bouncing
Between best friend and
Friendliest associate-confident,
Should they ever make the leap
That I say yes before the next
Heartbeat began

And sometimes

The most commonplace serves as
A foundation strong enough to
Make every moment relevant
To matters of the heart

A caress of the shoulder
When they use my laptop
Is all the thank you my
Sleep heavy bones need

Sharing silence at the bus stop,
Sidelong glances and the
Aching half-inch of space that separates us;
When we abandon all pretense of a date and instead
Get right to the enjoyment
Of each others' company.

I'm uncomfortable
When dialogue is demanded
In moments where the board
Calls for games of understanding,
Ping ponging thoughts with
Bongs for rackets,Jokes cracking
Out our lips like were doing stand up
To a mirror.

The comfort of being
Allowed to be normal
And not dazzling
Not witty
Not perfectly put-together;
A greater gift than
Convention could ever offer

Sealed with a kiss
Conceived through
Dapped fist.

Day 10.

2009-08-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

There is no power in being able

To keep me;

It all lies in being able to

Make me want to

Come back.

Day 9.

2009-08-05T15:38:00.001-07:00

You cannot be much

Older than seventeen,

Passing noontime with a Fanta and a cigarette,

A boy as brown as his city

Heir of

Raw terracotta buildings and

Skies stained in perpetual sandstorm, a

Canvas brightened by

Laundry lines at every window,

Studding monochrome with

Colors imaginable and otherwise,

Some made unnamable when the sun

Dips its fingers in dye palettes

And so you are,

Orange Fanta lower lip a

Splash of color on your sunned face,

Of childhood

On your tobacco-stained teeth

Every smoke cloud

Trailing from your lips

Wafts the vaguest hints

Of fizz and artificial orange;

You are contradiction,

A child of Cairo

In every way.

Day 8.

2009-08-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

For Baatin, MJ, Dilla, Tupac, and the list goes on

Writing you

A eulogy would be

Equivalent to murder.

Writing you a eulogy would mean

Believing in your death,

Would mean

Killing the you

That ciphers

With the immortals,

To the breakbeats

Of hearts that broke when

Yours stopped beating but

Were stitched together again

By a memory strong enough

To be called

A legacy.

Day 7.

2009-08-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

Claiming,

Defending,

Imposing,

Your religion,

You seem to have forgotten

To practice it.

Traffic:

Day 6.

2009-08-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

The city that will keep me, wherever it may be:

You are the question so beautiful that

Rather than seek the answer,

I could spend forever

Asking you.

The man that will keep me, whoever he may be:

You are the question so beautiful that

Rather than seek the answer,

I could spend forever

Asking you.

the light in this house is so gorgeous; I rarely turn the lights on before sunset

Day 5.

2009-08-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

a semi-glosa.

“Looks good when he walks, he's the subject of their talk

He would be hard to chase

But good to catch

And he could change the world with his hands behind his back”

-”Daydreamer” by Adele

I don’t believe in men like him,

Hardly believe in men at all

Let alone those with

Breath tasting of thunderstorms and

Eyes that play

Rose-colored glasses in mirror form;

I’ve never felt as beautiful as I do when my

Reflection smiles back from the gloss

Of his midnight irises

And because he

Only ever leaves to bring something back,

I never need to watch the clock;

It makes him look good when he walks.

He’s the subject of their talks,

To girls like me.

Those who don’t believe in men

For those we’ve seen were

Few and far between;

He doesn’t exist in our

Spectrum of experience, too

Opalescent, too beautiful,

And if out of mind meant

Out of sight,

It would be such a waste,

He would be hard to chase

But he exists,

Miracle of all miracles,

Even to girls like me,

Transient,

Hardened by leaving winds,

Those with a quickened stride that’s near

Impossible to match

But good to catch

Because when girls like me and

Men like him

Do chance upon each other

The unlikeliness makes magic, and we are

The melodies that raindrops make on

Metal fire escapes,

The dip in a skyline that

Alludes to the curve of my waist into his palm;

We are.

And I stayed true to my word

When I said that

If he existed:

I’d be Naima, he Coltrane on the sax

And we could change the world with our hands behind our backs.

Khan al-Khalili treasure:

Day 4.

2009-07-31T16:09:00.000-07:00

Rooftops,

Like eyelashes to cheek,

Dust the sky to blush into the

Rosiest of sunsets

Dusk, the most forgivable Narcissus,

Looks for its reflection in the

Pools of light spilling from the

Inextinguishable city below,

And finds only remnants of an arch-nemesis, the sun,

In the golden light at every window

Piecing together into another

Glorious gilding of the sky

Every daybreak,

And I awake,

To fall in love with the Cairo skyline

Over again

Zamalek is for lovers:

Day 3.

2009-07-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

You are far too alive,

And in the contours of your face you

Wear your story so openly that

Passersby feel uncomfortable when they look

Avert their eyes from the

Secrets tucked into

The curls pouring over your shoulders, down your back

Wafting taboo into the evening chill til

Bystanders hold their breath as they pass

You never did learn to keep things to yourself

Laughter open-mouthed, head tossed

Wild woman, madwoman

Too magnetic for discretion

Full to overflowing with life

Crackling from the mandalas of your fingerprints to the

Alert ends of your hair

Contagious

Contaminated

Contours of your face too

Striking for their disregard to be natural;

Necks and eyelids creaking with the effort of

Focusing elsewhere

You are everywhere

Too taboo

Too telltale

Everyone sees themselves in your story

And it makes skins crawl

Ears tingle with

Suppressed need to hear a tale all

Too familiar

They know it well, they know you too

For you wear yourself openly for them to read you

In the stories of your laughter,

Whispers of your hair,

The contours of your face.

old, but I didn't go out today.

view from the corniche, january '09

Day 2.

2009-07-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Michael,

This was never meant to be a eulogy, no,
It was a love song
Circa 1993
Rooted in 1972 when you
Stole my mother’s 5-year-old heart and
Came back for mine 18 years later

This is an apology for everything
That was taken from you, though you
So loved to give; I apologize on behalf of
Everyone who showed human nature at its worst, in the
Characteristic suspicion towards those, like you,
Who give so much
Without asking for anything in return

They wanted to find a catch.

And Michael,
It was bound to catch up when there was
So much you didn’t want to be that you
Ran out of things to be but
You can only run from so many different
Men in the mirror

Never wanted to grow up, and never did;
I think the wish came truer than you bargained for;
With every year that
Should have marked growth, you grew into
The most dangerous combination;
A glass idol, too fragile to be as
Larger-than-life as you were;
Had you had the childhood that you were owed,
You would have known
That the bigger a balloon grows, the
Closer it gets to breaking;
You were chosen to burst from the start,
The most tragic, most eye-catching
King of pop.

A fascination too
Global to be accepted; They never recovered from the indignation that
You dared be entertainer and humanitarian
In such extremes;
Your spotlight so bright that
The human in you made them suspicious

And though you so loved to give,
You can’t have meant to offer the world your childhood
Everything that followed was the most haunting reminder that
What they’d taken, you can’t have meant to give

This is not condemnation,
Not a trip through a painful past if
You don’t want it to be;
I don’t want this to be a eulogy
Though it’s already been written in
The most painful past tense.
All I wanted to say is

I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Right after sunrise, Maadi:

Day 1.

2009-07-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

You lay your head on my ribs, setting down your burdens

If only for the night; dragging pensively from your cigarette, you

Told me your story with the unwavering detail that

Comes from the comfort of knowing we will

Never see each other again

And for those few hours I knew you like

No acquaintance of yours ever would;

Tracing patterns into the soft hairs that

Curled at the nape of your neck, I listened

Matching my breathing to your smoking as you

Spoke of a stained childhood, and of trying

To take your own life

And at that moment it became far simpler than

A moment in a stranger’s bed;

Became nothing more than the courage you’d summoned

To live another day.

and, completely unrelated, but as promised:

the Nile, nighttime in Zamalek-

30 poems, 30 days.

2009-07-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

I start more of these than I'd care to admit. I will finish this one, this blog be my witness. Pretty self-explanatory: a poem a day for 30 days. Starting today.

Love

PS: Also, I'm in Egypt right now, so I'll be documenting the trip via pictures for the next 3-4 weeks.