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16 in June


My whole life wasn’t all bad. I wasn’t just walking through life getting called faggot and getting beat up and beat on all the time (though that shit did happen).

I’d be foolish to make it seem that way. But it damn sure ain’t been no crystal stair. There have been several triumphs so far, though only after crushing defeats and devastating loss. But I’ve never lost everything. And I never will. My first love was my first triumph. He was the first person that I knew loved me for exactly who I was at that time. 

I know a guy that loves me now. I hope he still knows me. I hope he’s reading this too. 

I remember telling my first love that if I would have go to hell for loving him I  would take my chances with hell because I knew that needed to feel this; and it was pure. 

I mean, it was mirky and brazen from the start, but the love was pure. 

I was surprised that he came back for my number.

I thought I looked crazy eye fucking him while he was on a date with a girl that looked like the joint from “In The House” with LL. 

I definitely knew it wasn’t her though. 

But he was eye fucking me back. 

And he was fine. 

He had twists in his hair before twists was hot for real. 

It was late June 1999 in Washington D.C. and I was 16. 

I stood in the phone booth acting like I was making a call while I waited for him to see her off.

Talk about creep shit. 

He was wit it though.

I mean, he came back for my number, right? 

We connected like 2 days later; or the next day; one of em.

I think he met me at Federal Center, or something like that, and then we went back to my house on the bus.  

I’m pretty sure it was the W-12. 

Good ole’ W-12 to Federal Center Southwest. 

I remember the moment I fell in love too. 

The exact fucking moment. 

He looked at me and into my eyes, deeply. 

No one had ever done that to me. 

No one had ever looked at me, into my eyes, to actually see me. 

He did. 

He cared about me and what happened to me, and I knew it that moment. 

He was only 16 too. 

But he knew what I needed in that moment, and he delivered. 

And I saw him too. 

I loved him because I knew he loved me. 

There’s something to be said about knowing unequivocally that somebody loves you back.

We loved each other, in the sun room underneath my grandmother’s bedroom, when we were sixteen in June.

And for a relationship that barely lasted two months, the love has lasted a lifetime. 

Y’all still got love letters from your first love? 

I do. 

Still. 

He meant it. 

I believed it. 

And I still do. 

The depth of his love forced me, for the first time, to challenge a belief system that had been instilled my whole life. 

If loving this boy was so bad, why did I finally feel seen, and loved, and wanted? 

No one had ever made me feel that way, certainly not God. 

How could I be his creation, but the nature of who I love, with the free will he supposedly gave me, espouses his condemnation and torment for eternity? 

Like that don’t even make any sense. 

I’m bout to burn in hell for ETERNITY for some shit I did on earth that ain’t hurt nobody for 90-100 years.

Nah God. 

That math don’t add up slim. 

Y’all earth is flat niggas are holding up progress.

We could be exploring other galaxies and shit; finding true peace and harmony and making life better for everyone.

But y’all still holding on to norms, rules, and religious text intended to civilize your imagination by enslaving your minds.

Our minds.

We cannot be the things that we don’t know to be.

We gotta stop asking for permission to be what we want to be, and start finding ways to just be what we want to be. 

My whole life, there have been people telling me that being who I am is wrong. 

Fuck them. 

No its not!

I’m going to read this one to y’all later.

Dear Rocket


Having a clear function on earth, being of service to humanity, and being recognized for my service and work are probably the most basic ways to explain the deepest feelings and desires burning within me.

I don’t really trust many people. That’s probably the biggest obstacle I face in my interpersonal relationships. However, the fear that has burned the deepest, the fear that has occasionally crippled my indomitable spirit, the fear that has haunted me since I was seven, is the fear that I will be abandoned by love, again. I fear that love will love me truly and deeply and thoroughly, then suddenly abandon me without a word or a choice for me. I am afraid that in an instant, a moment, a decision absent my consideration, a gunshot or two that love will decide yet again that it can shape my life without my consent. And because of that fear of abandonment, I have allowed my full self to be hidden, and tucked away, and secret and dirty, and ashamed, and guilty of I don’t even know what. I have been killing myself trying to make myself palatable for the world. I’ve been trying to be what everyone needs because I didn’t really feel loved most of my life. That part of my story is over. I am no longer ashamed of me. I’m loving myself more these days too. I’ve been pouring my well of deep and devoted passionate love back into me. Constantly reminding myself that I am worthy, I am enough, and that my love and devotion won’t go unrequited forever.

Religious, familial, and even romantic wounds can run deep. Those religious ones might have been the most crippling, especially having been reinforced through familial ties among others. I don’t have the same belief system anymore though, because the one I learned from church and family constantly made me reject the me I was born to be. I’m not rejecting me anymore for anyone or anything.

I believe in a God of the Universe. A Supreme Being. But, I don’t believe that God of the UNIVERSE is worried so much about what’s happening on EARTH, a medium sized planet that’s not even the largest in its solar system, that I will be condemned to Eternal torture for sucking some dick or a little ass play or falling truly, madly, and deeply in love with another man. Nope! “I don’t believe you. You need more people!” The greatest fucking scheme on earth is religion. When motherfucker’s can make you believe in some shit that can’t be proven or disproven they can tap into an endless well of resources. And all you got is your beliefs and faith and not a pot to piss in or window to throw it out of because you haven’t been trusting your own voice. We gotta stop letting other people tell us what to believe. And just cause people are old, it doesn’t make them wise. I feel like half the old people on earth are here to be healers and prophets and teachers, and the other half are still here because they’re miserable souls that have never truly found their life’s purpose. I am grateful now that I know mine.

So, I wrote a letter to 7 year old me the day after my parents died. Here it go!

Dear Rocket:

You don’t know me kiddo, but I know you. I know you better than you know yourself, and I know that today is your 7th birthday. I also know that yesterday you saw something really bad happen with your mommy and your daddy. I want you to know that what you saw yesterday will never leave you. You will never forget it and you will never truly be able to hide from it. It will shape your life and your choices and even your heart. What you saw will also give you the strength you need to endure the very tough road of life ahead. You will be beaten, talked about, lied to, lied on, and you will suffer a great deal of heartache and pain. You will feel sometimes like you have no idea where you are going or what you are meant to do. You will feel like the world is on your shoulders and everyone has turned their backs on you. You will feel lonely, and hurt, and exhausted, but YOU can endure it all. Whenever you are down, hurt, in pain, or suffering, you believe in yourself. Believe that you have exactly the amount of strength that you need to tear down any obstacle in your way and remember that trouble don’t last always.

Little Rocket, I know you’re hurting. I know you don’t know what is going on or where you’ll go or how your whole life is about to change. I want you to just focus on that little feeling that you feel deep inside of you that tells you if something is right or wrong, and I want you to trust that. I want you to believe in that like you believe in Jesus. One day you are going to change the world for the better! So don’t you quit on yourself and on this life, because YOU are meant for inordinate GREATNESS.

Rodney

The Real Me. Part 2. Forgiveness.


So wait… There’s more.

It is my opinion that orphan’s have the greatest imaginations because they (we) often learn at a very young age that minuscule details can shape your life. So they (we) spend our lives imagining circumstances with specific details that would no longer render us parentless. I have done that. I still do sometimes too. 

Oprah says that “forgiveness is giving up the idea that the past could have been any different”. I think I really understand what that means now. Forgiveness is letting go. I think sometimes we think that we can forgive things or people without letting them go. I know I used to think that way. It’s like loan forgiveness or bankruptcy though. They’ll wipe out your debt, but you can’t EVER have credit with that establishment again unless you pay your debt (or as I like to call it, “atone”) in FULL. Either way, that business has let you go, and if YOU WANT credit with them again, YOU have to reconcile your previous debt in FULL, but that business is good with or without your patronage. 

I cannot change the past. My grandmother, my oldest aunt, my youngest aunt, and my grandmother’s son cannot change the past either. I no longer wish to. Until last May, I hadn’t spoken to my grandmother in 3+ years. As my life was reshaping after my move to Los Angeles in 2016 old wounds that I had long ago buried started to resurface. Quite honestly, moving to Los Angeles in 2016 changed my life and I’m sure it saved my life too. It also exposed every relationship in my life, especially the one I have with myself. The last six years have been tumultuous, painful, revealing, acrimonious, scary, and ultimately healing. I am finally healing from the deep wounds caused by my grandmother and her children, but I am not fully healed yet. Maybe I’ll never be completely healed, but I do know that trouble don’t last always. Each day healing and coping become easier. Trust me, I’ve had to cope with loss in almost every facet of my life, so I know, but I never lost everything.

My singing voice was the first thing about myself that I liked. Literally the first thing. I think my talent was first recognized as “talent” when I was about eight years old. I had gone to Vacation Bible School over the summer with my surrogate god-parents. They were Seventh-Day-Adventist and were members of the church that Wintley Phipps pastored back then, Capitol Hill SDA Church. During that trip I learned a few songs and began to sing them ALL the time. They brought me comfort and solace and their lyrics meant something to me. I felt connected to my parents when I sang those songs. I loved feeling connected to my parents because I didn’t feel connected to the rest of my family, even my sister. I always felt like a burden to everyone. Like they would rather I not be around or invited or included. And it wasn’t all in my head either. They constantly found ways to punish me for simply trying to exist. I slept on a couch covered in plastic or in a sleeping bag on the floor beside my grandmother’s QUEEN SIZED BED that she slept in ALONE from mid 1990 until September 3, 1994 when we finally moved into a larger home. The home she lives in today. And wouldn’t you know it, I got the smallest room in the house. Even smaller than my aunt’s eleven month old toddler’s room. But at least I had a room, right? At least they loved me enough to finally give me my own space. Every other bedroom in the house was twice the size of mine though. They took vacations without me, went to dinner, and lunch and concerts, and shopping and whatever else they could do to exclude me. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for them to turn their backs on me when I decided to start expressing my pain and long-suffering and calling them out. I thought if I let them know exactly what they had done and recounted the many many many different scenarios where I was either abused, mistreated, or emotionally neglected, that they would understand, and would see the error of their ways and begin to atone. I thought maybe they’d see how much suffering I had endured and am still enduring and they want to fix it. I was wrong. After not speaking to my immediate family, excluding 2-3 cousins, for OVER 3 years, then re-attempting reconciliation over the last 9 months, I realized that I have changed and evolved and grown exponentially and they have not. 

When I was a kid, whenever someone would hurt my feelings (which was often because I’m very sensitive), I would process those feelings through song. I would often pick a song that I was familiar with and sing the part most closely related to the situation I was in at that time. I still do that today. I process my emotions through music. I just recently realized that singing was how I coped with my pain throughout life. My horoscope has been saying for months that I was going to have to reconcile how I process pain, trauma, fears, and insecurities. It also said that I’m going to have to do something I’ve never done before or that I don’t do often in order to move smoothly into my destiny and my future. I’m starting to understand more fully what it’s been trying to get me to see. The last nine months I’ve been pushed into some old patterns and situations that I thought I had evolved from, but I’m realizing that I was pushed into those patterns and situations again in order to analyze what wasn’t working in my life and to discover ways to change those things in order to truly evolve. So when Jazmine Sullivan’s newest project “Heaux’tales Mo’tales” came out recently, I almost instantly connected with “Hurt Me So Good”. And as I was listening to the song I actually forced myself to say out loud who or what it made me connect to, and that’s when I heard “and you know you could do better, but you won’t try for me”, and I burst into tears. My family! That’s how I feel about most of them, even the ones that aren’t so immediate, or aren’t my grandmother’s offspring. They’d rather not think of my grandmother and especially her son as tyrants. Yet she allowed him to rule me with an iron fist all while she remained stoic most times toward me and mean other times. Yes, my grandmother was mean to me when I was a child. Strict, mean, and even threatened to kill me once when I was ten years old if I accidentally scratched her car while I retrieved something from the trunk. I was not loved by my family after my parents died. I was tolerated when required and otherwise excluded from their love, consideration, empathy, and sympathy. I am still excluded, and now ‘I’m just a shadow of all that I was”. I’ve always known my place with them though; I just didn’t want to accept it. I do now. 

I carried my emotional process into adulthood and into my romantic relationships. I was so vulnerable and needed to feel love so desperately, that I was willing to accept anything. I used to look to my grandmother for advice about relationships when I was younger too. Though, that clearly proved to be fruitless. She’s twice divorced and has been single for most of the last 40 years. I see now that she “don’t nothing bout love”. All of her children have been married and divorced at least once, except my mother, and her husband killed her, though she wasn’t the only one of my grandmother’s children to marry a killer. And that guy, my oldest aunt’s husband, punched me in the face and blacked my eye when I was eleven years old for mumbling during a “friendly” bet with his daughter to not talk for an hour. My family’s abuse of me was so pervasive that it gave way and permission for others to abuse me too. I felt like I couldn’t turn to or tell anyone. I was literally being physically abused by a D.C. police officer, my grandmother’s son. They all used “love” and “discipline” as the guise under which they concealed their hatred for and abuse of me. I was even sexually assaulted in the Navy by a woman in 2004. I met her at a party and she pushed me into a closet, pulled out my dick, and started sucking. It was disgusting. I was disgusted. But I never reported it until 3 years ago to the VA. My “family” had already made me believe that being gay was a sin and that I deserved to be abused and assaulted because I was defective. I didn’t want to be exposed in the Navy for being gay, so I just let her do it. I remember hearing my grandmother’s son say he hoped joining the military would make a “man” out of me, though that coward never did serve his country. He wasn’t a man though. He still isn’t. Abusers are cowards that use power and control to project their own fears onto those that are unable to adequately defend themselves. He is an abuser.

My grandmother was basically an orphan as well. She never really knew her own mother, who died when my grandmother was 4 years old, and she didn’t live with her dad until high school. She too was raised by her grandmother. 

My mother though, her ability to love was innate and inherently a part of everything she did, even as a police officer. My mother exuded love, a love she showered me with until her last breath. My mother knew how to love me the way I needed to be loved despite having a mother that didn’t know how to love her the way she needed to be loved. Though I only had seven years with my mother, I’m glad that I knew she loved me with every fiber of her being. My father did too. I knew he loved me too. I never felt ashamed or excluded or unloved with my parents. Never ever. I’m glad I got to feel that, even if it was only for seven years. I’m glad I had something to hold on to through the last 32 years of loneliness other than the toxicity from my abuse.

My mother wanted to break the cycle. I’m sure that’s why she loved my sister and me so hard. She wanted me to have a better mother than she had. Well, I did.  And even after all of the years I had to endure the wrath of my mother’s mother, and sisters, and brother, I understand that it was all to prepare me. All of the bad relationships, broken promises, a broken heart, and a broken family unit were preparing me for the greatness that is surely mine. I’ve been holding on to this toxicity though, and using the love lessons I learned from my family and erroneously applying them to my friendships and romantic relationships, and clearly that shit ain’t working either. I’ve been lying to the world about who I really am because I was also lying to myself. I spent a lifetime developing a character that I’ve been using as my surrogate for too many years to count now. I just want to be free. Free from the pain, free from the past, and free to build true, impenetrable, unconditional love with a family of my own choosing. My own sister turned her children against me because she felt that my grandmother’s pain was more important than mine. My niece wouldn’t even reply to a text I sent her on her birthday, and I know she read it. I know my sister is in pain too. She harbors it and hides it well, but it’s like a volcano, it’ll erupt sooner or later, and the nearby villagers better beware. 

I forgive my relatives though. All of the relatives that turned a blind eye, tried to justify the abuse, silence me, or make excuses for it, I forgive you too. When I initially attempted to reconcile with my family last year, I only wanted them to have some compassion for me and my experiences while I was in their charge. I wanted them to find some empathy. These people couldn’t even have compassion for me when I was a child though. A little seven year old boy who had just watched his father kill his mother in cold blood the day before his birthday, to them, was undeserving of compassion, and empathy, and love. While I can finally get to the point where I can forgive them, I know my mother never would have. 

My grandmother asked me for my forgiveness back in May of last year when we initially connected after 3+ years. I told her then that I would need some time. I forgive her now, but I must also let her go. I’m letting them all go. All of the people who know that they’re not really my people, I forgive them for the pain they caused and even for their relentless attempts to promote my forgetting. But they aren’t my people. I cried in my car last night for about 20 minutes. As I sat there with my head in my hands with tears running down my face, I mourned the death of my relationship with these relatives. It’s time for me to find my real people, who I don’t have to convince of my humanity, that love me for exactly who I am. I know I have the strength to face the world alone. 

The Real Me.


When I was fifteen I lost my virginity in the bathroom of the Exxon gas station across the street from Union Station to a guy named AJ that I never saw again. I had just met him a few minutes before, in the bathroom at Union Station, next to the food court. I don’t even remember what we talked about or what he looks like. It was quick and dirty and painful, and all I got out of it was the experience of having been fucked in the ass for the first time. I mean, I guess he was kind to agree to wear a condom, and he didn’t shove it in without lube, but that was about as much consideration as I think he gave me during the process. He was 23 years old and he knew I was only 15. My introduction to sex and relationships with men was quick, dirty, and painful as I was bent over a sink losing my virginity to some random guy in a public restroom. We said we were in a relationship for the two weeks we chatted on the phone, only to have him abandon me, never to be heard from again. So began my clandestine promiscuity.

I never bothered to look at the root of my sexual behaviors until now. I never thought that they were unhealthy or uncontrollable, but looking back, I definitely wasn’t in control. I was wagering my body for kindness and love and affection. I realize now that random sex with strangers was my way of coping with all of the trauma and stress I had endured during my childhood. I would not let anyone in too close because I have been so terribly devastated by people that claim to love me. The few that did really love me found a way to abandon me somehow. That’s why I’ve never really given myself fully to another. I didn’t want to be hurt any deeper or abandoned or both, but look at me now… Alone. Still. And that shit hurts.

I used to brag about how I had a fake id when I was 15 and was hitting clubs at that age too, but that shit was rooted in pain and separation. I felt like an outcast at home, at school, and at work. I was constantly trying to be the version of me that people liked so that they wouldn’t mistreat me, and going to a gay club with gay people, like me, made me feel seen. I could be myself and not worry about castigation, being made to feel disgusting, or told I’m going to hell for being attracted to men. I could relax and try to discover more about this lifestyle of which I had no knowledge. 

I was GREEN but had a phenomenal poker face and a noggin full of stories at the ready to throw off any bouncer that might question my identification card. I memorized addresses, dates, id numbers, and even created back stories for the “character” on the id I was “pretending” to be. I used my own name though. I knew that the less I had to falsify the better, and I had just gotten a debit card with my name on it for the first time, and nobody in 1998/1999 thought a 15 year old would have a debit card. It all worked to my advantage. I had to have variety when it came to id’s just in case one got burned or confiscated or lost. I used addresses of relatives or other people I knew and would just change the city or state as needed. I knew that once I got into the rhythm of the story that the details would come to me. I literally created a fake college background because when I was 15-17 I was pretending to be 19-21 and in college. I used my same birthday but changed the year to 1978 when I was 17, so that I could be 21 in 1999. I even got fake id’s for a few of my friends. By the time I graduated from high school in June of 2000, I had several phenomenal fake id’s (for the times), was extremely popular at “Jenny’s” and “The Mill” (2 old DC Gay Clubs), and had already had sex with close to 30 guys and had had sexual “experiences” with twice that many. I was still only 17. 

Cars, motels, hotels, parks, alleys, bathrooms, clubs, stairwells, parking garages, and occasionally a bedroom were the places I got my tutelage in sex between 15-18. My family made it clear to me through the entirety of my adolescence that I could NOT come to them with this gay shit. So I had to figure it out on my own. Television and movies weren’t kind either, and the internet was basically a startup in 97-98. The Union Station food court bathroom is infamous now too. There are probably still boys seeking sexual refuge and men preying upon them in that bathroom today. Right now. Cause I was one of those lost boys who’s entire sexual identity has been predicated upon the experiences I had in the Union Station food court bathroom, and the Exxon across the street, when I was 15 years old.

I remember the first person in my family to call me a faggot. It was my youngest aunt. We’re only eight years apart. She was part (mean) big sister, and part (mean) aunt. In my earliest memories of her, she wasn’t kind to me. It was like she resented me for some reason that I could never identify, and this was even before my parents died. I think maybe she resented my sister and me because we took her away from OUR parents. She was a kid, so mostly I don’t blame her for the resentment, just what she did with it. After my parents died and my sister and me moved into the house with my aunt and grandmother, my aunt would almost yell at me everyday. She would find something to nitpick and she led the charge in labeling me “annoying” when I was 7, a word that still triggers me today. That word would be used to justify the mistreatment of me by everyone in my immediate family including my own sister. It was, however, my youngest aunt who started saying it first. She would also mumble “faggot” underneath her breath in the beginning, when other people weren’t around. Soon she began to say it with impunity and even allowed her friends to pick on me and call me sissy, faggot, soft, girly, and anything else they could think of to get a rise out of me. They would pick on me and push me around and when I would go after them I would get into trouble, like I was the one who caused the issue. Then there was the time she called me a “fucking faggot” while she was washing dishes because she had asked me to do something and I refused. I called her a “ho” after she called me a ‘faggot” and she told my grandmother and my grandmother washed my mouth out with soap. She knew that she could get me into trouble easily and would often weaponize my fear of her brother (my abuser) against me. They all did. I NEVER had a voice when I was a kid, and it’s sad reliving these painful memories, especially since that same aunt became one of the closest people to me later in life. It’s like how do you hold people accountable for doing some fucked up shit to you that you never got over, but also love them, and be around them? I buried my pain for what I thought was the greater good, and the shit has been tearing me up for 32 years. My family really broke me, and now I’m the only one that can fix me and the shit is hard and I’m still so damn alone. I can’t remember the last Christmas or New Year I didn’t spend alone; last couple of birthdays too. 

I remember the day I started to change who I was around people. I was in the backseat of my abuser’s MPD Detective cruiser. I was about 10 or 11 and I had asked to stop at 7-11 for a Slurpee. I knew that the only way he’d stop is if I offered to treat everyone in the car, so I did. My grandfather would always give me money back then so I always had a few dollars in my pocket. My abuser’s partner was in the front seat of the car and my cousin, my sister, and me were in the backseat. He made me give my sister and cousin the money and let them go in to buy the Slurpees while I stayed in the car. Then “Weak” by SWV came on the radio and I started singing. The song was new back then and everybody was feeling it. Before I knew it, my abuser had reached back and punched me in my chest. He yelled at me to stop singing that “girl song” and told me that I better not sing anymore songs by females that came on the radio. I was hurt, physically and emotionally, embarrassed, and holding back the tears as best I could. I knew that day that I would have to change who I was around this man and subsequently around everyone, in order to survive. His partner sat there in silence. Maybe because he was in shock or maybe because he didn’t care, but he never said a word. I buried the pain of literally having the life snatched out of my voice by this man like I buried the pain caused by my aunt and the rest of my family.

My first love, and the only thing left on this earth that loved me back was music, and he tried to take that from me too. They all did. My family constantly told me to “shut up” when I would sing around the house, even if I was in my own room. I successfully auditioned for and attended an elite musical program in high school too. I even got a solo my junior year during our Christmas show and my grandmother only showed up outside to pick me up after, and the solo was dedicated to her. They never pushed or even supported my pursuit of and love for music. Singing was my only refuge. It still is.  All of my attempts to love my family in my adolescence seemed to go unrequited. Then I met “AJ” at Union Station, and across the street in the Exxon gas station is where I surrendered my innocence, and he took it. 

Then when I was 16, after my “first love” (not AJ), I met “Triple D”. He was 25 when we met and 26 by the first time we went out on a date. We also met at Union Station, but not in the bathroom or in a sexual situation. By the time I graduated from high school the following year, he had already put me through a whirlwind of emotions and disappearing acts. Everything would be fine and then I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks or months and then he’d just pop back up like nothing ever happened. He would mess with other guys too. That went on until I was 25. Back and forth, breakup to makeup to breakup again was our pattern, and he never really even acknowledged me in public either. He knew he had no business dating me when I was in the the 12th grade, especially since he was an administrator in another school district. He’s some of y’all’s frat brother too. I’m not even trying to blow that man’s life up either, but this pattern that has permeated my life since I was 15 has got to stop. 

I learned early from the death of my parents and the unrequited love of my family, that abandonment was a part of life, and I baked that in to every one of my relationships. Most folks proved me right too, but some relationships I definitely sabotaged because I didn’t want them to hurt me, so I found a way out. I felt like I could hold on to a semblance of power and control if I remained promiscuous and never gave myself fully to another. Like, no one can hurt me if I don’t give them all of me, right? WRONG! I got lost in all of that. The me that I was trying to protect got buried with my pain underneath the facade. I knew that on my everyday face I could mask the pain by being the person that people liked and didn’t find “annoying”. I drank a lot too, for years, just trying to cope. So, in an effort to protect myself, I began to poison my spirit with sex and alcohol. I traipsed in and out of love affairs and sexual liaisons convinced that I was looking for something, but all I was doing was numbing the pain and tainting my soul. I never had an STD either. I prided myself on not having unprotected sex, and had not since 2002 and by the time I had reached my 30th birthday in 2012, I was still STD free. I was still fucking randoms though, but in beds by this time. I had gotten so used to being negative that when I got my test results on March 29, 2014, I couldn’t speak. 

I had been working undercover in vice for the 6 months prior buying drugs and doing human trafficking operations, but had just gone back to patrol on midnights while I began planning my move to Los Angeles which wouldn’t happen for another two years. I got off work about 0600 and arrived to my doctor’s office at Providence Hospital to get the results of my routine bloodwork. The office didn’t open until 0800 so I slept in the car until then. I only remember being in the exam room and hearing the news, then I remember being on Central Avenue in Largo stopping at the liquor store. I bought two bottles of wine and then I went to my youngest aunts house and rang her doorbell. It was a Saturday morning. She was still asleep and her oldest daughter answered the door. I asked my cousin to wake up my aunt and have her come downstairs and talk to me. When she came downstairs moments later, she was calm and measured, exactly what I needed her to be. At this point in our lives we were extremely close. She was closer to me than probably any other relative in my family. Our relationship had changed right around my junior year of high school after my sister had left for college. We started being kind to each other, and when we did, we grew closer as each year passed. We talked 2-3 times a week, and hung out regularly for several years. By the time March 2014 had arrived, she was more like my sister and best friend than that mean and scathing aunt she was to me when we were younger. I had never confronted her with the pain she caused me though, even now. I had never held her accountable for the ways she contributed to the terror I had suffered during my childhood, mostly because I didn’t want her to stop loving me. I was afraid to tell her how deeply her words and actions toward me as a child cut me, partly also because on March 29, 2014, as I sat on her couch in her living room, and told her that I had tested positive for HIV, she held my hand and my head while I cried. Then, a week later, at my first visit to an ID doctor, she held my hand and my head while I cried again, and for that I will forever be grateful. We don’t talk now though because of how I’ve had to hold my family accountable for the tyranny and abuse I endured. I had to stop loving her too. I  buried that love like I used to bury my pain in order to see things more clearly and in order to heal.

Gratefully, now I am undetectable and healthy. I stopped drinking about 4 years ago and recently stopped having random sex too. It took me all of these years to see how I had used them both to cope and that these coping mechanisms were destroying my soul. I had let the emotional and physical abuse from my family push me into a sexual deviance that threatened my very life and I used my career as cover. I let those closest to me believe that I got stuck by a needle at work so I could shift the blame for my choices just a little bit. The truth is, I have no idea where I got it because I can’t even remember most of their names. I hadn’t had unprotected sex in 12 years when I found out I was HIV positive in 2014, and felt like God had betrayed me. I cried for weeks, but mostly shouldered the burden of my plight alone. I felt like I had already been through enough. I didn’t even tell my work partner at the time and he’s my cousin. I didn’t know who to trust, especially on the Metropolitan Police Department. I still don’t. My cousin had never really shown up for me anyway in a meaningful way, so I wasn’t going to tell him and have him disappoint me. I contacted my sexual partners (that I could reach) and shared the news. I also told my best friend(s), and my grandmother. 

Ironically the virus forced me to grow in ways I didn’t think possible before 3/29/14. It forced me to examine behaviors and trends in my life and lifestyle and to determine if they were still working, but mostly it taught me to have some compassion for myself. I began to let go of some of my own judgmental and manipulative ways and to face myself. I’m still facing myself. I want love, commitment, kindness, and passion from a relationship. I was too afraid to allow myself to want what I really wanted because when I was 15 what I wanted wasn’t possible. Gays couldn’t get married in 1998, then there was the end of the world scare in 2000, and all of those years spent in church being told that my very being was an abomination. I had no idea when I was 15 years old that I would ever even make it to 39. My parents didn’t. So I was reckless with my body and my spirit. I’m not reckless anymore. I’m not afraid to face myself or any of you, as exactly who I am anymore either. I’ve done a great deal of work on myself, learning to let go of my anger with the past, but not burying it anymore. The only way to surmount any obstacle is through confrontation, not retreat. I’m now ready to confront any issue, any obstacle, and any trauma as the real me.

June 8, 2000 at Houston’s in Georgetown

Plans and Thangs


Hmmmmmmnnnnnnnneeellllllllooo… Subscribers are you there? Well, those of you reading should know that I have recently decided to outfit this blog with wings so we can fly into the podcast universe. Yup yup, ya’ll bout to start reading my writing and hearing my voice (and some others) on the regular. The plan is to begin in the coming days. I have tons to share.

So ummmmm, now is the time to show your support for me and this journey through monetary donations should you have the means and the desire. Internet don’t internet by itself, and my therapist charges by the hour.

Starting any new venture takes time and money, and neither are a luxury during a global pandemic. During the most recent part of this journey I have shared specific details of my past in order to heal myself and hopefully a few others along the way. This is my intended goal moving forward with my podcast. I will share my journey with you while healing me and hopefully healing you too. This won’t be easy, but it will be open, honest, and shooting straight from the heart.

So ummmmmm, donations donations… PLEASE. More updates are coming.

Cash App: $RodneyFitts

Zelle: Fitts2458@gmail.com

Paypal: @RodneyFitts

Thank you all so much for reading and listening!

Proof


I watched  U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester give a speech the other day related to the insurrection in 2021, and she was carrying a blanket during the speech. At the end of the speech she said that the blanket had a marking of her ancestor registering to vote in 19th century. She said that she brought it as “proof” that her people have been at this for a very long time. That “PROOF” part really stuck out to me though. 

After mulling over my piece “16 in June” more, I had to question WHY I still have a love letter from my first love in 1999, or 3. Like, why have I kept them for so long? What was I saving them for? What am I saving them for? And when I honestly answered that question out loud, the first thing I could think of was “Proof”. Proof that someone loved me or at least professed to. And his letters weren’t the only ones I’ve kept over the years. I even found a letter from my high school girlfriend. But why do I need proof? Wait… Do I STILL need proof? Like How do I grow from here? 

I got rid of the shit. Right then! That day. Burned it and poured vinegar on it too. Pictures and all. Deleted numbers too, all of them, immediately after I processed this unhealthy attachment to past love. And from HIGH SCHOOL? Like nah. I’m 39. I gotta let this shit go. I’m making room for something new. Someone new. So I did, and I am. It’s a process though, like everything else in life. In the past I let my impulses guide me through so much of my love life that I never really took the time to examine what I really want, and I what I really need from a partner. But let me say this… I need a man who is nurturing and loving. FULL FUCKING STOP! 

“Nurturing and Loving” is the bare minimum, and if you don’t offer that, you are not the one for me. I don’t wanna fight, because I have spent a lifetime trying to convince other people that they should love me back, and I’m done. Done done. I am worthy and I always have been. It took me all this time to truly understand the depth of worthiness and how pervasive the fear of unworthiness can be. It’s like a poison seeping into your life that takes a lifetime to kill you by constantly making you feel inferior. I am not inferior! I am the manifestation of dying mother’s wildest dreams, and I will show all of you what a little black gay boy from D.C., orphaned at seven, who has surmounted every obstacle, every abuser, every hater, every eviction, every doubt, and EVERY denier of my greatness, can and WILL DO. 

And if you let me, I will seep into your life like medicine, and make you feel something deeply to make you better. All better. Because you are worthy too. You are worthy of having all of your dreams come true, and you will discover like I have that choosing our own happiness first means knowing that we have to be our own most important person. No one is above you. Not one.

I wanna walk through life with someone who sees me and knows me and protects me and my feelings. I want someone to answer the phone on first ring or text me right back even if I ask something trivial. I want someone to know how and when I eat tomatoes or eggs or sushi. And someone who takes care in the way they address me and treat me, even when I am wrong or when they’re mad; a man I can trust. I want a man who wants children and to start and build a family. I want as many children as we can afford. I want to know someone deeply. Every scar, inside and out. Every fond memory and some of the bad ones too. Every doubt, every fear, every kink, every year of the rest of our lives together. And I want him near. Like, here with me now; holding me and loving on me and just being in my space, and in my face affectionately. I want a man who can receive love and opens his heart to change and depth and letting go. I want to be married and build a life, a future, and a space to always share love unconditionally, indefinitely. Tenderness is always sublime. I just “wanna be in love. I wanna be loved. I want him by my side. I want him to hold me. I want his whole heart, and for him to have mine.” 

Birthdays (7-9)


Since I was seven years old my birthday has always served as a cruel reminder that my father shot and killed my mother, then himself, in front of me, the day before, in our living room. Now that’s some serious irony right there. My parents died in the fucking “living room” on Friday, December 1, 1989. Just looking at that date on my screen now makes me cringe. My life’s been full of irony, though I’ve learned to just gut it out. And if I ain’t got shit else, I got guts! You’ll see.

When I saw my father kneel next to my mother’s lifeless body and turn her MPD service Glock toward his head, I knew what was next. I looked away, but I didn’t run next door until I saw his body, face down, almost on top of my mother. I ran outside, and when I almost got to Benny, our next door neighbor, I looked behind me and saw my sister run back in, but by this time Benny or someone had ushered me into their house. I must’ve passed out, or fell asleep, or something, because I have no recollection of the moments after I got into Benny’s house. When I came to, standing over me, with an almost commandingly gentle presence, was a Detective; my mother’s younger brother, asking me what happened. For some reason, I’ve always vividly remembered reporting their death to him like I was one of his subordinates. I said “he shot her in the head and then he shot himself; they should both have gunshot wounds to their heads.” It was like I already knew that he required me to always address him with deference, even during this tragic moment. I was afraid of him. I’ve known it since that moment. That day. 

I’m still not quite sure why though. What had he done to make me fear him before this day? Why did I fear him now? He took us, my sister and me, to his apartment for the night. He’d just gotten married, his wife was pregnant, and it was a one-bedroom apartment uptown D.C. 

The next day was my birthday. I was seven. Seven. 

After we ate Crunch Berries I was summoned to the bathroom by my mother’s brother. He told me to sit down on the toilet, turn around with my back facing him, and then he told me that “rattails were for sissy’s” and he cut my rattail. The rattail was something my father started growing and I liked it. I’m certain this man knew that even then. But he was in charge now. He was in charge of me and what happened to me. This was his way of letting me know who had the power. He did. Because my father, who’s name I carry (with love), killed his sister (my mother), in cold blood, the day before. My seventh birthday began with my introduction into a new regime, and my mother’s brother, formerly my uncle and godfather (more fucking irony), was its leader and number one terrorist. And he couldn’t fucking stand sissies and faggots. Especially me. I’m the son of the man that killed his sister (my mother). And I’m already gay. And he already know’s it. And hate’s it. And hate’s me. 

That birthday was amazing though! We went to Chuck E. Cheese as planned and I got money from everybody. I played as many games as I wanted and everybody made an effort, albeit out of sympathy and pity, to make my 7th birthday special. I got about a hundred dollars too. I still remember. That weewkend, my sister and I moved into my maternal grandmother’s three-bedroom rambler in Capital Heights where she and my teenage aunt already occupied the two largest rooms. Now, after having our own separate rooms in the home our parents owned, we were relegated to the “den” where we slept on a decades old, ROLL out, pissy sofabed, for several months. We ended up getting and “sharing” (sorta) a day bed until 1994 when we moved into a larger home in Temple Hills. We’ll delve into that later though.

My eighth birthday I got a beating from my mother’s brother, in the living room of my grandmother’s house, while EVERYONE watched and laughed. They laughed while I cried. What had I done to get a beating, and on my birthday no less? He said after he finished hitting me that they were birthday licks while I tearfully looked at him with confusion about the unprovoked beating. There was no count though. Those “licks” were strikes. They hurt me. It was a beating. I ran into the bathroom and cried for a little while and then I finally came out and went to bed. Clearly my tears meant nothing to them. I was there for their amusement, treated like an annoying court jester, ridiculed for being sensitive, and terrorized for being gay. And my sister wasn’t even on my side. I remember feeling like she was going along to get along, keeping her head low and not making any waves until she could do her own thing. But I couldn’t. Not yet. My slip was showing. I couldn’t hide who I was yet. I didn’t know how. I just wanted them to feel sorry for me again like they had the year before, when they were nice to me, when they cared about me, and my feelings. That was the first time he beat me though, on my 8th birthday. Licks… 

Around that same time, his wife took their baby and moved to New York with her family without any notice. From what I’ve heard, she got tired of the beatings too. She had a way out. I didn’t. I wanted to go too though. I remember wishing she had taken me. She got me roller skates for that birthday. They were my first and only pair, and they were gray. He brought them though.

Somewhere between my eighth and ninth birthday’s was the first time anyone had weaponized my mother’s brother, grandmother’s son, and now my abuser, against me. 

It was my oldest aunt. I kept walking around the house after eating too much at dinner saying, “I’m cramping”, or “I feel like I’m about to come on”. 

My stomach was hurting. I couldn’t shit, so I knew it wasn’t that. It felt like I had bad fucking cramps. So, I said what I had heard all of the women in the house and in my life say when they had FUCKING cramps. She called her brother, my grandmother’s son, and my abuser on the telephone and he was there within the hour to “straighten me out”. I was terrified. I thought I should have just suffered in silence rather than have him come over to terrorize me yet again. It was bad enough that everything I did or said was used against me. I didn’t know how to act because I was constantly told that how I was acting wasn’t right. By this time I was used to the micro-aggressions from my family, and teachers, and peers, but she was actually calling in reinforcements this time to scold me and “straighten me out”. I turned my feelings inward and went to my (shared) bedroom for solace before my impending doom arrived. He came over and gave me a stern tongue lashing about how little boys shouldn’t say what I said, but he never told me why. He then told me that I would get in trouble if I repeated those things in the future. So, for repeating some harmless statement about cramps that I had taken out of context, I was now being threatened with physical harm. Because I definitely knew “trouble” was code for “ass whooping”. I couldn’t understand why or how my words caused them so much distress that my body was now being threatened. I was eight.

I have no recollection of my ninth birthday. None. Maybe because of my eighth, but who knows.

I think a big part of me has been chasing the high of my 7th birthday, hoping that I could feel seen the way I thought I had then. I realize now that they didn’t see me. Pity isn’t adoration or love. It’s condescending sadness. I don’t want that from anyone. Not anymore.

Different Choices


I lost my family 32 years ago and never got another one. I realize now the latter is mostly because of my choices. I’m gonna start making different choices now, because I do want a love and family of my own. I’m choosing to start working toward that goal immediately. I know now that a family is the thing that I want more than anything. A part of me thought admitting that would somehow weaken me. It doesn’t. I feel more empowered now. I know I can survive alone, but I don’t want to anymore. I want to share my love and life and future with family. My own family.

I guess Imma just let the universe send me a new one when the time comes.

I Hope You’re Reading This


I used to dream a lot. Dreams have revealed things to me that I didn’t even know existed; in me, in the world, or anywhere else. I learned about two weeks before my parents died in December of ’89 that I needed to tuck away something that was only me and only for me. My mother told me that as she filled out her insurance forms increasing them to the maximum amount should something happen to her in the future. Future. She knew then that she didn’t have much of a future left. She sensed it. She dreamt it. She knew. She probably also knew that there was or would be nothing she could do to shake the fact or feeling that she was about to die. So she trusted her gut and protected her children the best way she possibly could. Motherfuckin insurance. And she did good. She was a D.C. Cop at the height of the crack epidemic. And her husband was a crackhead. Yes, my father, a marine corps veteran, construction business owner, 33 year old married man was smoking crack in ’89. He was smoking crack and bringing crack whores home while my sister and I were asleep and my mother was at work. What he needed was therapy after his upbringing and the military. That’s not something that black men or most men did back in ’89 anyway. Anyway, then in 88’ his mother, the woman who birthed and raised him, the woman who saw him in a way no other person had, died. An aneurysm. So he graduated from being an amazingly loving father and moderately controlling, loving husband, to a Motherfuckin crackhead that did crackhead shit. Then when he smoked his life into a shambles and my mother’s and my sister’s and my life (even though we ain’t really know it yet) into another shambles he climbed through my upstairs bedroom window like a fucking crackhead and was in the house when we got home that day before my birthday back in ’89. My mother had a migraine that day so we got food from McDonald’s on New York Avenue, and after all these years that spot is still there. People didn’t understand or respect how debilitating that kind of headache could be back then either. I get botox for my migraines now and I still suffer through at least 10-15 headache days a month, and on those days I have to take another medication just to manage them. I recently had a dream that helped me understand more fully what mother was feeling. She was only 31. Her name was Cynthia. And she was the only person that ever really saw me. I’m 39 now and I’ve only just in the last year begun to see myself for who I really am. I spent so much of my life after that day back in ’89 tucking pieces of myself away, that I couldn’t see me. And I had to do it. I had to tuck away the original me so that I could survive this life. And two weeks before my father, the loving, crackhead, womanizer, grief stricken, marine corps veteran, who needed some fucking therapy, shot and killed my mother in front of my sister and me in our living room and then killed himself a few seconds later, MY MOTHER WARNED ME. She told me to “keep something for me”, because she had given her whole life to everyone else and still felt lonely. She felt like there was nowhere to turn, no one to talk to, and no one to actually help that day. She knew that her death was inevitable. And that’s been the hardest shit to swallow. Because I want to help her. But I can’t, and I couldn’t. And that shit is so damn hard to swallow all these years later. And what I now realize I did for most of my life was tuck away the the thing that was most sacred to me. ME!

I hid underneath the impressions, reactions, and other learned behaviors and practices of my peers, and mostly my family. I became my interpretation of who I thought they wanted me to be. I gradually tucked away my identity and became this other person because I thought that if I could be who they wanted me to be then they would love me. They would finally hold me and support me and SEE me the way that I have so freely and meticulously loved, supported, and seen them. All of THEM. It didn’t work. One by one I pimped my kindness and generosity out like MPD pimped me out when I was working undercover back in the day. Except I didn’t get my fair shake in return. Almost never. So I settled for 75 percenters. People that mostly loved me back but were either incapable or unwilling to love me at the level I loved them or was willing to. As I got older I began to settle for even less, particularly in romantic partners. And I wasn’t the best catch either with all of my repressed emotional baggage. But I took care of them. Every last one of those boyfriends and girlfriends that I had. I looked out and I was ride or die. Hoping that they’d see my devotion and want to really see me. But I couldn’t see me. So it was impossible for me to love someone fully or for them to love me fully until I could actually see who the fuck I was, absent anybody else’s opinion or feelings or love. I’ve always felt like something was missing with ALL of my loved ones. Family, friends, pets, all of THEM. I realized that I needed to do some research on me. I needed to investigate my behaviors, and choices, and beliefs. I needed to impeach my own character and dissect the Rodney that I actually am and not the character I’ve been playing since my father made the singular crackhead decision to orphan my sister and me. I guess misery does love company. An aneurysm orphaned him a year and half before and his mother was the only person that ever really saw him and while my mother was surely a close 2nd, the death of my grandmother rocked him and the ripples are still rippling. So my crackhead father put a bullet in my mother’s skull and then one in his own skull while his nine year old daughter and (ALMOST) seven year old son watched, and while his niece stood on the front porch. And because I didn’t want to make my father the villain (and apparently no one else did either), I made him the hero. And that shit is hard to fucking swallow too, because if he’s the hero in a story where his crack induced rage caused him to murder my mother in cold blood, in front of his own children and then cowardly take his own life, then that means that my MOTHER, who couldn’t defend herself because of his crackhead strength and her debilitating migraine, was the villain. And that shit is so fucking hard to swallow, because I did that part, with a little help from my family. I made my mother the villain for not protecting us better by protecting her own life, until I had that fucking dream. That dream that made me feel what it would be like to have someone murder me in cold blood in front of my children and I couldn’t defend myself OR THEM. That was 6 moths ago. I see my mother now too. I see the woman she was and the struggles she faced and how strong she was to be able to give so much love to everyone in her life knowing that when she needed someone to love her and protect her, to SEE her and defend her that no one would be there. So she gave her last breath to my sister and to me. She made arrangements as best she could and she trusted that surely someone that she had given so much of her life and love to, surely someone who she had opened her home to or sacrificed her own needs for would be there to protect her children should she die. Sadly she was wrong. My mother and I are the same in more ways than I ever knew until that dream. We both just wanted to be loved back. Not even first. Like no bullshit we would give our love freely and first. And all THEY had to do was be grateful and love us back when we need it. I wish my mother had loved herself more than she loved me. I use to wish that she had lost her memory and abandoned us and would come back one day. I wanted that for her. I wanted that for me. Because I know that whatever she had done, wherever she had gone, she saw me and she loved me, so I could forgive Anything. I just couldn’t forgive her for dying. Even if she did die for me. And this keyboard might have water damage, but Imma get through this. I didn’t realize until I was 38 that she knew that her death would prepare me for everything that life would throw at me. She knew that I would hold on to me, some fucking how, and make it through the storms of life. And she’s been in my heart and in my voice and in my head the whole time. She’s been preparing me for each obstacle by making me remember that whatever this life has for me, I am prepared, and the worst day of my life has already happened. If I could survive that day and the aftermath, I will be prepared to survive and thrive after any loss or devastation, and even if nobody ever loves me back. I am strong, agile, and fortified. I have been tested, and know that I will be tested more as I maneuver the storms that life brings, because I love the me that I actually am. I am also vulnerable, sensitive, and easily hurt. I am loyal, dedicated, and relentless in pursuit of a goal. I am capable of loving my mate/partner/spouse and family with no equivocations, and I want to. I want to share my life with someone who likes and loves the me that I actually am, and I love them for exactly who they are. I want to build a life and home and raise a family and have a successful career. I want to be inordinately wealthy and change the world in a positive way for everyone, and to be recognized for my work. I want to travel the world and universe and live long enough to see the technological and humanitarian advances of the next millennium. I want to PERFORM. I want to share my story and the things that I’ve learned with the world. And I don’t want to be lonely or alone. I want a deep love that shakes my foundation for the better and outperforms any of my expectations. Someone who considers my feelings and reassures me of his love. And I want peace and harmony for everyone. I’ve spent a lifetime hiding myself, and other things. I’m tired of hiding and fighting and focusing on what I have lost. I’m ready to embrace the me that I actually am and I can and will continue to love myself first and the most. After all, my mother sacrificed her own life for the me that she always saw and loved. I’m just glad I can see and love me now too. I gonna take some time getting settled in to the real me.

Look at that joy. I miss it. I miss her. But I’m so grateful for her sacrifice.

I Know Why Too


I always want to call someone when I’ve been drinking. And I don’t even drink like I used to. Tonight I’ve had 3 glasses of Grand Marnier (80 proof) straight. I like Grand Marnier, but I didn’t drink it tonight to write. I drank it tonight because the Shock Top had sediment in it and I wasn’t down for the “beer pulp”. Barf! Tonight I wanted to call my grandmother. I’m lying on the couch, watching the Maya Angelou documentary on Netflix and I wanted to call her. There is a point in the movie where they show a clip of Ms. Angelou on a talk show (not Oprah) answering questions and a young black girl says “I just wanted to ask Maya…”. Whatever her actual question was doesn’t matter. What matters is that Ms. Maya Angelou said, “I’m Ms. Angelou to you”. She went on to say, “I’m 62 years old and Im your mother, auntie, grandmother, and so much more.” The girl understood and remained silent. She realized she was wrong. She realized she’d overstepped by calling this woman by her first name. It made me think of Grammy. I think of her often (though I’d never tell 😉) and I miss my Grammy. I miss her like the sun misses the darkness. I miss her like the ocean misses crashing into land. I miss her like the grandson she raised (but never really cultivated) misses his grandmother who told him that he was her most favorite child, but got shunned after he told her he was gay. I long for her. I long for the love she showed me when she tried understand me. I don’t feel that from her anymore. I don’t talk to her anymore either. She won’t call and neither will I. I miss her because she loved me once. But it was too late. It was too late because she chose to love and protect her son more than she loved the grandson she chose to bring into her home to raise. It was too late because the abuse had already happened. It was also too late because she still won’t own that it did happen and she was complicit. But I love her. I hate that I do sometimes, but even the defiant, grief-stricken, bold man that I am today, loves her. And I weep for her. She isn’t strong enough to own her mistakes, but I think one day soon I’ll be strong enough to forgive her. But me forgiving her is NOT to give me peace. It’s to simply let her know that I see the woman that she is. I see how her plight in this life forces her will to be steadfast even when she knows she’s wrong. I see her. I’m the caged bird that never SUNG his truths. She’s now the reason why I do. Her apathy is the reason why I’m so emboldened to tell OUR truths. It’s clear now that weak people can build strong ones. I learned how to speak up for myself because no one ever did. I learned that from her. I hope in her next life that she’s stronger. I hope in my next life I am too.

In Our Name


I binge watched “Seven Seconds” on Netflix yesterday. Didn’t get to bed until almost 6 a.m. It really broke me down. So many of you have no idea what little black gay boys in your families and communities go through just to be free. And I’m just so tired of white people and their brainwashed, ignorant, self serving black counterparts getting to put us into a box and decide how much that box is worth. So many gay black boys have been forced to hide in plain sight. I never could. That’s why they started beating me early. Like Antwon Fisher said, “Who will cry for the little boy”? The boy inside of me and so many other black gay men never saw a tear shed in his name. Stolen childhoods, broken dreams, dreams deferred, stunted growth, and shattered hearts that we were forced to both endure and overcome never let us see or hear or feel a tear shed in our names. We are simply left with the brokenness that the world created for us. We are left with the aftermath of your hatred and disdain that was ignited in you simply because of what was created in us. For me, without atonement, there can be no forgiveness. All of you people who exist in this world hell bent on hating people because of what God himself created in us deserve nothing more than the swift hand of justice and it’s fiery aftermath. And you deserve it mostly because you are too much of a coward to simply “say what you did”. Well, I know what you did and I hope you die screaming. And I’ll be sure to ignore your cries for help just like so many of you did me.

Look at God (and Adderall)


I popped an Adderall (I have a prescription) tonight because I was completely flustered and my mind just wouldn’t be still. I have tons of work to do if I’m gonna find an agent and kick my acting career into full throttle. But just as my mind started to slow down, I began to listen closer to the music playing from my “Heartbreak” playlist on iTunes, and I started to remember where the lyrics took me last. I thought about where I was a couple of years ago and the inception of this playlist. Then I had a fleeting thought about a friend who lived nearby and typed her name into my phone to call her. Her name didn’t come up, but another name that I didn’t recognize did. I touched that name and it opened up a document where I’d typed the name in some note on my phone two years ago. The name that came up is very insignificant so we’ll skip that part. The other notes that came up were notes that I thought I’d lost forever after my purchase of the iPhone 7 back in September. Apparently these notes had been saved in some other format and in some other file and were not readily acccessible like most of the newer notes I now have in my phone. Nonetheless, I’m elated that I found them. Words I’d written while and about going through my recent breakup (the first time), words I’d written about my mother, words I’d written about my hopes and dreams and goals and setbacks, and words I’d written about nothing were all staring back at me now. The latter is what intrigued me the most though, because now those words mean something to me. I can now reflect upon the person that I was two years ago, my state of mind and the state of my heart back then. I’m not that guy anymore though. Not because my character has changed or even my ideals. But I’m no longer that guy because my environment has. The climate of my life has drastically changed and I knew back then I needed it to change.

Then a song by Mint Condition came on. “Unsung”. I love that song. I remembered for a moment that when I first heard the song a few years back it put my mind on my grandmother. Man oh man how I love that woman. If she wasn’t almost a thousand I’d call her up right now so we could talk about what’s on my mind. She’d love to hear it. She’s a good listener that way. Plus I think I intrigue her. I make her think about things in ways she’s never considered before, and she lets me know that. I like being wise for her because she’s always been wise for me. Okay okay, back to this song though. Then I started to think “damn, I hope that if the world never gets to know how great I am that someone will tell my story.” Maybe Mosiah and Myava could get together and write a dope screenplay about my life and all of its tumult. But then I thought, wait, “I’m gonna let the world know how great I am on my own.” That’s why God put me here; To be great. And I’ve got plenty of life left to live. So then I started to sing the song out loud… “No one ever wrote the story of your life. And no you never won awards for all your sacrifice. Unselfishly you changed the world within us all. One by one. You were a hero, UNSUNG.“ Sheesh!!! It’s deep, right? Right! I immediately began to think of my mother, so then I started the song over. When I heard “You make our world a much better place… So courageously you stayed when others turned away“, then another part went like “Putting your own welfare aside, you took the risk and put it all on the line. You saw the lead, and there you were. Still you never asked for anything back in return.“ Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!! That shit right there! It rocked me. And its not like I haven’t heard this song many times. It was just this time, I was like “Look at God”! I need to tell my mother’s story. She gave her life so that my sister and I could live ours. I think I owe it to her to do just that and to tell the story of her very short 31 years on this earth.

Then I remembered, I had already begun to write her story down. I started writing my mother’s story a couple of years ago while up during the wee hours of the morning at work patrolling the mean streets of the Third District in uptown Washington, D.C. And the words I had written almost two years ago, tonight, have been found.

Their History Of Violence, NOT OURS! 


LOOK!!! I’m sick of BLACK people hating on #Blacklivesmatter. If you don’t agree with the movement, don’t fucking support it. But know this, it’s not just about blacks vs. the police. It’s about blacks vs. a system that was designed to make them fail. It’s about the fact that the black community has been raped, pillaged, and discriminated against for almost 500 years AND THE SHIT IS STILL HAPPENING! The successful (or seemingly successful) black folks have the luxury of condemning others because they think “they made it”! You’re fucking fools!! Most of you idiots can’t see the forest for the trees. You think that if you’re silent and don’t offend your non-black counterparts (particularly the white ones) that you’ll be able to move through this world more easily. Fuck that and FUCK YOU cowards! Yes, black folks commit violent crimes against each other, but at the same rate as their white, Hispanic, Asian, and “other” counterparts. Check the statistics! There can be NO SUCH THING as “black on black crime” without first acknowledging that crimes are more likely to occur within ones own community and “White on White crime” statistically exists at the same level, but they own the fucking media! Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic; another fucking media company! Who noticed that? So rather than bring your own people down, which has already been done through slavery, housing discrimination (which in my opinion is just as bad), and discrimination through the media, learn what the fuck you’re talking about! WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS! We’re just a people at our wits end! And even when we try to come up, we’re just manipulated by others to bring our own community back down. It’s not the police that the followers of #blacklivesmatter hate, it’s the fucking system that creates the laws that give police officers the authority, autonomy, resources, and discretion to violate the rights of those they sometimes arbitrarily dislike, disagree with, or don’t understand. And that’s fucked up! I’m not a supporter of the #blacklivesmatter movement because I don’t agree with and/or completely understand its structure and organization, but I see the necessity in it, even if it’s a necessary evil. There is NO group of people in this country that has less of a right to talk to black people about civility than white folks. They beat us, rape us, worked our fingers to the bone, belittled us, taught us false doctrines, manipulated us, failed to educate us, and now they want to pacify us while they use different means to do it all over again. Blacks folks do fucked up shit, and we do it to each other, but the same goes for all races, but no race (including our own) has ever done more fucked up shit to black folks than white folks. So keep that in mind the next time you wanna say how violent blacks are or how destructive we can be or how we need to do better for ourselves because there ain’t a single black person on this feed who hasn’t reaped the negative repercussions of the violence bestowed upon our ancestors by whites in America. That history of violence ALL belongs to them.

#Thisjob #Thislife


The fact that sometimes I just can’t get it together pisses me off. I mean, I know I’m source of inspiration for so many people, but lately I just can’t seem to find my own. #Thisjob and #Thislife seem to have taken my mind by storm. My judgement is clouded. I feel trapped. I forget everything ALL the time and most of the time I can’t even see the forest for the trees. I started writing this blog back in 2010. I posted lots of things I had written over the years and started writing new things too. I found it refreshing and it was an outlet to sit down and pen my thoughts, my feelings, my hopes and dreams, my then. Having the type of career I have, you don’t just go airing your laundry, dirty or clean. I wanted to honor the only portion of the “Code of Ethics” from my police academy days that I can remember. “I will keep my private life unsullied as an example to all.” And I remember feeling that part. Like deeply. I remember feeling like I knew that I could honor that. I remember knowing that I had no ill will and that I wanted to always find a way to show those with less than me that they could be more. I believed in that. I still do. I honor that feeling. I treat people with the respect their character and attitude warrant. I don’t violate anyone’s rights. I don’t lie on people or abuse them or take advantage or steal. I treat every citizen that I encounter fairly and justly. But my private life, it’s definitely not unsullied. It is not pure or clean or without foul or indecency. And honestly, neither is my professional life. You see, in order to do what I do well, you must stoop to a level that everyone understands. You must break down to its most basic form your ability to communicate, to reason, to operate. And you must do it to survive. In order to survive #thisjob and #thislife you must strip yourself of your sense of pride. You must denounce the notion that you alone can change the hearts and minds of your community, coworkers, and supervisors into hearts and minds that equally respect each other. You must decide what side you’re on even when neither side is right and neither side respects you. You must rid yourself of the idea that you might get to have a normal life spent with family and friends on holidays and special occasions. You mustn’t get sick or injured or take “too much” of YOUR leave. You must learn EVERY administrative rule and regulation and be able to recite as directed And you must do all of this while being moral, decent, and legal.

Maybe my life is sullied because I chose to try to believe in an organization that isn’t always moral, decent, or legal. It does not protect, or adequately and commensurately provide for its members. It does not cultivate or inspire, and it does not respect the people in its charge. And it breaks my heart to have given 8 years of my life to an agency that does not provide what it requires. My heart isn’t broken because I feel regret. My heart is broken because even though I know I’m not appreciated a part of me stills has hope that change is on the horizon. I hope that magically one day a new dawn and new regime will whip into shape what has long been broken and tattered. There was a time I thought I could be a part of that regime. There was a time where I wanted to be a part of the change because I knew I could manifest that change. Well, that time has come and gone. And because this organization doesn’t provide what it requires I can no longer risk life and limb and livelihood for a dream that was never really mine. I’ve had a number of ideas over the years of what I wanted for my life and career. I wanted to be a singer, and a lawyer, and an actor, and a writer, and at one point I even wanted to be Mayor, and while I did also want to be a police officer especially given the field’s rich history in my family, I never wanted to do it for my forever. As admirable a profession as it may be, I knew that I wanted more. The same more that I intended to show the less fortunate was possible. I still want more. I want to not have my voice silenced by policy or inferiority in rank. I want to defend what is right and good and fair. I want my life unsullied, but not because I’m obligated. I want to travel the world telling my story and hearing other people’s too. But here I am using crutches to walk, and nursing a concussion all from doing my job morally, decently, and legally, and not one supervisor, immediate or secondary has called to see if I’m okay. Not one has sent a card or email other than to require me to do more things outside of what is moral, decent, and even legal. And I’m not okay. I’m in pain, I’m frustrated, and I’m tired. I learned a long time ago, you don’t owe nobody more than you owe yourself. I’m realizing that again. #Thisjob #Thislife

I Can’t Change


Even if I tried. Even if i wanted to. I think often about how I’ve managed to get to this very moment in life and time. I think about the decisions I’ve made, the people I’ve played, the lies I’ve told, and all of the truth’s that made me. Some truth’s I’ve never told. Maybe there are some tales I’ll never tell. But whether or not anyone ever gets to know every detail of what’s shaped me, I still can’t change. I still won’t. I’ll always feel destined to live what has been one of the most complicated lives I could imagine. And I’ll still be great! I’m truly on the verge of realizing my destiny. You know, that ONE thing that will be your legacy. That ultimate moment in time when I’m really more than I thought I could be. So I’ve been thinking and praying and planning and traveling and trying to learn everything that I need to learn to prepare me for that moment. And I’m terrified. More terrified of time not existing as long as I need it to. Terrified that I’ll choose the wrong door and only be half as fulfilled. Afraid to love the wrong person, the wrong career, the wrong city. But not terrified enough to not try. Not too terrified to pick up and leave. Not afraid to face whatever comes or whomever faces me.

This…


I’m not one of those people who airs their dirty laundry, well not usually or regularly, but only occasionally I offer pieces of me to this blog. Tonight, I just feel like I’ll never find a love of my own. Or maybe I’ll just never realize it’s existence. And tomorrow I’ll be fine. I won’t even think about what I just saw tonight. I’ll probably just force myself, like I do often to dismiss those who dismiss me. I’ve broken hearts before, far more than I thought I could or would. But I always told them the truth. I always gave them an out. I always told them it would never happen. We would never happen. But when I got lonely they answered the phone. When I got bored they joined me for dinner or a movie. When I was sick, they made me soup. Selfishly I took from them all of the things I needed, and didn’t offer them back. Rather, I couldn’t offer them back. But they knew. They knew. So now I’m looking up at the sky wondering why am I so impossible. The ones I want won’t love me back and the ones that want me, I just can’t. This life…

I’ll Never Not Hate You Again


I’ll never not hate you again. Because I loved you. Maybe not first, but as soon as I could. But when I loved you, you hated me. You hated what you thought I’d become. You hated the thought that I’d become more than you. Now I hate you too. Because you broke me. You broke me in half. You broke me in two. You broke me in, too. Into this world of hate, lies, love, and condemnation. Now you can’t condemn me without condemning you. And you can’t even look at me without hating you. I can look at me now and see what I’m becoming. Still broken in two by all the hatred you infused. Half boy half man, and both hate you. The difference is, now I can do what you never could. I can become even more than what you thought I would. A real man with a voice not dumbing down to bums. And I can even hate you without fear of bad conscience. Cause my conscience is clear and yours is cloudy after all you have done. Knowing it was you where all of this hatred came from. I’ll never forget you or the way you taught me to become a “man”. And if the only way to win is forgive you and forget your sins, I’ll find solace in this and the fine point of my pen. Because you broke me I’m free. And free to never not hate you again.

Come Undone


In a week or two I’ll have to delete your number. In a month or two, your email. In a year or two most traces of you will be gone. But now you’re the new “compared to” no one else could don. It took five years to get here. We knew the time would come. Five years of love, hate, and a friendship come undone.

There’s nothing left to say anymore. We’ve said all we could. There’s nothing left to pay anymore. We’ve paid all we should. I broke your heart! I’m sorry! But I told you I would. You were in love and I wasn’t. I’m sorry I held you hostage, still in search of love. I know that was selfish. And with you I fell in love platonically, because for me there was no magic.

The friendship is over now too. We finally saw all of the signs. No more traces. No more spaces. No more twisted lines. I’m sorry you weren’t enough for me and I wasn’t enough for you either. I always thought love would be just enough. I used to think that if I tried harder, you could have been the one. Instead it was five years of love, hate, and a friendship come undone.

Tears


These days there are few things that bring tears to my eyes. I think it’s safe to bet that most people who think they know me don’t really know how sensitive I am. I’m sure many are thinking at the moment they’re reading this that I’m full of shit and couldn’t possibly be as sensitive as I claim. Well, that’s just simply not true. I feel, I hurt, I cry, I’m human.

So, I’m sitting on my flight to Las Vegas and a family of four Asians decides to occupy two of the seats in front of mine and two seats in my row. My best friend is sitting in front of me in the window seat and I’m in the window seat on my row. The children, a young boy and girl who looked to be about 2 years apart in age and around 8 and 10 respectively were seated next to my friend and the adults sat next to me. Shortly after takeoff the young girl whipped out an iPad much to the dismay of my best friend, as this little girl was not using headphones while she played a movie in Chinese.

For half an hour the boy and girl remained in their seats until the boy fell asleep. After another short while the father moved to the seat in front of me and the boy moved to the seat his father occupied. The mother then picked the boy up, placed him into her arms, and began to caress his head while he slept. I couldn’t help but watch them as this endearing moment played out. As I watched the mother gaze into the face of the boy and then kiss his forehead the tears began to stream down my face. The thought of having my own mother place me in her lap while I slept, as she caressed my head became more than I could bear in that moment.

I miss her so much and even after almost 23 years, I still can’t stop thinking about her. I still can’t stop dreaming about my parents and wondering what my life would be and what theirs would be had they not passed away in 1989. It stupefies me sometimes how a single moment in someone else’s life can dredge up so many memories from my own childhood. It’s difficult to fathom having so many emotions poured into the short time I was able to share with my parents here on earth. I still can’t believe they’re gone some days. It’s still so surreal. And as I approach the ages they were when they passed away, I can’t help but feel weird and unnerved with the idea of having to figure out what I want for my future and the rest of my life.

Each day I struggle with the thought of making a decision or several decisions that will shape the rest of my life. I know I want a love of my own and a family too, but then I think, “Where does my career fit in”. I think about the things for which I’m passionate, and I think about the reality of having to start a career when 30 is just around the corner me. Where will I live? What will I do while I jumpstart this new endeavor? How will I survive? While I’m still uncertain as to the answers for those questions, what I do know is that I’ve spent my entire adult life doing what I had to do to survive, and though I’m grateful, I’m ready to do what I want to do now. I’m ready to do what fulfills me, and I pray that the same strength that’s carried me through a troubled childhood and a tumultuous adulthood will carry me to true happiness. Another page in the book of my life is about to turn. I just have to get ready.

Making Better Choices


This evening I received an interesting text from a long ago ex. I mean like, more than 10 years ago ex. It was after a brief series of text messages about what area each of us work, here in the District. I told him where I was, he told me where he was, and I said “oh aight cool”. Approximately 30 minutes later he sent me another text expressing his interest in being cool and how I seem to be holding on to our sordid past and apparently have been angry, mean, and rude to him. He also stated how he’s been made to feel (by me) that I think I’m better than him.

Now, let me say this: He opened up a can of worms tonight so expect for me to digress all up and through this post.

My first thought was to lambast his ass, but I quickly decided against it because I really have no time to go back and forth with someone who will clearly never understand our plight. Long ago we both created a tumultuous situation that ended almost as quickly as it began. There were very strong emotions shared, but after all, we were teenagers; Adult teenagers, but teenagers nonetheless. He did some things, and so did I. I am no longer pointing any fingers most of all because I really don’t care. I don’t care about what we were then, and I don’t care about what we are now. I am not however, the one holding on to the past. He is! He never grew up. The same displays of immaturity he exuded 11 years ago, he still displays today. I am certainly better than I was at 18. He is gone because our time had come and gone. I find no purpose in even conversing with him but have remained somewhat accessible to avoid being rude, but no more.

I’m so exhausted with people’s desire to push their insecurities off on me. When most people look at me, they see a confident, intelligent, well spoken, ambitious, responsible man. When I look at me, I see someone recovering. I’m recovering from an explosive childhood. I’m also recovering from a series of poor decisions made as a young adult running the gamut from money, to relationships, to education, and the list goes on. While I’m far wiser now, I’m still recovering. However, few people have seen me sweat. Few people have seen my tears, and ever fewer know the things that I fear the most, because there aren’t ANY people who have seen me succumb to fear. You can be afraid and still persevere, and that’s all I’ve ever done. I’m afraid of rejection, but I keep pursuing. I’m afraid of heights, but I keep climbing. I’m afraid to have my heart-broken (again), but I understand that that is the risk we all take in the pursuit of love. I have been beaten, broken, defiled, and some more shit, but I aint no punk. I heal, and I press on. And if people think that I’m better than them because I can take a punch, or a beating and manage to repeatedly recover, then I guess I am better than them. What makes me strong is that I believe in endurance. I’ve never been the fastest, or the tallest, or the strongest, or even the smartest, but I’m still here! “Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” (“If We Must Die”. Claude McKay, 1919.)

These days I still struggle to make better choices. I still struggle to stand firm in matters of the heart. I still struggle to stay focussed on one thing at a time. I’m still flawed! But I know better than to let this life get the best of me. I am far too intelligent, and far too perseverant to ever give up on me.

Plight


I thought about you today. My mind just couldn’t break away.

I dreamed of you last night. Didn’t think I’d awake to so much insight.

I felt your touch. Damn! I miss you so much.

I wish you so much!

The thrill of you just won’t leave. Too bad we just can’t be.

Too bad he just won’t see. Too bad he won’t set me free.

I missed you today. My heart just couldn’t take the pain.

I saw you last night. Didn’t know he did too. He made me cry.

I looked into your eyes. Damn! You kissed my thighs.

I’m still high!

The feel of you won’t leave. Too bad we just be can’t be.

Too bad he just won’t see. Too bad he won’t set me free.

You saw me today. Lying there cold and dead, I still took your breath away.

He scared me last night. He told me he didn’t even want to fight.

I felt the steel. Damn! He came ready to kill.

I just stood still!

The life in me is gone. Too bad his life will go on.

Too bad I never loved him. Too bad he finally set me free.

*Okay okay… This one isn’t about me at all. Just me being more explorative in my writing.

3:13 am


So… I’m just up thinking and should probably be working on the two papers that I have due this week, but I can never just focus on one thing at a time. Yet another gift and curse I’ve been blessed and doomed with. Anyway, I swear sometimes, my heart has a mind of its own. Who knew… Right? It’s just that, I recently celebrated another year on this earth and I feel like I don’t even know what’s next for me. I feel like stepping back from all of the things in my past that I’ve been holding on to. More specifically, I feel like I need to step back from all of the dudes in my past that I’ve been holding on to. Not that I’m out here being reckless, it’s just that I know I want more, but I know that all of the pieces have to fit. Like I’ve written before, everything that I write is about me first. All of the poems, all of the rants, all of the everything on Inmynativescribble.com is about ME FIRST. The only thing about that is, I don’t think I think about me first. So anyway this is where I seek refuge. This I can write what I want and not have to give anyone an explanation. I don’t have to break down what I mean, or care about who doesn’t like it. As much as I am a free spirit, and as much as I say things that many of you would dare not say or do for that matter, I am still very much strategic in the words that I choose, and the way that I choose to convey my feelings or thoughts. This may just sound like another rambling session of mine so I think I’ll just get to the point of why I am even awake at 3:13 am and what’s on my mind. I just want someone to love me back. I need him to just know what it is that I’m looking for and for him to just be it. I show people how I want to be treated. Now I just need everyone to get it.

Still


Time is just ticking

No life, no gigs

No wife, no kids

No prospects, but still no fear

The clock is still clicking

Twenty-nine is here, the future is near

No bride, but maybe a groom

And kids will be here soon

Inevitably, law is my chosen doom

My heart is still beating

I am still singing

New chances for love are still ringing my phone

Who cares if I sing in the shower when I’m alone

My brain is still thinking

My career is still gleaming

I still have no fear

I only cry joyous tears

And I’m still standing right here.

Wednesday Night


As fast as it came, even faster it went.

The faster we drank, the faster we sank.

Oblivious to reason, we crossed a line.

Who knew I’d be so blind?

In my dreams, it felt like bliss.

The harsh reality is now it feels like shit.

You pulled me in too close.

Who knew you’d be so bold?

From the tip of a mountain peak we fell freely.

Like a cruise ship in rough seas, we sank deeply.

You were on the prowl right from the beginning.

Who knew I’d be dinner?

Conspicuously you tried your hand, and I swatted it again and again.

But as fast as we drank, even faster we sank.

You pushed me out the door.

Who knew you’d be so cold?

“Yo! Give me a call.”

“Naw, I’m good.”

I’m awake now. No more dream clouds.

Who knew I’d know?

No Beef


I ain’t beefin’, I just don’t care.

You didn’t when I was eight.

Now you’re hurting deeply, yet still, no apology.

Now the life in me, to you is oh so deadly.

The love you never gave, you now want to share.

But I ain’t beefin’, I just don’t care.

Life just ain’t fair, not even when you’re fifty.

And you only ever gave me heartache to bear.

Now you’re hurting deeply, yet still, no apology.

Your venomous rein’s pierced my soul, and tainted my destiny.

All I ever wanted was to be more than your spare.

But I ain’t beefin’, I just don’t care.

Your head is pounding now from the beat of my snare.

You can only think of me. I’ll always be in your head.

Now you’re hurting deeply, yet still, no apology.

After all of the beatings, and all of your hypocrisy

Now you feel the fear that you once instilled in me.

And you’re hurting deeply, yet, still no apology.

But I ain’t beefin’, I just don’t care.

When Do Men Grow Up? Part I


When! How long do “they” manipulate emotions for sport? When do they realize that true love is far to precious to lose, or better yet, to never even know? I mean, WTF! When? When do they fight for the love that’s been in their corner from the beginning? When do they learn that love takes time, and true love NEVER fails? When do “we” see the writing on the wall, and mature enough to take heed? And the answer is…

When “they”, “we”, and yes, even “me” has to.

Men learn through experience. We learn through trial and error, and fuck up after fuck up. And only when we’re forced to choose, are we finally able to grow up. See, I know I’m grown, and have grown up because I had to. I had to learn far too quickly that love is far more powerful than I am. The pursuit of love can burn your heart and though sometimes it’s only slight, damage to the heart can be irreparable. But when do “they” grow up is more of my concern. I’m tired of fighting to teach things “they” should already know. I’m tired of damaging my heart in an attempt to capture theirs. I’m tired of wasting my time, energy, and even my money when “they” won’t just wake up, and grow up. What makes them grow up is probably the question I should be asking, but damn, I’m just so confused. When you’re nice, they step on you. When you’re mean, they hate on you. When you’re there, they ignore you. And when you love them, they don’t even love you. WTF!!!

 

No More Gentlemen


So… Today while at work, I’m chatting with two of my colleagues about random things. One of which is having a text conversation with a guy she recently met who lives in Los Angeles. They must have been discussing when they’d see each other, and then he told her he’d buy her plane ticket to Los Angeles from DC. Not really knowing this guy (having only met him once), she was a bit reluctant, but thought “hey what’s the harm”. Then I mentioned to her that I used to live in L.A. briefly and have been dying to get back there. We decided that I would go with her and we’d get a hotel room so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable staying with the guy. Soon thereafter we kicked it in to overdrive and started looking for flights and hotels. Eventually we found a flight and a hotel that were reasonable priced for the dates we discussed and My colleague called her friend to let him know what we’d found. He told her that he would purchase the ticket for her in the coming days and they got off the phone. Shortly after he sent her a text that said “I’m tired. You should come cuddle with me.” We both looked at each other like… WTF! How did this get there? Then I told her something that I learned some time ago. That is… “All men come for something.” She sent him a few more responses and then in the end she told him how disheartening it was that most of the men she meets seem to be so quick to get women to sleep with them, and that she wasn’t that type of girl. This made me think many of my own experiences with men, and dating.

Let me be the first to say that I’m no angel. I’ve done things that I am not proud of and have been involved intimately with guys, probably sooner that I should have. But I’ve been wondering lately… Are there No More Gentlemen? What happened to dating? Has the information age taken us so far from taking the time to get to know someone before sex that we just can’t go back to that? We’re now a part of a generation where emails, text messages, and pictures are our primary means of communication, and I believe it has pushed true romance to the back burner for the sake of our own impatience. Many of us, (yes this includes me) seem to have been lured into the phenomena that is the INTERNET. I wish, more often than not these days, that we could go back to having dinner, going to a movie, and then parting ways without any sexual expectations. I wish that we could go back to controlling our sexual desires in hopes that we’ll truly find something meaningful in a lasting relationship with someone, rather than just enjoying the immediate gratification of sex. Where are the gentlemen? You know… the ones who take the time to get to know you, meet your friends, ask about your day, and actually listen when you tell them what’s going on in your world. What happened to the talks about your hopes, dreams, and goals in this road of life? What happened to career and family ambitions? What happened to marriage and the sanctity of it, and fighting until your last breath to preserve it? I read something on Twitter recently that said “I’m single because I don’t make permanent decisions on temporary feelings.” That tweet struck a chord with me, having been single for over 8 years now. That’s pretty much the bulk of my adult life. But I just won’t settle for a date without respect, a life without love, a love without passion, and a home without heart. I guess, to some degree, my colleague and I are the same. We’re both disheartened that there seem to be No More Gentlemen.

But I’m still waiting…

Friends and Kin


I guess no one can hurt you like true friends and kin. You know, those who, deep down in your heart,  can always be forgiven. The ones you love, even you when you’re mad or hurt.  The ones you care for even with their dirt.  All can't be close daily, but always know where they stand.  But those whose heart connects with yours know they're always your friend.  A friendship even in kinship remains the closer bond of the two.  Because a friendship is something you've chosen to grow into, and kinship is not a choice and very much something you simply do.

The raw emotions range from the bitter to the sweet, and the thicker to the thin. But knowing that your love for them and theirs for you helps to maintain your status as friends. Even when you're still hurting from something in the past,  a friendship with depth and one in truth will always and forever last. 

 

2010 Blog Year In Review


The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 25 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 2 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 11mb.

The busiest day of the year was October 8th with 202 views. The most popular post that day was Stay .

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, Inmynativescribble.wordpress.com, WordPress Dashboard, mail.yahoo.com, and Inmynativescribble.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for inmynativescribble, “no thanks given” poem, site:inmynativescribble.com “no thanks given” poem, inmynativescribble.word press.com, and inmynativescribble no thanks given.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Stay October 2010
5 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

2

About InMyNativeScribble (The Blog) September 2010
3 comments

3

Resentment September 2010
8 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

4

Their Darkest Knight September 2010
2 comments

5

The Love You’re Compared To September 2010

No Thanks Given


Not this year. Not to you. Not another year looking at your faces and seeing straight through you.

Not over dinner, not even a fat turkey. Not over drinks, and not even if you’re hurting.

Not because it may be the last, as it was 21 years in the past.

Nah, I aint doing it. Not with ya’ll ass.

Not if I’m off, because really I am. Not if you’re lost, because really you can’t.

And I can’t even look at you without being mad. I can’t even think of it without being sad. I can’t even trust you because of the past.

Not this year, not to you, not with this family. You can bet your ass!

This year, there’ll be No Thanksgiving, and No Thanks Given because I’m still bitter, and you’re not yet forgiven.

Little Girl


Yesterday, while at work I received a call in the station from a concerned aunt. She was calling to have someone assist her in checking on the welfare of her young niece whom she thought may have been involved in an abusive relationship with her estranged husband. When I arrived at the address she gave me in N.W. Washington D.C. to assist the young lady she was nowhere to be found. However, her “husband” (who knows if they’re truly married) was on the scene. He allowed myself and the other officers there to assist me, inside of the residence to talk. Shortly after I was able to get the young lady on the telephone and she began to describe how this man continues to threaten her life and physically abuse her daily. Astounded, I immediately placed the man under arrest for Domestic Violence, of which he’d been arrested before in during a previous relationship. I urged the young lady to come to the scene in order for myself and the other officers to make sure that she was okay, and she obliged. After another brief interview of the young lady, I transported her “husband” to the police station for processing. It was then, that I discovered that not only was he abusing her physically and threatening her life, but he was also forcing her to prostitute herself in order to pay the bills in the house. A man she’d only known for about 3 months was able to manipulate her and force her into a world of which many young girls rarely escape.  I’d like to be able to say that I couldn’t believe it, but it’s something I’ve seen far too many times during my tenure as a police officer. Having worked with young girls in prostitution in the past, I knew exactly what direction this needed to be taken, however, initially I’d not bargained for this case to go this far. After collecting all of the witness statements, and other facts and data, I was able to charge this man with the felony he had committed in order to detain him before he’d be formally charged the next day.

I arrived at court this morning to speak with the attorney and to “paper” this case. During my conference with the attorney (a woman), she decided that we needed to call the young victim in order to “verify” her story and to move forward with the case. From the beginning of the attorney’s conversation with the young girl, the attorney was very impatient. She was simply a “just the facts” type of person, who clearly didn’t understand that with such trauma this young girl had experienced, she needed to be handled with kid gloves and be allowed to tell her story. It didn’t take long for the girl to grow extremely upset with the attorney and to disconnect the call. I immediately tried to call the young girl back to get her to talk to me, of which she obliged. Later, I was able to allow her to speak with another attorney in order to get her whole story out. The things she described, the sexual acts she mentioned, and the many men she had sex with, was truly disheartening. I had to stop and think what could have happened in this young girl’s life to make her so weak, vulnerable, and naive. I learned through this interview that she’d had her first child at 13 and her second not too far behind, and now she’s only 21 years old. How devastating is this, I thought. As I continued to listen to her story, I had to walk away. In part because, she was such a weak soul, and couldn’t grasp the concept that she’d been brainwashed, and the other because her grammar was poor, and I couldn’t grasp everything she was trying to convey. I listened to her say that she thought that every relationship was supposed to involve physical violence, as this was all she knew, and all she’d ever experienced. I listened to her tell us how this man exploited her, and placed ads for sex on different websites in order for her to perform these sexual acts for money. And the whole time I thought, what will she become? How can she ever be more? What about her children? Where are they now? Who stole her innocence?

A poor little girl inside and out. She knew nothing of the real world and how to move passed one’s past. She only knew that she had a pretty face, and a slim waist and that the only thing she was worth was a fuck. She had been beaten over and over by men, and those around her who were supposed to love her, and she never learned to love herself because of it. And I just couldn’t believe it. I just didn’t want to think about it. But I knew that she needed someone to fight for her, and I knew that it had to be me. I find it such a shame that people are so broken, that they think they don’t have a way out. These people think that they have nowhere to go because they’re ill-educated and have been broken into pieces. Today, in a small way, I was able to give her a piece of peace. I was able to show her a way out. I only hope that she see’s the light, and finds her path. Because this pretty little girl didn’t deserve this.

“Little girl, little girl. Wonder are you listening. Little girl, little girl. Struggling with your confidence. Little girl, little girl. God made you so beautiful. Little girl, little girl. I just thought that you should know.” (Thanks Mary Mary).

 

Just Wondering…


Just wondering when you don’t feel it anymore, when you’re not hurting anymore, when you’re not angry anymore, when you’re not bitter anymore.

Just wondering when you’re not resentful anymore, when you’re not screaming anymore, when you’re not crazy anymore, when you’re not pissed anymore.

Just wondering when you’re okay to move on, when you’re not crying anymore, when you’re not lying to yourself anymore, when you’re not tripping anymore.

Just wondering when you’re able to live once more.

I was just wondering.

Stay


Will you just Stay?

Even when the path ahead looks a little bleak

Even when we have a fight, say you’ll still speak

Speak to my heart with your words, my soul with your passion, and speak to my mind with your own

Promise me you’re here to Stay and you won’t ever leave me alone

Even if I snore sometimes, or pass gas in my sleep

Even when I’m moody and sound angry when I speak

Even when I get sick and need you to Stay with me

Even when I’ve lost myself, help me to get back to our beat

When I yell for no rhyme or reason, just hold me close to soothe my soul

All I really want to know is if you’ll be with me through the cold

When I cry myself to sleep some nights, don’t turn the other way

Wrap your arms around me to take the pain away

When our children get here and sometimes we disagree,

Tell me it’s not about you or me, we’ve got to do what’s best for our family

When the world is against me, please Stay by my side

Remind me that you’re not leaving, and you’re here to ride or die

When we’re old and gray and wrinkly too

Say you’ll still love me the way that I love you.

Truth


So… Lately I’ve just been reading things that I’ve written in the past, and this piece of a poem was re-discovered. I wrote this quite a few years ago, and remember feeling so hurt and broken. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you’ve invested your time, and so many other pieces of you into someone or something, and then to realize that they’ve done nothing but take advantage of you. How cowardice is it for someone to lead you on and destroy your innocence and tear at the very fabric of your heart? Who knows why people do what they do? Who knows why we can’t all just face our fears and live in Truth!

 

 

 

You couldn’t just be honest, and couldn’t tell me the truth

You would rather say nothing and leave me feeling so confused

Like the fool you tried to make of me, the fool you will be

My fury you will feel, and my wrath you will see

Why not just be straight up with me, as I have been with you

Why not tell me what was going on, so that I could make my move

You took my truth and ran, and never even looked back

You left me without closure, and thought you could just relax

You’ll reap what you’ve sewn, cause it’s only fair

You will face the truth, and the truth you will bear

Resentment


“I’m crying, can’t stop crying, can’t stop crying.”

I had a dream last night. In it I was being chased and attacked by a Rottweiler, of which I was desperately afraid. In an adjacent room was my grandmother, my sister, and my aunt watching me as I was mauled with every misstep by this Rottweiler. They all sat there as this dog and me destroyed the house. My grandmother said nothing. She made no moves, and didn’t even bother to acknowledge my cries. After it was over, I was lambasted and ordered to leave the house. My grandmother started screaming at me for “destroying” her house. I started screaming back because I had literally just evaded what could have been my death. I screamed “WHAT ABOUT ME!” This dog just tried to kill me and she just let him. She just let him maul me. She watched me in excruciating pain and agony and did nothing to protect me. She did nothing to stop him. Then, in my dream, my aunt jumped up trying to push me out the house and we started fighting.

I woke up, looked at my clock, and started crying. This is why…

“I wish I could believe you, then I’d be alright. But now everything you told me really don’t apply to the way I feel inside.”

I woke up this morning in hysterics, crying bitter, semi-sweet tears. Bitter because of what its taken me over 20 years to figure out, and semi-sweet because I’ve finally figured it all out. I’m told often, almost weekly, and sometimes even daily, that I appear to be very angry and aggressive. My disposition, my voice, and even in my writing seems to convey a sentiment of anger or aggression. It comes out when I’m driving and I have a bit of road rage. It comes out when I have bouts with authority. It’s even expressed through my constant change in mood. I hear it so often that I’ve grown to accept that its what I exude, and although its never been my intent, I AM ANGRY! Before today, I was absolutely unsure of exactly where it came from. Therapists have told me that it’s a direct result of post traumatic stress syndrome stemming from the loss of my parents at such a tender age in my development. I was almost 7. But today, this morning, before the sun came up, when it was still dark outside and only an occasional car could be heard from my bedroom window, at 5:15 a.m. I awoke from my dream, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, rocked me to the core, and now I know why.

“Loving you was easy, once upon a time.”

It started immediately. The day after they died was my seventh birthday. My uncle had taken my sister and me to his house after we were briefly questioned by MPD. He had an apartment uptown on 13th street around the corner from 4D. I can’t remember if his new bride was there that night or the next day or at all. But the next morning; Saturday December 2, 1989 was my birthday. I remember that he gave me Cap’n Crunch (my favorite) cereal for breakfast. Afterwards, he took me into the bathroom in this tiny one-bedroom apartment, sat me on the toilet, pulled out scissors, and cut my rattail. My father started letting me grow a rattail a few months back. I guess now that he was gone, this uncle needed to show me, a seven year-old, on my birthday, the day after my parents died, that HE was in charge now. He told me that only sissy’s wear rattails. Slowly my uncle started weaving his ideals into fabric of who he thought I was going to be. I remember one night after I’d just finished dinner, I was stuffed and my stomach was in knots. and I began to have what I thought felt like a stomach cramp. Now, I was a little boy living in a house full of females, and far too often I remember hearing talk of pads, and tampons, and “periods”. I quickly learned exactly what it was, its symptoms, and its effects. But anyway, I had just finished eating, and I remember my oldest aunt and my cousin being there. I started walking around the house holding my stomach, and like I’d heard the ladies in the house say before, I said, “I got cramps, and I feel like I’m about to come on”, jokingly. My aunt overheard me and said, “little boys don’t say that.” At that very moment I glanced over to my other aunt, the youngest, right as she looked at me with disdain, and mumbled, “faggot” underneath her breath. I quickly looked away from her trying to pretend that I didn’t hear what she said. Then, my older aunt said to me, “you better not say that again or I’m going to call your uncle.” So, with fear in my eyes and heart, I shut down. A short while later, while still feeling the pain in my stomach I walked towards the bathroom and mumbled to myself, “It hurts. I feel like I’m pregnant.” But I didn’t realize at the time, that the other person mumbling in the house was standing nearby and overheard me and announced it. The older female immediately got on the phone and called my uncle. OMG! I’m in trouble now, I thought. But my stomach really did hurt, and I hadn’t said anything that I didn’t learn from the women around me. “Why do I have to get in trouble?” Shortly after, the uncle arrives to have a “Man to Man” talk with me about men and what they should and should not say. After his tedious monologue, I shook my head and let him know that I understood and walked away. I remember thinking “Whhhhew! I’m glad I didn’t get a beating.”

Time went on, and occasionally I’d still, unbeknownst to me, say things that “little boys don’t say”, but there weren’t anymore “Man to Man” talks. The “Man to Man” encounters became “Man beating little boy ” encounters, cause there weren’t gonna be any faggots in this family. But it seemed like every time I got a beating for whatever the surface reason was, I’d think to myself… “Everybody keeps calling me a faggot though, and you’re trying to beat it out of me, while you and the rest of the people around me keep saying it.” I knew I didn’t say it. I hated the word. It was an epithet that rivaled “Nigger” in my eyes, but I couldn’t control people saying it to me. They said when I was at school, and they said it when I was at home too. Everybody in my immediate family, at some point, used this dreadful, pejorative epithet to castigate me, and not one of them ever protected me from the others.

“Why did I deserve to be treated this way?”

No one stood up for me; not even the very person who stood beside me while our parents died in front of us. What had I done, at 7 years old, to be treated this way? I mean… Yeah I was nosey. Yeah I had a smart mouth. Yeah I got into fights in school. Yeah, I talked back to the teachers. Yeah I was running around, and always into something. But then again… Isn’t that what “little boys” are “supposed” to do? I was a FUCKING child! And I’m sitting here typing this shit on the verge of tears yet again because now, I’M A FUCKING ANGRY ADULT! Did they ever stop to think that I was fighting in school and a smart ass because I was being ridiculed? Did they ever stop to think that I was always into something because I needed some attention? Did they ever stop to think that I was nosey because I was all alone, and even amongst my childhood friends I was still called “faggot”? Did they ever stop to think that I needed someone, anyone, to show me the love that I had lost? Nope! Not one of them considered what obstacles in life I faced as a child. All they knew was that I was their faggot nephew, brother, cousin, grandson! When I got in trouble in school for talking back or fighting, there was never a question of who was to blame. It was always me! And how do I say, “well they call me faggot everyday,” or “they pick on me because I’m smaller than everybody else”? I didn’t even want to acknowledge that word because I hated it so much. I didn’t want to be embarrassed even more by allowing myself to dare utter such a word. I didn’t want them to look at me and say “well, you brought it on yourself, because you’re a FAGGOT!” So instead, I took my punishment. I took the beatings, and the television restrictions, and the suspensions, and even an expulsion. I took it all, because I wasn’t gonna let them see me sweat. NO TEARS!

“I know you’re probably thinking, what’s up with” me? I’ve been crying too long. What did you do to me?”

I fought back! That day when we were in New Jersey, walking back from the store, you called me a faggot, and I called you a BITCH, and I meant it! But I wasn’t gonna tell anybody what you said, because I didn’t wanna face it, so I lied. I told them you called me Mother Fucker, and still got my mouth washed out with soap. No one stood up for me. Then when we got back to DC I got a beating too. But who cares… right? That day, around Christmas time when you were washing dishes, and you told me to leave you alone, I got smart, you called me a faggot, and I said Santa Claus was calling you when he said “ho, ho, ho”, I meant it. But I wasn’t gonna tell anybody what you called me, because I didn’t wanna face it, so I lied. I told them I never said it, and still got my mouth washed out with soap again. Then later that week, I got another beating. That day we were fighting after you told me to leave you alone and get out of “our” room, you called me a faggot, and I fought extra hard that day even though you were a little bigger! I wasn’t sad. I was bitter! That day you were taking me to Camp Schmidt and I left something behind and ran back to get it, I got back in the car, and you told I ran like I faggot, I REMEMBER, and I’ll never forget it. The Christmas in the 5th grade that I didn’t get until February of the following year because I talked back to a teacher, I haven’t forgotten. The time I accidentally locked your keys in the trunk of your car, you told me to figure out how to get them out, and then told me that if I scratched your car, you’d kill me, I won’t forget that. That day you dropped your keys on the sidewalk while we were walking back to the house at Fairfax Village, I ran  back to get them for you, and you told me in that same teaching voice you used with me before when you said “little boys don’t say that”, you said, this time “stop running like a faggot”, I remember that too! That day I got suspended from school in the 7th grade for fighting, you took me back to your apartment and beat me for hours, trying once again to beat the “faggot” out of me, I haven’t forgotten!  That day in the 8th grade after you’d picked me up from school shortly after your son was born, you told me that I better not ever be a faggot, cause you aint no faggot, and my father damn sure wasn’t a faggot, I haven’t forgotten that either! The time, during my junior year of high school when you allowed my therapist to tell you that I needed Paxil for depression and anger management, and then bought it in bulk, I didn’t forget, but I damn sure flushed it all! I didn’t need medication to manage my anger, I needed you to love me. The time in the 6th grade when your husband punched me in my face, blacked my eye, and then threatened to kill me and my sister, I haven’t forgotten. And I’ll never, ever forget how my own uncle went over to talk to him about his attack on me. Huh??What the fuck was there to talk about? My father and even my mother, for that matter, would have killed him. But maybe my uncle and your husband just sat down, talked, and compared notes on beating my ass… huh? The many days I cried myself to sleep, the days I listened to music and sang loud enough to wake the dead because you’d hurt me again, the days I used to change my clothes in the hallway at Karate School so that the other kids wouldn’t see the bruises, and the day I finally showed you all that you couldn’t destroy me. I haven’t forgotten any of them, and I never will.

“I only give you a hard time, cause I can’t go on and pretend like, I haven’t tried to forget this, but I’m much too full of resentment.”

I pressed on through life, making my own way. With a hardened heart is how I dealt with everyone around me. It’s how I deal with people today. My heart has softened in some areas because on the surface I’d moved passed the details of my childhood under your “tutelage”, and the dynamics of some of our relationships have changed. But just as soon as I scratch away at the surface, it comes back, and all of it comes crashing down. I’m grown now! You people can’t do to me what you used to do. These days I don’t let you. I don’t let anyone! I can’t go on pretending like I’ve forgotten about all of it though. It’s just been eating away at me for so long. So now, you’ll have to face it, because I’m tired. I faced all of you, everyday from the time I was 7 years old. I faced the shame, the ridicule, the physical abuse, and more than anything I faced the fact that not one of you were in my corner. Everything someone else said about me, you took as fact. You never fought for me.

“I thought I could forgive you, and I know you’ve changed. As much as I wanna trust you, I know it aint the same.”

I really did think that I had forgiven this, and that I could move on without having to address it with everyone, but there’s no way I’m gonna keep hurting myself and my future by carrying it. We’re cool now; no beefs, no arguments, and we even talk all the time, but this was bound to come out one day. Who knew that it would take two years of these dreams about fighting and arguing with family for me to figure this out. IT WAS YOU! You’re the reason I’m angry. You’re the reason I’m bitter, and guarded. You’re the reason why I push people away. YOU! When you should have been caring for and nurturing me, you abused me. You tarnished my innocence. You beat me down over, and over again. You never protected me, and you knew all along what was being done, but stoic and unaffected, you let it happen to me. YOU! And you never, not one of you, ever apologized.

“I’ll always remember feeling like I was no good… I know you didn’t wanna hurt me, but look what you done-done to me now. “

When I started my first relationship, I remember him telling me, at sixteen, that I was too much to handle sometimes. My doing too much eventually pushed him away. Then came the next one, who dogged me. I guess it was easy because I was sixteen then too, and he was nine years my senior. When number 4 came along, I was still only eighteen, but he was the one who showed me a love that wasn’t easily broken. He was my protector, in a way that none of you ever protected me. He wasn’t comfortable with his sexuality, but he never shunned me. Even if every gesture I made, or word I spoke made him cringe, I never saw shame in his eyes. He protected my physical being, and more importantly, he protected my feelings. He never told me what to say or how to say it. But guess what…? I pushed him away too.  I felt like I was no good for this man who showed me love no matter what. I thought he was tired of me, and maybe he was. I knew I was tired of doing everything I could to push him away, so I finally just left him. You see? Look at what you’ve done to me now. I’ve spent the larger part of my adult life single. I never let anyone get too close because my expectations are too high. Since you never loved me the way you were supposed to, I look for it in people who can’t ever measure up, and they shouldn’t have to.

“I may never understand why…”

I may never understand why I’ve had to endure this, but at least now I know where it came from. At least now I can work on fixing what has been broken. For so long I’ve just been doing what had been done to me, but I can no longer continue to perpetuate that cycle. My greatest defense has been my offense. After years of having my family beat me down I turned it around, and I’m angry. I’m angry because I don’t know what to do with what you’ve forced me to become. I only know that I’m done carrying the anger that you gave me. I didn’t deserve it, and shame on you! But now, I know that I’m going to have to save myself from myself, so that I can heal.

Sing what I bought!


So… I  was at the Black Family Reunion here in DC on Saturday for the FREE concert. J. Moss (Whoever he is), Regina Belle (Grammy Award Winner), Chrisette Michel (Off The Hook), and Musiq Souldchild (WTF!) were all performing. I must say, that overall I enjoyed the show, but when that damn Musiq got on stage I thought I was going to really enjoy his performance, and to my surprise, it was just mediocre. He gets up on stage humming and lullabying and shit, and changing keys, and I’m like WTF! Can you just sing what I bought! I’ve purchased every one of his albums, and for the past 10 years have been a pretty solid fan. While, I’ll continue to support him, and remain a fan, I need to get in touch with his people somehow about him changing shit up on me. His vocals were lazy to a large degree, and then he had the audacity to get on stage and attempt to sing a song from the OnMyRadio album that he recorded with Mary J. Blige. I couldn’t believe that the chick that he chose to sing Mary J’s part was the best that he could have done. That shit was appalling and she sounded horrible. He would have done better singing the whole song his damn self. Then, while he’s up there changing keys, he must have forgotten the key he changed it to and then went back to the original. Talk about confused!  So shortly after that song, he starts singing another song and then stops the shit, just to start it all over again because he said it was too emotional for him. Damnit! If it’s too emotional, don’t sing the shit! Especially if you’re going to stop it, just to start it over.  I didn’t know what to do, so eventually I just got up and left. I had already been there for several hours and I had to go to the bathroom. But, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse he added a fucking go-go beat to his last song. Are you fucking serious Musiq? Really? The next time you do some foolishness like that I’m taking all of the damn CD’s back to the store. Get your lazy, key-changing, cock-eyed ass on that stage, and DAMNIT you better SING WHAT I BOUGHT!

 

In My Native Scribble


In my native scribble I write with complete disregard for those who place themselves above me, because in the end they’re beneath it all.

In my native scribble I speak of the unjust rules that are in place, because they are not there to make me strong, they are there to make me a slave.

In my native scribble I depict my mind wandering free, because in my harsh reality I’m not allowed to speak my peace.

In my native scribble I can describe the pain I feel, and to the opposition, I will never, ever yield.

Through my native scribble my spirit remains alive, and though I may not always be here, my spirit, it will never die.

Through my native scribble I can break down all barriers, and through the words that I write, I’ve become the “Lone Warrior”.

In my native scribble I’ve written a song I love to sing, and because of that song, my freedom, one will certainly ring.

In my native scribble its clear my situation sucks, but if you can’t define any of the words I’ve used, too bad, go and look them up!

Me & You


Infinite possibilities and definite instability.

The beginning of loves trilogy, of love, war, and love again.

A constant struggle to try and make this happen.

But that old ex-factor seems to be a war I just can’t win.

It must be me, its just gotta be.

Something about me pushes you away, while the rest of me force’s you to stay.

Who knew the emotions of the heart could cause so much dismay?

I try to pray, but don’t know what to ask for.

I try to stay, but don’t know if I can take anymore.

Torn in two by the idea of me alone, and the idea of me and you.

So confused, can’t fathom me alone, aloof and askew.

So just tell me what to do, because if you ask me…

I want it to be Me & You!

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