Rocks and Shoeboxes

Sometimes I wish the past were tangible,

That I could condense it into a little pebble,

Because, call me sentimental, but the past is something

I’d like to pick up and put in my pocket,

To carry close at hand while I search for a future.

Yes, I’d like to carry my past, stoic and unyielding,

The rock that grounds me,

Around in my pocket for the rest of my life,

So that when I’m scared I could hold it

And remember how I felt the first time he held my hand,

So I could run my fingers across it

And be reminded of how I used to run my hand through your hair,

So I could feel the comfort of every person I have ever loved

With simply the flick of a wrist.

I want the past to be a pebble that fits in the palm of my hand,

And I don’t ever want to let it go.

Because if the past were my pebble,

Then I wouldn’t have been shell-shocked at finding a shoebox full of your old letters,

Because I’d already be carrying around all that joy and all that pain,

I wouldn’t have been brought to tears as I re-read each one,

And it wouldn’t have hurt to throw them away.

If the past were containable and restrainable,

Then mere things couldn’t bridge gaps between years.

And maybe life wouldn’t hurt so much,

If we could hold everything we’ve ever had at one time,

If even the things we’d lost we still held onto.

Though, when you think about it,

The things we’ve lost are the things we hold onto most dearly:

Case in point, this box of letters,

Which it pained me to throw away.

An emotional packrat, I’d already been carrying around all that joy,

And, masked in it, all that pain…

Finding them just brought it out of hiding.

Then and there I realized I wouldn’t want a pebble:

There wouldn’t be room to breathe in between past pleasures and past pains,

Life’s ups and downs would cancel one another out,

Leaving a rather drab straight line.

Maybe living with the past is just as bad as living in it.

We can’t ever have a solid future if the tiniest hint at our past

Reduces me to tears.

And there’s no good without the bad,

So I have to let it all go.

I took a deep breath and overtuned the shoebox into the trash can,

Let out one last sob and closed the lid.

I don’t want to be a rock—

Things that cannot change cannot endure.

I can remember when we sung to one another,

But the sweetest song is the one we haven’t yet heard:

For the first time, I’m going to be brave enough to let

Possibility win out over familiarity.

It’s time to start something new.

The Day We Almost Kissed

Just do it! screams a voice in my head

Here we are, saying goodbye,

And you’re holding me just a little closer

Than just anybody else might

And honestly, I’d miss my bus in a heartbeat

If it meant I could stay here in your arms.

Here we are, all wrapped up in one another’s arms,

And as you run your hands up and down my back,

I think back to a few hours ago,

When those same arms were around my waist,

And I wonder what it means:

Anything? Everything? Nothing at all?

I wonder what this perfect day has meant

And I wanna do it so badly

That I have to bite my lips to keep them to myself.

I can hardly control myself:

I want to kiss you.

In fact, in this moment, it’s as if I

Planned this entire trip just to get to this exact second,

When I could tilt my head slightly and we’d be kissing.

But what if you don’t feel the same?

What if this fun daytrip was just a fun day?

Our friend rolls her eyes at the fact that we’re still entwined

-I’d forgotten we had an audience-

So I guess it’s put up or shut up time.

I relax my shoulders like I’m going to let you go

(A test of sorts)

And you pass with flying colors,

Somehow managing to pull me back and hold me even tighter.

I bury my face in your neck,

My favorite spot to kiss,

And having remembered that we’re being watched,

I dare not stop biting my lips.

I almost wished I could see your face

So I could try to guess what was running through your mind

But on second thought, I was scared to know.

So one last squeeze and goodbye entity

You’re once again you and I’m once again me,

And, equipped with schedules, tickets, and newly-minted memories,

To our lives we must return.

I pretended I could still see you as the wheels got to turning,

And that voice from before,

My heart? got to yearning…

And now we’re off in different directions,

And I count the days til we meet again,

Already labeling this as the day we almost

Became more than just friends,

The day you almost knew how I felt,

The day we almost kissed.

Loving and Leaving

My stepdad used to find himself fucking hilarious

And one of his favorite jokes was to say,

When someone had hurt themselves in some small way,

“Well how about I stomp on your foot?

“Then you’ll forget about whatever else was hurting you.”

I never thought he was funny,

But I think the concept could be used for joys as well as pains.

And I think they lied when they said,

“Absense makes the heart grow fonder.”

For the first few days, more or less,

An absense reigns much more present than a presence,

Missing someone takes the reigns, takes over your life,

And you let yourself sink lower than low.

Til one day you get up, dust yourself off, and resolve that

“Well, at any rate, life must go on.”

And go on it does.

You seek out your nearer friends and loved ones

Who, by being nearer, instantly become dearer,

And they distract you from the hole in your heart so well

That you’d think they had filled it in.

My stepdad thought a big hurt could mask a small one,

I say that a big joy can obscure a huge pain,

And you can let yourself be happy,

Remember how it feels to laugh and smile…

This charade can last for quite a while…

For however long it takes for you to see

The face of the one who had to leave.

Until you hear their voice.

Until they appear close enough that you could reach out and touch them

And you do,

And as your arms slide around one another,

The whole weight of missing them comes rushing back to you,

Knocks you over like an ocean wave,

And you never want to let them go again.

But this fondness resulted from reunion,

Not from the separation itself.

The heart grows weary of focusing on absense,

And love, even from others,

Is a hell of a distraction from pain.

I’d been having such a great time without you

That I’d forgotten how amazing every day with you is.

I can’t believe I never realized how much I miss you,

I never realized til you were right where

All along, I’d wanted you to be:

Til you had your arms around me.

I think the only thing they were right about is that

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

But, though I miss you now, in the end,

I guess we part only to meet again.

The String that...Saved Me?

A manipulator.

That’s what a marionette’s puppeteer is called.

A perfect name for whoever is pulling my strings,

Hidden behind the curtain of my life’s stage, unseen,

In this theatre disguised as my entire world,

I dance when she feels like dancing,

And if he has something better to do,

I lay limp on the floor, crying from the fall.

People come into and out of my life,

Pulling my strings and generally jerking me around.

Who are my friends but the sutradharas,

Wire-pullers, gods of my own little world?

Sometimes I feel it’s the only way we can interact.

Without them, what could I do but lie still on the ground?

I’m incapable of standing my own ground,

Making my own decisions…

I literally need you to move me.

How else could it be?

I once thought they were the strings that would save me,

But these cords that have strung me up,

These ties seem so natural I barely feel them anymore.

My will is indistinguishable frrom your own.

A pawn at your mercy,

I once had dreams of nodding my own head,

Moving my own feet,

Doing things on my own,

Being a real girl,

Pulled by sinew, not by string.

I once had dreams…

Or were they memories?

The Love of My Life: Take Two

We ended.

It was over.

This relationship,

This strange and unexpected love,

The last seven years,

We looked back only to let go.

We ended it,

And, with it, my world,

And you remained remarkably emotionless,

As if it hadn’t meant anything at all.

I guess if seven years had taught you anything,

It was never to believe me the first time around.

Because the words that came out of my mouth,

The “I’m done,

I love you, but I can’t do this anymore…”

They were no match for this hole in my heart.

I knew even then that whether “best” applied or not,

You’d always be the greatest love of my life.

A good friend of mine once told me

That while life may be called some crazy things,

It really just runs in circles,

And if we wait long enough,

We’ll end up with everything we missed.

When you showed up at my store [by chance?],

The gasp, the smile, the desire I had to throw myself at you,

Latch on and stay there for all eternity…

It told me she was right.

I’d spend some time without you

Completely without you,

Had gone through “I can’t live like this,”

“I think I can do this,”

And even gotten to the part where I didn’t miss you every day.

But I would still talk about you in daily conversation

Because everything reminded me of you

And in boredom, I reserted to you…

As I think you did to me,

For boredom brought us baby-stepping our way back to one another:

The world is full of wondrous things,

But nothing as familiar as you and me.

So now we talk a day or two a week,

Catching up with one another’s lives,

Trying to become again something like we once were…

Or maybe trying to become something new?

Trying to let it come naturally again

And maybe we’ll get back to that place where we didn’t have to try

Maybe we won’t

But I’m glad we’re in a place where we can try.

I’m still learning the boundaries,

Testing the waters of an ocean I know so well,

Going slow because I don’t want to fuck this up again

“Ex” is such an ugly prefix anyway:

Thanks for giving me the chance to have a second chance.

The Divorce

Irreconcilable differences.

That’s the official term for this, right?

When we’ve realized we’re staying together

Just to stay together,

Staying together because it seems impossible

To go our separate ways,

Even though we don’t know one another anymore

And probably wouldn’t like one another very much if we did.

You’re not the same person you were

When we started this.

I can’t say that I am, either.

And I like this new me a hell of a lot better…

…I expect that you feel the same

But I don’t feel the same way about the new you,

Nor do you about me.

And we’d thought sheer stubbornness alone,

One of the few things we still have in common,

Could see us through this…

…But it’s just not working.

They say to leave well enough alone,

But what if well enough isn’t enough for me?

Someone has to say enough is enough.

Because yes, you make me happy,

But not nearly as often as you leave me frustrated,

Or as you enrage me…

Just about as much as you send me spiraling into depression.

So is an ocassional high worth all the lows?

…I didn’t think so.

So I already sent you the papers,

Said I wasn’t really sure…

…But included a pen.

And as I waited for you to do something

To either fight about it

(Like we do about everything else)

Or to join me in giving up all hope

And sign,

I thought of how empty it’s going to be,

This house that’s just brimming over with all our memories

Because regardless of what’s going on now,

You ARE my history.

Sometimes…

A lot of the time…

It seems like I just can’t live with you anymore,

But if the tears I just can’t stop crying mean anything,

It’s that all the time

I can’t live without you.

Is it too late to take it back?

To rip the papers up and

Go to counseling

Or just spend more time…

Anything to get to know one another again?

Because there’s something here I can’t let go of,

Something here that just won’t quit,

Even if I try to.

Love, I don’t think I want a divorce.

The Garden of Life

After I put in my eight long hours today

Slumped against the sign at the bus stop

And trudged home on aching feet

A familiar sight greeted me:

My mother weeding her garden

Wearing her wide-brimmed hat

And gardening gloves

On her hands and knees

Rooting for the roots of those which crowd,

Clutter, and slowly but surely destroy her

Little patch of green

I thought about my day, my week, the last few months

And, watching my mother, I decided then and there

That I wanted to do the same thing,

Just on a bigger scale

She weeds her garden

I want to weed my life.

The bad bits from the past, with such deep roots

I want to hunt them down

One by one

Examine them, find their weak spots

(Rather than the other way around)

And dig them out, once and for all

I want to pull with a ferocity

That rids me of all the anger I hoard inside

I refuse to further nourish the sad parts

Watering them with my tears

And I’ll no longer shy away from the scary ones

Now they’ll have me to fear

But maybe this won’t be as easy as it seems

For while it’s easy enough to distinguish

Dandelion from daffodil,

Simple daisies aren’t really flowers,

So tell me…are you?

I need to put you into a category

Do you stay or do you go?

Because I could never forget you,

But forget-me-nots…they’re weeds too.

This time I can’t wait for you

To decide, to make up your mind

I just don’t have that kind of time

This time, the choice is mine

To dig up even the deepest roots and force you out

Or to declare you to be truly unforgettable,

A morning glory open and wonderful sometimes,

And closed the next…

A truly miraculous flower?

Is all the joy worth all the pain?

Could anything ever fill the hole you’d leave?

I need to know:

Are you a flower or a weed?

Some Things I Know

You’re secretly taller than you look

(Though I’ll still call you short)

You have the most beautiful eyes

I think I have ever seen

You like teaching people to do things

Be it play a video game or understand econ

You love sports so much

That I’ve begun to love them too

You don’t like the way I curse

And hate my instinct to hit first,

Ask questions last

I can’t eat a piece of meatless pizza

And you’ve never even tasted flesh

I know I wouldn’t give up my heels

Even though I’ve already changed because of you

Though I’m not sure if for you

I know we’re absolutely impossible,

Me and you,

The idea of us being together

Makes no goddamn sense

(There I go again)

I’m sure the world would laugh at me

If ever I were brave enough to voice it

I think even I might laugh at me

All this I know,

And one thing more:

In the middle of the night as I

Climb back up the stairs

I sometimes think of turning around,

Descending,

Falling for you.

Faith

I feel almost blasphemous being here,

A non-believer sitting in the Lord’s house

…I only came because of you

Everyone says faith is intangible, invisible,

But I can see yours in your expression

I hear it in the passion in your voice

I know you feel Him here with you and,

Watching you, I almost wish I felt it too

I have faith, but only in…myself,

In myself, and maybe in you

Just not in wonderful ideas that seem

Too damn good to be true

If having faith in my own father failed me,

How can I believe in one that is somehow three?

I was raised to be my own rock,

To lean on no one but myself

The pastor, he’s asking people to come up

People like me, Godless, Churchless folk

To come accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior

I see you, head bowed, eyes closed

And I wonder if you’re praying that I go up

I don’t…understand

How can you ask me to do this?

How can you have given yourself over so wholly?

What proof, what reassurance, do you have?

…I already know what your response will be:

This faith, this beautiful faith that I can see

The faith that makes me so uncomfortable,

For there burns no fire in my heart,

And I live my life to live, not to worship

And I’ve made it this far, made it here

What could be harder than these first almost-twenty years?

Disquieted, really, for the things I would give my life for

Are the things that make me…me

Are things I can reach out and touch, can see

…And a voice in the back of my mind reminds me

That I can see your faith.

The Weaker Sex

I think I finally got it—
Why we who are stigmatized monthly
So that we may bear children
And suffer the joys of raising them
—Why we women are called the
“Weaker” sex.
We aren’t “weak” because you are strong:
Lord knows that ain’t the truth.
We are “weak-ER,” for you, first, are weak,
Pitiful enough to not know what you have
Until you’ve thrown it away,
And then, still pathetic enough to come crawling back
And expect us to kneel to reach your level.
We are weak-ER because we do.
I met you on your birth day,
Mere hours after you came into this world.
Even then, something in the cosmos must have known
Fate would twist and turn with me and you.
Looking back I say you were
Nothing I ever wanted and
So much I didn’t need,
And yet still, you were my everything…
Off and on, for stretches of time,
This illogical motif in my personal plot
That almost sent me to a more permanent spot
—You killed me, but I rose again
Out of the ashes, out of the dust
Out of the nothing that I’d imagined was “us”.
You ripped my heart out,
Held it throbbing in your hand,
And tossed it aside.
I was unworthy of even a break,
So I shattered on my own:
Shattered the promises you never fulfilled,
Splintered all the empty hopes and dreams,
Destroyed the demeanor you left me drowning in,
And, through implosion, rose anew.
I still hate to say it, but They were right:
I’m better off without you.
I picked myself up and
Brushed myself off and
Built myself up again, piece by piece—
I’m stronger than you know.
But then again, you couldn’t know.
You never even tried.
I was just a hit-and-run,
The road you doubled back on,
Fearful of where I might lead.
You left me with nothing but a beautiful
Memory, and even that might be a lie.
Time passes.
Separately, lives change.
I achieved my revised dreams,
Did everything I ever wanted,
Let go of all I didn’t need—
I’d made it.
I was strong.
And then I learned that
Maybe I was lying to myself the whole time,
For evidently, seeing your name and
Reading your words can
Send me straight back to my knees,
To a bliss that faded to fast and
To the lies I held so dear and
Most of all, to the anger
Which has now become a fear.
“Weak” because to this day you can make me cry.
Success comes at a price—loneliness:
The top is a desolate place.
“Weak” for entertaining the notion of taking you back
For something’s better than nothing at all.
But wait, what is it I still see in you?
Feel for you?
Believe?
What that I see, and what that you seem
Belongs in the nightmare rather than the dream?
What damage do you feel you can undo now?
The scars have faded, but they are forever there.
It just might be too late.
Is it time to let you in, or time to let you go?
Your time has passed—it’s my time now
My time! And I’m wasting it
Thinking about you,
What was, what could have been,
Ever since you walked back into my life
Uninvited—I should really give you a piece of my mind!
But that’s worth more than anything you can offer,
So I’ll keep it to myself.
I just hope you know who I am now,
Because I sure as hell don’t know you,
Don’t trust you,
Don’t miss you and don’t want you.
I waited not, nor am I “weak”,
Nor am I too proud, too strong.
So say your piece, and I’ll say mine,
And maybe bygones will be bygones,
If you ain’t still rappin that same tired-ass song.
For, though I may stumble under the weight of my world and
I may occasionally bow my head in shame and
Insecurities and learning experiences abound,
I’ll play the fool no more.
Even if you speak again of dreams and queens,
I left “weakness” behind in the ashes of the old me.

Waiting Room

Hard blue chairs
Magazines
Sitting staring
Sitting reading
Sitting distracting
Sitting waiting
It’s funny how they design whole
Rooms around sitting waiting
What are we waiting for?
News of a loved one,
To be let in,
Test results,
Just to be seen?
By who, for what?
Maybe just to see for ourselves?
There is no clock in the waiting room,
No way to tell time is moving
But the hustle and bustle of hospital staff
And overheard nervous conversations
In the waiting room
Sitting wishing
That she is
Or it isn’t
Reading generic signs about
Washing your hand and caring for the
Common cold,
Everyone in the room having one thing
In common—
We are waiting.
Waiting hoping
Waiting dreading
Waiting pacing
Waiting to outwait the wait
And know something
Know whether she is
Or it isn’t.

Half

Half

You told me the other half today
I’d known there was something you’d been
Hiding
You hadn’t been lying, exactly,
Just telling me a half-truth
About your longer-for-other-half
Today you told me the other half
Well, sent me a link to discover it for myself
You sent me the link then went away
(Hopefully not for fear of what I’d say
Although that fear may be legitimate)
And I should have been relieved
I should have felt honored to have [re?]gained your trust
I should have been as happy for you as I was
Before—I should have
But this is what I did
I salted my tea with a few tears
Crying at your articulation of what I’d feared for years
Crying for lack of understanding my reaction
Why fear?
Why this darker layer? Why anger?
And why, in some small corner of my soul, loss?
So I followed your lead and left too
Abandoned rationality and responsibility
To deal with you, as I so often do.
The bomb—again, negativity: why?—you’d dropped in my lap
Required processing time
And a space not enclosed by four familiar walls
So naught but I might be destroyed
I knew that I had to tell you what you’d told me
When the tables were turned, oh so long ago
Well, half-turned, really
For mine was but a desire, whilst yours
Seems well on its way to becoming reality
So I braved frigidity to wrestle with fallibility
And what I half-wanted, half-needed to say
But didn’t fully believe:
“It doesn’t change anything.
I love you.”
The secondly is patently, unfailingly true
Which is probably why the first statement
Seemed like yet another half-truth to me.
Why does something that changes nothing
About us
Have such a direct effect on me?
I have no problem with the change itself
That, again, is patently true
So is the problem the fact that it’s you?
Can you still be my constant
Having weathered such a shift?
Are you still, even?
Must something change?
I’ve always defined others by you,
And now you’ve redefined yourself
In a way that affects me not
And yet.
I love you,
But redefinition scares me.
For if you can’t be you and you can’t be him
(For his spot is taken forevermore)
Then whatever shall we be?
What shall become of the seemingly indestructible “we”?
Come to think of it,
A third option exists,
Kind of slightly halfway in the middle
Not as much as I’d like from either side
But present, and rather lovely.
I’ll try to place you there.
It shouldn’t require much change.
For, no matter your other half,
You’ll always be part of me.
Now I repeat,
And repeat confidently,
“It doesn’t change anything.
I love you.”

For You I Will

For You I Will

You called me a bit past five yesterday
And asked if you could drop by, visit me
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” you said
I didn’t buy it, but said, “Come over.”
Baby girl, the truth I knew naught of, yet
In your eyes I saw what I could not see
A black cloud lurked shadow-like over you
Unhappiness: “I just don’t like it here.”
At first, I couldn’t see how you could say
Such things about such a wonderful place
Sensing this, you laid it all out for me
Darling, it hurts me to see you hurting
I just wanted to hold you in my arms,
Make you see—I wanted to make you me
For I am happy, or at least I was
Until you brought all of your pain to me
Don’t worry—you’re not a burden, my friend
Warrior-girl, someone must fight for you
I will do something I don’t do often
Something I hold in very high esteem
I’m going to make a promise to you
These are words you can be sure that I’ll keep:
I would give so much of me to see you
Smiling, laughing, playing for me again
I will give you parts of me, all of me
That I can spare—we will make you happy
With different arms, pursuing different means,
Together, we will find your missing piece
I’ve promised you, and my promise I’ll keep.

Go Ahead and Gasp

Go Ahead and Gasp


I have a confession to make.
I
Hate
Children.
Well, okay, ex-step-Father always told me
Hate is a strong word.
So I guess I’ll say I
Strongly dislike them,
The whole lot—all kinds.
And I want to know what goes on in the minds
Of all the people I ever meet
Who are, quite frankly, simply appalled
When I tell them I want no children
Not one, none at all.
I mean,
I simply don’t see what’s so wondrous and grand
Why a child is the cutest darn thing in the land
Let’s take a look at this motherhood gig:
So first you get pregnant
Quite probably the worst part
You get fat
Your boobs and feet swell
Morning sickness
Actually GIVING birth
And don’t even get me started on lactating.
Ew.
What am I, a cow?
So then you have a baby.
And they place it in your arms
And you’re supposed to think it’s cute
And maybe you actually do
And you hold it for a minute or two
Count all of its fingers and toes
But it doesn’t come with an instruction manual
No buttons I can press just to see how it works
What the hell do you do with it?
You take it home
It cries
It eats
It cries
It poops
Or maybe pukes
It cries
It sleeps (if you’re lucky)
It cries
It cries
It cries
And you tough it out
And then you have a toddler
Who draws on the walls
And must be potty-trained
And gets into EVERYTHING
No matter how many times you
“Baby-proof” your house.
And then you have a child
Who has to start school
And then needs help with their homework
And wants to bring cupcakes to class
And wants the new red lunchbox Johnny has
And just
Keeps
Growing.
And then you have a preteen
In middle school
Which obviously means
They know absolutely everything about everything
Why, they’re almost teenagers
This must mean they’re infallible
And when they find out they’re not,
It’s the biggest deal in the world.
And then, good Lord, they’re teenagers
Angst-ridden, beautifully tragic teenagers
Who want want want
And need need need
And drive and party and make you worry
And never ever live up to the ideas you had for them
And then blame you
And then they finally turn 18
And you feel like you’re done
But the college kid calls home and shows up for break
And not to mention tuition
And the adult still wants to come home for Thanksgiving
But won’t take you in when you get old
Parenting: you give up your whole life
And then continue to give, give, give
And for what?
To hear the word Mommmmmmmmm
For all eternity?
No thanks.
Make love, not babies:
This whole mother thing
It just isn’t the life for me.

And One for Me?

I blame Disney,

the Grimm Brothers,

that Anderson guy,

and Mother Goose, too:

any and all of them fairy tales that taught me that

if I ain’t happy with me, all I need is

you.

I hate that every little girl wants to be a princess.

I mean, before she gets fed up wit hangin out in some tower

waitin on Prince Charming,

what the hell does a princess do?

And why ain’t none of them Princesses black?

Don’t sistas need savin too?

But only them skinny lil white girls get a real prince;

the bitches with a little color?

Jas got a streetrat,

Pocohontas’s ass got left,

that gypsy girl could only land a hunchback,

and Mulan’s whole damn country dissed her

…It’s a goddamn shame.

Sometimes I feel like this world’s been telling me

I’m gon get got from Day One.

And that that jus plain ain’t right.

See, my whole life people been tellin me,

“ You gon be somebody”.

And you know what? I think they right.

If I made it here,

I’m pretty damn sure I can make it anywhere.

I might even be able to make it up that ladder

But will I be that strong,

power-suit wearin,

high heel rockin

Black woman can’t no man love?

Am I gon spend my whole life workin,

just to work some more?

I can’t see myself spendin the rest of my life with people tryna suck the color right outta me.

Cuz us soulful sistas, ya know,

them dragons try to get us, too.

Am I gonna hafta fight them myself,

or will you?

What I’m tryna say is, will a man love me if I go for my dreams,

or is “love” as much of a joke as it seems?

See, I think back to them stories and what I see on TV,

and all them girls that get love,

that find the one they walked with “once upon a dream”,

they’re everything I’ll never be.

And the concept of “rift-raff…streetrat”?

Well, I actually WON’T buy that.

Is there ever gon be a prince for the successful sista?

Or am I always gon stand proud,

stand tall,

stand here in my kitchen by myself?

Would it really be so bad if I did?

Heh, I think it’d give my Mama a heart attack.

So I blame Mother Goose

for sending Jill tumblin down after.

Hans, cuz he said I hadta call myself Ugly

to be a swan, and I hafta be tiny

to get my man.

Brothers Grimm, my skin’s not white as snow,

and it’s rainin outside—I can’t let down my hair.

But I heard some good news the other day:

seems like Disney’s fittin to give sistas a chance.

This new chick, they got her goin through all kinds of hell,

but comin out alright in the end

(Remember, Brandy got to be Cinderella too)

So maybe this part right here is where that tired old frog story gets

twist-turnt upside down.

Maybe…if they get it right.

And if they don’t?

Then I’ma just keep doin me, tryna make it right myself

Maybe Mama’s right and I should go head an call this boy

...someday one of them’s gon open they eyes and love me.

Wanting You

Wanting You

I’m done being torn,
done “deciding”,
done daydreaming and fantasizing,
romanticizing and idolizing.
I won’t claim to be sick of love songs,
but I’m sick of chick flicks and romance movies.
I’m sick of longing for a Noah,
a Jack or even a Jerry.
Al and Eric can hit the road, too.
This castle is home to both of us,
but I don’t need a Prince Charming;
I’m a big girl—I’ll rescue myself.
I just can’t be all by myself anymore,
and I’m sick of lovely ideas and beautiful lies.
I want something real
with someone real.
I
want
you.
This sounds so trite and cliché,
but then again, so does the entire concept of falling in love,
so I guess I’ll say it:
There’s just something about you.
I can’t really describe what it is,
but there are more obvious choices that have been flat-out
denied.
Something draws me to you.
There’s a reason I can’t say your name without smiling,
why I’m quite literally always thinking about you.
There’s a reason I’m already missing you more that I was missing you already,
and I’m not missing him at all.
I’m not sure what it is,
but there’s a reason I choose you.
You’re the one that I want.
But I’m doing more than that,
because I’ve wanted you for quite some time now.
I’ve coveted and cherished…
But I’m done admiring from afar;
that's just not enough anymore:
I can’t just sit around
wishing, waiting, wanting
you to want me.
No more acting coy and flirtatious
or switching it up and playing hard-to-get.
Darling, I want you…
and I’m becoming the type of girl who,
once she decides what it is,
always gets what she wants.