Sun’s rays cower from smog as Gram and I approached Robinson’s May

“My body is a minefield, please tread carefully” is what I wish I could to say to all prospective lovers. I don’t wish to be ridden with abandon, or squeezed with alarming inaccuracy. Instead, I hold out for that sensitive type. The one with gentle hands, and slow tempo, the one who could make me rise from the dead. Right now they’re nowhere to be found. So instead I am left here to ponder my own body instead, I wonder at all the flesh and from whence it came. Oh, I remember eating pints of ice cream as child, and eating non-stop one day in a fit of rage. We used to fight over food in my family, with food worth more than love. Still, I was an active kid, I swam, ran, jumped and kicked. My body took me in circles, and cartwheels that still make me dizzy to think of. Somehow though I can’t remember when I was put together to be who I am now though. I have scars that I’ve never seen before, I’m sure. Reminders of the time I got the chicken pox, along with the flu. I couldn’t resist picking the scabs, so now I have little bumps to remember them by. My body is just a million idiosyncrasies rolled into one. I was born with 11 fingers. My pinkie toe curves slightly behind my foot, which makes it a bitch to put polish on. My hair, oh my beloved hair, how I hate it. I cut it one year and try in vain to grow it out. It has remained the same length now for 2 years with nary a haircut, it doesn’t grow…or maybe it just falls out after it gets too long. Reaches its max and throws in the towel. I’ve always hated my hair, my mum said I was hardheaded, but it hurt like a bitch every time she pulled one of those rat combs through the back trying in vain to arrest the kink and curl. I often imagined my hair coming to life, California raisin claymation style. It would start to dance and twirl, and then so subtly it’s mood would change, and from there the monsters came. I have a frightful imagination, but it’s easy to understand why any African American woman in this society would have nightmares about a part most prized. It’s so stupid; I wish we could all be bald. I don’t wish I could be bald, because then I’d be the freak. Really, I wish you could be bald. Then I could laugh with you, well actually at you. It’d be a change though wouldn’t it? I always wished for a more complete body, of course I want to be that model type chick with the skinny legs, perfect butt and lovely waist. I’d give that up, for just a little grace, instead, I got my father’s face. I finally got a written addition in 2001 during a trip to New Orleans, something absolutely foreign and new to my body. A lovely tattoo, I haven’t told my family just yet though. I consider it quite tasteful, my name written on my back. Luckily, I have a name that means something to someone somewhere other than myself. Otherwise it might be a tad narcissistic to some. Getting a tattoo has had an added benefit, where as before I shied away from even the mirrors, I now revel at every chance I get to show off my tatt to someone else, or just myself. Wanting to expose parts that aren’t so sensitive to light has boosted my self-esteem, making me prouder to be me. I never really think of my body as important for the most part, in general my body is just a vessel. It carries me, my soul, my thought, my feeling, and my process.

FAITH(O.S) Fuck. shit. I can’t handle it, it bursts out of me like the wind. When did I lose my virginity? I always say 12, and think that in my head which of course was far too young. But then I wonder about the first time a penis entered my vagina (looking over the notes clinically)

If wishes were dreams, I would hand you a sack, stuffed to the seams

You say left, no right I say right, wait left Forces of reckoned fates Sweep us out from under And back to each other The wave keeps us going along Waiting for a sign No undertow Riptide free right here

It’s the empty lots I remember most. I would drive by these wordless gaping holes that a little thing like riots could produce. Littered with advertisements for BRAIDING: $20/hr! Call NOW and signs touting the return of Christ, these lots stood for years before the stores that they once held came gingerly back. I wasn’t in town for the riots; instead I was nestled in the sleeping community of San Luis Obispo, CA. And yet the fear even struck there, 200 miles away from the epicenter of chaos and destruction. Police cars trolled through the quiet streets, stopping anyone who was suspiciously loitering or “causing trouble”. Fortunately for the majority of S.L.O-Town’s population, they only stopped colored peoples. You see, San Luis Obispo is one of those places you can still leave the door unlocked at night and wake up to find all your stereo equipment still happily shining in its exploitive plastic packaging. The children of SLO anxiously await the results of their S.A.T.’s, and then celebrate with a tab of acid. White kids accidentally come to school with guns and threaten teachers, but only when kids of color are discovered with weapons are they expelled. Homophobia, Sexism, and Racism reign as the founding fathers ghettoize even elementary students. Most of the elementatry schools make do with nothing, while Teach School is set aside for the “cream of the crop”, which translates loosely to the richest, whitest kids in the city. Teach has field trip to all over the state, while the other schools have nothing. Special funding they say, others say segregation. S.L.O.’s got this whole village of the damned vibe, and for the most part no one seems to mind. A town of contradiction, it seems to thrive on chaos and function as a hell mouth for some of the most artificial peons the world has ever produced. So the denizens of San Luis Obispo, weren’t too surprised that Los Angeles would riot over something so silly as a trial of 4 white officers beating a black man. They of course agreed that it seemed that the videotape showed it all. However, many pointed to the fact that Rodney King was high on PCP, this statement along with theories on Los Angeles gangs prompted some to shrug off the riots with a, “Thank God we’re 200 miles away!”. Many others in this city waited anxiously, worried perhaps that they would finally reap the whirlwind of the many years of oppressive devices many minorities in the central coast of California had endured. Illegal Immigrants working for under a dollar an hour, discriminative hiring practices against African Americans, the list could go on and on. In the entire school district of San Luis Obispo, there was not one black teacher and there had never been one. Guess what? Still aren’t any! Of course it is a small community, there’s only about 400 teachers in the district, but the school board consistently blamed lack of diversity on lack of applicants. They didn’t see why it should be the school board’s responsibility to outreach to colored teachers and administrators. They pointed to the increase of minority staff as a stepping-stone to a more multi-cultural world, “staff” meaning janitorial and secretarial of course. Indeed, the humor of the stupidly callous and bizarrely unaware community is what helped me to somewhat “enjoy the slo life”, like the town’s motto suggested.

You believe all the fears have been conquered All the issues dealt with

The piece of me that’s missing Listen I couldn’t hear it before

FAITH One you get to know me I’m basically mad. I mean like right now in my head there’s a table with little people sitting around waiting for lunch.

to which I reply I don’t talk like white people neither I’ve got words and ways of saying them