This blogging thing is harder that i thought. Putting yourself all out there requires a certain amount of bravery. Maybe I shouldn't care as much cause i'm pretty sure the only visitors I have are my sister and my boyfriend haha!...but its still scary. These poems are near and dear to my heart and it's a scary feeling to think that someone might interprete them wrong. Did i mention i'm scared...I decided to start blogging for that very reason. I've been writing for a long time and i'm pretty comfortable with my work. But the thought of sharing it with other people has this crippling effect on me. I really really love spoken word and it's something i've always wanted to get into. But again this fear. Speaking the words that I know so well is like the hardest thing to do. I'm deeply inspired by Bassey Ikpi, a Nigerian sista who's doing her thing in the spoken word community. Love this woman! I wonder, what is it about human beings that makes us so focused and concerned with how we're perceived by others? Don't get me wrong, i'm a pretty confident person in my everyday life, but i guess that's because that doesn't require me to reveal anything about myself. I've decided to take baby steps, put out a little bit at a time, work myself into this thing. I'll start by putting up poems that I have already shared with other people, maybe that way i'll get a little braver.
I wrote this about the AIDS epidemic, it's funny it seems like I find it easier to write about things that hurt than about gum drops and roses...
Pandemic
It is this deep, dark, empty thing
caught between chest and throat
Begging lips for relief in words.
The noise of 2 million heavy sighs
Our mother is dying…
the one who bore us all, She lays in squalor and
we all pretend we never heard her fall
It is the regret of unsaid farewells
It is tongues caught mid sentence
Quick whispered goodbyes
Tears frozen in eyes…too young still
quiet prayer, cast up in desperation
This steady rumble, commands our attention
Calls us from our apathy
Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria
Our mother is dying…
the one who held us in her green.and red.and gold
It is motherless children
Cries unsoothed
Bottomless grief
It is stolen childhood
interrupted hopscotch, freeze tag, hide and seek
cold and bleak
It is broken promises
Naïve trust
Gross miseducation
It is dreams unfulfilled
Stories left unfinished
Hope snatched from weary hands
Eyes deep with despair
This is not, sit and wait
Maybe later
This is not, so far away
Maybe some other day
It is today, it is today
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