Love to be Music

I wanna be hip hop.

I wanna be  concrete jungle

Graffiti’ed brick buildings

Walking with swag as if the streets is my rhythm

And my heart is the bass.

I wanna be…

Quick wit and rhymes galore

Over old school samples

Broken, scratched, and juggled to an unrecognizable

Cacophony of sound bliss.

I wanna be cutting edge clothes, and shoes,

With a hat that perfectly tops it off…and

A grape lollipop to show I’m a sweet bitch, but a bad bitch.

I wanna be hip hop.

I wanna be neo-soul.

I wanna be bald, fro’d or locked

Rockin’ clothes inspired by travels.

I wanna be neo-smooth,

Merely swaying to the soulful sounds

Of raw, unfiltered soul.

I wanna be conscious-as in aware not as in militant

And have deep discussions about the revolution and such

While Badu plays in the background.

I wanna neo-soul.

I wanna be R&B.

I wanna be polished suits, hair, and flawless skin

Poised to bump and grind

I wanna be the emotion beneath the yelling the screaming the

Cool down typical of such music.

I wanna be lip gloss and faux fur with an attitude to back it up.

I wanna be down…

Transporting folks to a soul fantasy, a soundtrack to urban fiction

Yeah, I wanna be R&B…

I wanna be pop.

I wanna be artificial sugary sweet

Put together package of well-enough vocal skills and bubble gum style.

I wanna be the subject of “WTF is she thinking” when I walk across a crowded room

I wanna be boy band crazed wearing a Miley Cyrus tee shirt

Trying to dance like Usher…I mean Chris Brown…I mean Michael Jackson.

I wanna be cool like the cool kids…

The ones who wanna be pop.

I wanna be indie rock.

I wanna be spoiled, privileged, but angsty for no reason

Other than it sound good dope on bass.

I wanna be skateboarding and surfing and cruisin’ the valley streets

With my bro’s and my babes and my dudes, and my chicks…

I wanna be flannelled out with clothes that look warn for years

But, like,  I just got them this weekend at a Telegraph avenue thrift store.

I wanna be half dope, half cool, but all the way indie rock…

I wanna be gangsta rap.

I wanna be mean muggin’ dem females and homies

Rollin’ through, bumpin' west coast grooves on a

Sweltering sunny afternoon.

I wanna be trouble everywhere I go

But smart enough to not get caught.

I wanna hang around street corners

Representing my hood by throwing up signs and

Daring anyone to cross me.

I wanna be slow, bassy grooves to a rapper who just

Tells it like it is.

No tricks, no lyrical somersaults.

I wanna be gangsta rap.

I wanna be the living image of soul that has passed on.

The elegance of Whitney

The charm of Heavy

The fearlessness of Pac, Big, and Eazy

The sweetness of Celina and Aaliyah

The feistiness of Left Eye

I wanna rock like Cobain, with

The wisdom of Gil

The sexy smoothness of Luther and Gerald

But with the rawness of Nate

Sealed with the sincerity of Guru

And the life-force of Dilla

Creating the planet, like Don,

For striving moonwalkers like Mike.

I could go on for days just wanting to be music.

I just wanna be music.

Snapshot/Backwould Story

SNAPSHOT/BACKWOULD STORY

In  a wide open country city metropolis where

Lay alligator carcasses on dirt roads that align the streets

In a working class but struggling town dominated by

Football parades and country buffet diners,

I tried to find my place with a  man called my father.

Travelled miles to see him. 

Had wanted to meet him since the day I was born.

Word has it that he knew about me but had a family that needed him more.

So at the age of 26 after research and prayer,

My mom helped me find him.

Fortunately this is not a poem about a deadbeat father and a young woman with abandonment issues.

Its about a dance between two adults from different sides of the universe.

I, an urban girl from sunny California. A weird dreadhead with a valley girl accent.

He, a hardworking factory laborer with 8 ids and a wife that kept him in check.

Me, trying to fit myself in during smoke breaks and commercials.

Instead, I found myself passing the time by having awkard conversations with these people who were my sisters and brothers and nieces and cousins and all…..Family.

A pre-established family much different from the one I’d grown accustomed to.

I was an outsider and it was clear.

Many dates with  my father cancelled because his wife told him he had other priorities. Many promises broken because she was afraid I was trying to milk him for back child support.

I never needed a father, rest assure, to take care of me, and I don’t need one now, I proclaimed.  It just would have been nice for him to…

…it doesn’t matter now.

After three months of second hand smoke, crunk, and hearty meals, I took my happy ass back to the real world.  To Cali.  To the only family I’d ever known.  The friends who had my back. But something stayed with me; this tendancy to chase after unavailable, emotionally detached men.  The way I chased after my father.

Three years and such later, I got an email that he was on his death bead.  I flew back to this slow moving town, where on Saturday nights, teens and 20-somethings dressed in their Sunday best to congregate in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  I know.  I was there.

My father looked so small and frail but had a smile on his face like he had no regrets. Graceful during his transition but not transitioning without telling me, “Danetta (he had a hard time with my name), I’m proud of the woman your mama raised. You’re a good person and I love you.”

Love.

Me?

Someone he didn’t even know?

Funny, I loved him too.  Funny, although  I didn’t meet him until 26, we had a lot of the same personality quirks and habits. Like biting our knuckles while pensive, or laughing for no reason, or always showing our best face no matter what the inner struggle.

I said goodbye to him without much than a teardrop.  Closed this chapter in my life.

And although he is gone, his spirit is kept alive on Facebook by his kids-my brother and sisters who friended me.

This is not a poem about a deadbeat father and a woman with abandonment issues.

This is moreso, a snapshot of a life all too common among black folks.

And a little back-story about why I may come off as one of those women who doesn’t need a man.

Understand, it is not arrogance that makes me this way.  Its living proof that’s made me this way.

Retiring to Natural-A Hair Poem

Tried the long and wavy thing
the blow'd in the wind thing
the color blocks and side swept bangs
the sultry sassy and the smoothe
tried the just brush 'n' go
the half hour curling iron sessions
the so-called feminine look
tried the socially acceptable
non-threatening
easily employable
black girl feature softener
the head turner
thing

While underneath I suffered
blisters and scabs
hair receding to a perfect sized Sade
Armed with pencils, bobby pins, and soothing spray
to ease the pain in places hard to reach.

Waking up in the middle of the night to bang my itchy head
against the wall
or recruiting my boyfriend to hit me upside my head
as he does it reluctantly, thinking I'm some kind of freak...
he don't understand the reality of the black woman weave.

So I'm returning to me.
My natural roots.
Returning to coarse, dense curls
that mat up after washing.
Returning to hair that draws up, making a ponytail impossible.
Returning to twists out and bantu knots and afrohawks and braids
Returning to a look that is political whether I like it or not.
Returning to comments like, "You go, sista!" or
"What happened to your hair?"

Returning to redefining...
black beauty

The bad and the good
the real and the painfully unreal
and I don't knock anyone who
doesn't mind spending $$$ and 6 hours and such
getting processedsewnindyed and trimmed.
HAIR IS SELF-EXPRESSION; NOT SELLING OUT.

I was on that ride for a moment,
and oh what a fun ride its been.

But the time has come for me to place my money
and time on something more important.
And to believe in my own natural beauty to be
good and
....enough.