Remembering

Dear God, God(s), Universe, Creator, You,

Some days I feel so ungrateful. I have so much yet I want more. I have so many reasons to be happy, yet I linger in sadness. Why is it so difficult to bask in the joy of my blessings? I look at my love and my heart flutters, why can’t I always feel this way? Why do my worries overcome me when clearly love has wrapped itself around me through the divinity of my lover, my family, and my friends? Why do I carry with me this feeling of unworthiness? Why do I not feel worthy of the gifts placed all around me?

I’m beginning to realize why. I have trouble loving myself. I have trouble forgiving myself. My blessings become my burden when I feel shame for not having done more, for not having given more… for not being perfect. I am loved by such incredible people and forces but instead of celebrating, I stumble under the weight of my own expectations and judgment. I don’t feel worthy. I’ve let people down. People, who love me, people who’ve needed me. I’ve let myself down. I’ve broken promises to myself time and time again. How can I believe myself anymore? And to the point, how can I love myself anymore?

It’s because of you, my brothers and sisters. I see the light of loved ones even when they don’t see it in themselves. I find myself feeling out the words of love and support I readily give others as some foreign object of hope. Have I been so blind that I never realized that the words I crafted and imbued with love for others is also meant for me? And that I exist here for more than the words but to live this message? I am not perfect and I will never be, but I am worthy of my own love; I am worthy of forgiveness. Loving myself isn’t egotistical, it’s necessary.

I’m not certain where this path will lead me, though I am sure to get lost again. I hope to remember and maintain a practice of self love, so when the path is winding or perhaps I’ve lost the path altogether, I remember to listen to the compass of my heart, for although others may travel farther and my feet may stray further, I've only ever traveled to find myself.

PS I say “I” but I really mean “We.”

Suture (On Haiti and D.R.)

There is no border only a suture

Stitched by stigmas.

Our states have holes in them

From sticking to their guns,

Stigmata.

The only things bigger than the earth is our prejudice

And faith will move mountains

But it cannot budge ignorance.

An island divided amongst itself cannot stand.

We are broken, being pinned by the paralysis of empire.

Rwanda reminds me of Republica.

I was taught to hate you,

Echoing whispers spread like notes in a classroom.

Do you hate Haiti? Circle yes.

Want to see Stockholm syndrome?

Visit my republic, where slavery is ugly

But our slave masters are beautiful.

Little girls wither in the mirror

Trying to get that hair just right

Wishing they were just White

But our blood is Triguena, Morena y Negra,

Como Cela in la Sierra Maestra.

We are masters of this bestia.

Our island was the 1st Black republic of this hemisphere.

And I want to tag that in big block letters on the 1 train,

Because it’s easy to forget.

We are laced with lull lullabies that lose track of our lament.

Listen to the mountains.

They DJ “Fight the Power”.

It’s evident that PE sampled Haiti.

Its #1 export isn’t sugar, its revolution,

The Panther’s original source material for fighting the imperial.

In fact, we should open a chain of stores

In front of the hotels built on the most famous of shores.

It’s slogan would be:

“Stomping out European colonialism since before eighteen-O-four.”

You see, we used to be powerful

We used to be whole,

But centuries of surgery left a suture

And there are no borders any more,

Only scars stitched by stereotypes.

Come to D.R. if you want to deconstruct a duality.

Research how far a people can be pushed before they hate themselves.

Our conditioning is sick.

And on the whim of others a border was stitched.

The truth is they have sutured borders into all of us.

Secluding our Afro-centric sentiments.

That’s why we straighten our mountains and bleach our lands,

Segregate our cities and privatize our sands.

Pero yo, soy Aytiano.

And God does not make borders,

Only mountains. 

Soul on Ice RMX

…Violence begets violence

And every day I fight against silence

Unleash my mind on the world

Finger down my third eye and I hurl…

I don’t release masterpiece creations

Just share with ya the abominations

Cuz ya ain’t ready in Obama’s nation

So consider this a light mental molestation

Don’t ask me why I write if that’s your contemplation

I’ll tell you to study the earth and pollination

How you gonna understand the flow of my creation

When you don’t understand the physics of condensation…

You hear a rapper but respect the mula

Just cus you smoke don’t mean you close to Buddha

Ain’t about that life but I live a door from it

That’s what happens when your soul is your stomach… glutoness

What’s the price of a soul?

When you seen some things make you cold

Nightmares from the things that you know

No heart no more just a hole and the flow

Dear God, what’s the price of a soul?

When you seen some things make you cold

Nightmares from the things that you know

No heart no more just a hole and the flow

I ain’t afraid of death I can’t wait to be home

Living here where loyalty’s a word to be thrown

Every action is a conversation

And I’m listening writing it down in a compilation

I got an army not for salvation

Living in between the damned and damnation

I know why men get lost in a bottle

The surprise of the stab and the pain that follows

Make you wanna sleep till your hollow…

I made a promise to Apollo…

But now I crossed the Styx do you follow

When the footprints lead to a corpse in the grotto

And the pain is greater than tomorrow’s

Hope so you start to drink all your sorrows

Fell so far that you can’t rise above it

But the devil sweet and you start to love it… treacherous  

What’s the price of a soul?

When you seen some things make you cold

Nightmares from the things that you know

No heart no more just a hole and the flow

Dear God, what’s the price of a soul?

When you seen some things make you cold

Nightmares from the things that you know

No heart no more just a hole and the flow

*Listen to Soul on Ice RMX

Her Soul

Her soul is a sanctuary,
My favorite place to hide.
Her smile a zephyr,
Whispering the secrets of spring.

Summer lovers say,
"Her words fall upon the wind."
But my heart is not a door revolved, 
There are few who enter.
And though the cold grow it slow, 
Spring is treasure, 
For the man who's lived in winter.

Grasp

For so long I have grasped tightly

To a dream state you spoke of.

I poured all of me

Into this paradise of fools

And now I have come to mourn,

To take these hands

To the sea,

So I can finally release this weight.

I will wait till summer

Until the sun is brightest

So that it’s warmth

Can fill me the way

Your words once did.

How bitter the taste of a dream

Left out too long.

2 hands clasped-

Tightly, nails digging into skin.

I thought I carried a truth and a dream

But there were worms in the fruit you sold me.

And still I held them

Hoping that time would play alchemist.

Your words are truths I no longer believe in.

And I will bring them to the sea,

And let Poseidon play host in your lost paradise.

And for the 1^st time in years

My hands will feel the freedom

To create a dream

Worth holding onto. 

Love Is

Love is mornings spent entangled in you.

I don't want to get up.
So I hide underneath you and shoo the day away.

"Go away day, this feels too right."

The alarm rings again and I rise.
I laugh at the irony.
I go to work and sacrifice the sweetness of now,
So I can later afford more moments
Just like this.

Lonliness

I would never miss her call.
I'm too afraid she might leave.
She's left before,
But I know where to find her.
She's never far.
She asks for much
But I'm much obliged.
For she's taught me 
To hold this pride.
And so I kiss a chance at bliss,
As I go to lengths,
To maintain this relationship 
With loneliness.