“Thirty [years old]. And I was alone, had been for a while, and might be for a while, but it no longer frightened me the way it had. I was discovering something terrifyingly simple: there is absolutely nothing I could do about it. I was discovering this in the way, I suppose, that everybody does, but having tried, endlessly, to do something about it. You attach yourself to someone, or you allow someone to attach themselves to you. This person is not for you, and you, really, are not for that person - and that’s it, son. But you try, you both try. The only result of all your trying is to make absolutely real the unconquerable distance between you: to dramatize, in a million ways, the absolutely unalterable truth of this distance. Side by side, and hand in hand, your sunsets, nevertheless, are not occurring in the same universe. It is not merely that the rain falls differently on each of you, for that can be a wonder and a joy: it is that what is rain for the one is not rain for the other.”
— James Baldwin in Just Above My Head
(the absolute best crystallization of his writing…ever.)
Why I became a pacifist
and then
How I became a warrior again:
Because nothing I could do or say
turned out okay
I figured I should just sit
still and chill
except to maybe mumble
“Baby, Baby:
Stop!”
AND
Because turning that other cheek
holding my tongue
refusing to retaliate when the deal
got ugly
And because not throwing whoever calls me bitch
out the goddamn window
And because swallowing my pride
saying I’m sorry when whoever don’t like
one single thing
about me and don’t never take a break from
counting up the 65,899 ways I talk wrong
I act wrong
And because sitting on my fist
neglecting to enumerate every incoherent
rigid/raggedy-ass/disrespectful/killer cold
and self-infatuated crime against love
committed by some loudmouth don’t know
nothing about it takes 2 to fuck and
it takes 2 to fuck things up
And because making apologies that nobody give a shit
about
and because failing to sing my song
finally
finally
got on my absolute last nerve
I pick up my sword
I lift up my shield
And I stay ready for war
Because now I live ready for a whole lot more
than that
June Jordan
”Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan”
pp. 477-478
bell hooks
Toni Morrison writes that the idea of romantic love and physical beauty are “probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.”
(via restoried)
(via femmenoire)
Affection is only one ingredient of love. To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication. […]
Most of us learn to think of love as a feeling. When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect with them; that is, we invest feelings or emotion in them. That process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us is called “cathexis.” In his book* [M. Scott] Peck rightly emphasizes that most of us “confuse cathecting with loving.” We all know how often individuals feeling connected to someone through the process of cathecting insist that they love the other person even if they are hurting or neglecting them. Since their feeling is that of cathexis, they insist what they feel is love.
When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abuse can not coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposite of nurturance and care.
(via femmenoire)
…he made it a point
to point out (to me)
that i was loved. not only by him
but by so many others.
that in my life - i didn’t lack love or care or nourishment. in any capacity.
he used to worry that he was the only person feeding into me.
the only person caring for me. in any capacity.
[he knew]
(and because, at a point, i had a propensity for being tragic and dramatic (hush!) - i own that i was responsible for that.)
in “fairness” to my growth + development: i was blind.
(“…we as people take sight for granted.”)
…lacked the ability to comprehend any of this. at least in that particular time in our relationship.
i had [have?] a tendency to be distant
and removed. i had [have?] a tendency to lose sight
of what is going on around me
because there was [is?] always so much
going on inside me (and around me).
[“still”:]
he loved me. he allowed me space to love myself.
i allowed me to love him.
[peace to ntozake, fonny, and tish.]
all of this allowed me to be secure in the knowledge and understanding that:
…people love me. that people care for me.
that i matter.
he always provided space for me to remember that. to own that.
to love that.
so i could [continue to] love.
you are sucha fool/ i haveta love you
you decide to give me a poem/ intent on it/ actually
you pull/ kiss me from 125th to 72nd street/ on
the east side/ no less
you are sucha fool/ you gonna give me/ the poet/
the poem
insistin on proletarian images/ we buy okra/
3 lbs for $1/ & a pair of 98¢ shoes
we kiss
we wrestle
you make sure at east 110th street/ we have cognac
no beer all day
you are sucha fool/ you fall over my day like
a wash of azure
you take my tongue outta my mouth/
make me say foolish things
you take my tongue outta my mouth/ lay it on yr skin
like the dew between my legs
on this the first day of silver ballons
& lil girl’s braids undone
friendly savage skulls on bikes/ wish me good-day
you speak spanish like a german & ask puerto rican
marketmen on lexington if they are foreigners
oh you are sucha fool/ i cant help but love you
maybe it was something in the air
our memories
our first walk
our first…
yes/ alla that
where you poured wine down my throat in rooms
poets i dreamed abt seduced sound & made history/
you make me feel like a cheetah
a gazelle/ something fast & beautiful
you make me remember my animal sounds/
so while i am an antelope
ocelot & serpent speaking in tongues
my body loosens for/ you
you decide to give me the poem
you wet yr fingers/ lay it to my lips
that i might write some more abt you/
how you come into me
the way the blues jumps outta b.b. king/ how
david murray assaults a moon & takes her home/
like dyanne harvey invades the wind
oh you/ you are sucha fool/
you want me to write some more abt you
how you come into me like a rollercoaster in a
dip that swings
leaving me shattered/ glistening/ rich/ screeching
& fully clothed
you set me up to fall into yr dreams
like the sub-saharan animal i am/ in all this heat
wanting to be still
to be still with you
in the shadows
all those bulidings
all those people/ celebrating/ sunlight & love/ you
you are sucha fool/ you spend all day piling up images
locations/ morsels of daydreams/ to give me a poem
just smile/ i’ll get it
ntozake shange
”A Daugter’s Geography”
pp. 28 - 30
