And we must learn to release the grip around our enemy’s necks. Free our hands for something…more. Forgive our dreams for being nightmares (at times). Give a fist bump to the things you once thought were ruining your life. Ride in cars with tax collectors, realtors, and practitioners. Ask the great Prince of Peace to take the wheel (of fortune; of misfortune). Get dog tired of the spinning. For none of it is ours to grip, to hold, [I 🙏🏽 the Lord my soul…] to keep 🤲🏽.
We made a game out of the word ‘Jeopardy’ and we’ve been spinning ever since. #MAHism2023 ˈjepərdē – exposure to danger or peril, loss; vulnerability; insecurity; a thirst for peace unquenched by riding in cars 🚗 with you and you and you and me.
Careful with your voice. It carries a vibration. Different than sketching words onto lined canvases. When you speak it is a forced-feeding of sorts. It is your self outside of itself. Walking beside another. Braiding her hair. Shaving his beard. Coming closer and closer to orifices that don’t belong to the original speaker. Being chewed, swallowed. Digested. Coming out another’s end – looking nothing like it did before. Careful. With your voice.
The crushing. The press. Shows how you’ve been careLESS. The pouring. The pull. Proves the purpose of CareFULL. And I thank God that there is still more love, more grace, more forgiveness in the bottle. #MAHism2023
Once we realize how imprisoned we are…. Only then can we appreciate broken cages Can we admit to the ache in our wings Can we recognize the great importance of a call(in’), its song, and its flight
I was born on an army base in Texas. With the word ‘kill’ leading the way – war shielding a precious love. Near borders. In desert-like summer heat. To parents who inherently knew the importance of 2×2; but too young to realize the gravity of the nails placed in wooden boards. Around the corner from docked slave ships dripping in blood. Women speaking in tongues that everyone knew just by the sheer gut wrench of their cry. These are the women who’ve been made to swallow their tongue else it turn into a serpent in the garden. These are the women in the good book that no one wants to be like. But these are the women of whom I take my likeness. The bayou will always be so. No matter how many doctrines have attempted to flood out the shore. No matter how loud the gunshots are outside of libraries. No matter how much tar we’ve placed on the bottom of our feet. No matter how circular the journey due north becomes…. We hurt everywhere. How did we manage to leave anything but an apology behind? I thank God for grandmothers smart enough to take on coverings that were foreign to them. Strong enough to hold the secret through generations. Sometimes I feel as though I am coming out of my skin. At first it was a crawl, then a gallop, and now a flight. But then my baby smiles into my eyes. I get some reprieve from gazing at the cross her father, grand, brother, mate hangs on. And I remember how far we’ve come just by apologizing for the time and place of our births. Slick yet loud. Like black ice and pool balls. And I remember His footsteps looked slightly off center because I kick and scream in my sleep. And I remember now is the time for something different. Finally. And I remember. That this time the journey may not require an underground anything. May not require a bridge burned or flooded. Maybe this time the softness will come to us. And I remember that we are worthy of just that. And I remember – whether alive to tell the story or speaking from the grave…none of us have been brought this far just to be left behind; for it took grace to get us here, faith to lead us home. And I remember… ☮️ by ✌🏾
MAHism2025: prose, poetry, peculiarities... 