I really have no idea how my self esteem ended up in the crapper

it's been a rough couple of months for my emotional and mental health. even after the stress lessened, i still found myself crying in between classes and at night when im by myself and the days activities are over. even right now it's hard for me to keep writing this and not to just regress back into my mind. at the moment i have no control over my thoughts and they just tortured me until im numb and i sleep to get away from it. im doing my best, talking to different people, taking advice, keeping busy. but i dont know for how long this will continue

Roosting

my heart practically bursts out my chest for nothing. I'm so ready for things to happen and so clueless as to how to start. there is no easel to paint on, no audience to sing for, no one to receive what it is i have to give. and i leave again, and again, always unfufilled. so i just waste away, sadness rising with every loss. i attempt to be grateful but i just want to fly. im glad for having a safe place to roost but i want to start trying to FLY. otherwise, i will never be strong enough to sustain any flight, any journey.
unfortunately it's night and I have no idea when the sun will finally rise. i dont know if it ever will. shit, as far as my life has gone, i HAVE been waiting forever. i know i can go without the sun, live my life in darkness, knowing my way, repetition after repetition, but is it so wrong to want to see sunrise before i go blind? and my eyesight is already terrible. calling out, signing songs of wistful thinking and lonliness, waiting. and waiting.
and waiting with only hallucinations and daydreams to keep me company

Pain

Pain, something that I didnt know that I knew about. All I felt was something like a wound. In disbelief I stared at it for awhile, not believing what I was seeing. Finally I poked at it to tell if it was real. Tears, infection, and the pain all flushed out at once and I tried to cradle and protect myself from doing it again. I hugged my arms close around my chest and rocked.
Pain is pretty painful

Unlearn

Apparently I've been neglecting my blog. i will probably post about recent happenings and thought later but for now, here is a poem i wrote and performed.

Unlearn

Drawing crooked and indistinct lines in the sand between what I’ve known and what I’ve been told. Community, Humor, Family: all of it the romance that I’ve been told that my black skin is supposed to offer. Black survival and my survival are one in the same and yet are two opposing forces that I narrowly walk inbetween, always falling over one side or the other. The elements of this survival are jarring and change it's meaning everytime I think I get closer.

Community: Is it cold spaghetti at a barbeque or block parties with a broken fire hydrant?
Humor: Is humor making something so foul and stifling into a joke, so that it can unravel the bindings holding you prisoner to it?
Family: Is family the people who are the only ones who will defend you from anything and anyone?

The ante-bellum and "old time" stories detailing these attributes weave throughout 5th grade novels and primetime on BET but rarely get to a place where I can recognize them, save for the few that I have experienced first hand.

Instead of drawing from the same stale well of what I’m told that blackness means, I recall and regurgitate how these “givens” of blackness show themselves to me.

Community was exclusive; a club that only the ones who had "made it" could be in to show off our status. It was an isolated bubble of protection from the dangerous darkies that inhabited the outside world and werent fit to dine on the delights that our community consume with the quickness. We comforted ourselves with the insulation of how they weren’t like us anyway, that they needed to get jobs, get lighter, get Jesus, and get “educated” because hey, that’s how we did it.

Humor was a self-righteous exercise as we laughed our way over uncomfortable feelings of the holes we had dug in ourselves to be filled with other people's projections. Humor was a quick pill to ease the constant ache of sitting on people who we were and weren’t a part of.

Family was a badge of honor that we used to flash at people to let them know how much we were worth. Our kids were properly mixed with good hair and even better elocution. We were kids that went to good schools, good programs, and received even better scholarships.

And even as i look at these implications, I feel the love from my family and our commitments to making each other happy. I still feel the good times filled with laughter, I still feel the comforting presence of being within my community. My home.

We are kids that need to unlearn the poison of a double-edge security that has supported us and injured us for so long.

Passin me by

let me carve a place of loneliness for myself, where I'll sit and watch life pass. I'll wave occasionally of course. i will even convince ppl im about to get up. but i never will, will i?

forgotten post

Sometimes I look at a guy and think "man he is such a Hyde Park Cutie". you know, the intelligent, slightly pompous, usually light-skinned boys who listen to more punk rock and Jazz than gangsta rap. *sigh* I miss home sometimes.

Bullet Point Summary of 2009

I am trying to find out whether this year was a good one or not...

-Winter Semester was pretty cool
- Had my own room
- Met my now good friends
- learned Bachata
- NCORE (definitely one of the amazing parts)
- Twittering with awesome ppl
- NCORE (because it was two awesome :D haha im punny...not really)
- Cut my hair
- Got into Graphic Design program
- So far, I've been able to keep my standards when going out
- Summer job at my old elementary school as a camp counselor
- BEAUTIFUL summer period
- picnic with my sister included
- Went to Phantom Ranch and sat in a meadow while reading and watching bumblebees
- roomed with a decent roommate
- failed epically at any attempt to establish a relationship with a man (as per usual). mostly due to a combination of fear and shallowness
- discovered twitter
- resulting from NCORE, started going on blogs and websites one race and pop culture.
- learned for the the first time about Elon James White, TWIB, and iLL-Literacy
- Started to really invest in hip-hop
- got closer to my neosoul roots (lookin at you erykah badu)
- started writing poetry again
- got appendicitis and spent 2 weeks in the hospital
- had stomach pain for the remainder of the year
- VP of Hapkido but only being able to go for the first 3 months
- learned bachata
- learned from my NCORE class and from my awesome teachers
- changed for the better

hold on, my mom says its time to go out so i will finish later