"Playing Make Believe"

“I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society — because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not. ” ― bell hooks

Playing Make Believe

She has walked down aisles all her life

Narrow passageways that boxed her in

To mold her into the image of

A wife perfected

Beautiful

And Dutiful

A symbol of purity

But also someone to desire

Keep him interested and engaged

Make him want to stay

She plays pretend until she believes

In her own make believing

That who she is to him,

Is who she really is

If he is satisfied.

Then she is satisfied.

And she carries on this way

Even when he takes glances

At other “opportunities”

Other bodies, other beings, other hearts

That might play the part

Better than she can

She can’t see past the game playing

She’s taught her heart to bend so it will never break

And to smile and be okay with

Waiting

And mean while she hides her aching

for a sign that says she’s the one

She changed his mind
Helped him find
His doubt was wrong
All he was looking for was in her all along

She wants from him
A union of their hearts

Til death do us part,

Holy matrimony

To keep her secure,
To know he is sure

This union of beings

under patriarichal practice

Blesses and sanctifies unions

With societal expectations.

She believed it was more about

seeing two spirits connecting

And celebration of commitment to grow in

Life's understanding

To be supported and cared for,

through days that are trying

And days that are joyful

Where love is supposed to be the center,

But now she looks at how marriages

Are mortgages

and down payments

and prenuptials

and insurance

and wills

Because the only way to make marriage

'Til death and past death

Are written contracts

that have been made up

because agreements are binding

And so marriage becomes

numbers and letters on paper

and hearts are left out of the equation

But regardless of what they say

Contracts can be broken

Bindings can be broken

Paper can be broken

And thus marriage can be broken

She makes her heart bend further

So her heart will not be broken

She looks back and

It hasn’t changed in any way

From Dowries

to Marriage making Kings of men

Daughters for a sum of gold and goods given

And land for her hand

Arrangements were made

So the best matches would be made

And it never had to do with love

But just material and title gains

She was taught marriage was meant

to sanctify love

and create promises to care for

And she really believed

She tries still to believe

That he’s out there

And he is out there

But because he has been taught that marriage

Is giving up on what else is out there

And in his make believing

That ring transforms her

Into a ball and chain

Where he’s tied down

And whipped

Where he is forced to be faithful

Because of this

Marriage becomes a prison

And who wants to rush into being behind bars?

And so he doesn’t want any commitment

Not now

Maybe never

He’s not ready to give up

All his freedom to love

One person forever?

She looks back and

It hasn’t changed in any way

From what past lives have seen

Man becomes king and womyn yes she is queen,

But she's still beside concubines, courtesans,

second, third, fourth and fifth ladies in waiting

It’s so aggravating

Because Man remains man and she becomes wife

She holds a title and he holds on to his being

Its hard to see love surviving with all of this

Injustice she’s seeing

And she looks at what he sees

And she doesn’t blame him

So she has been retaught

That all her ideas of what

love and commitment can bring

all of its growings and beauty

are washed away

and she begins to play

another game

She rejects ideas of marriage

And rejects ideas of love

And continues to make her heart bend

Without ever breaking

She plays pretend until she believes

In her own make believing

That who she is without love

Is really who she is

What is Love?

Day 3 is supposed to be a poem about weddings, this will take me a minute because I have been contemplating the ideas of weddings and what their presence means in a patriarchal society. So for now another poem to begin the day with.

“What is Love?”

How can we ever believe love is real,

If we accept love as

“The great unknown”

“A great mystery”

“Something indefinable”,

“Unexplainable,”

“So extraordinary,

There are no words for love.”

“You have to search for love and when you find it you’ll just know”

These ambiguities have confused our understandings

Left us standing

In a world where Love does not exist for all

And we teach each other that love is a feeling that comes and it goes,

It is not constant- and in our life time not all of us will know

It’s no wonder so many don’t believe in love

We’ve had to battle our way through all the game playing and rules,

False definitions, leaving us feeling like fools

And through it we’ve learned to believe that love...

Is fleeting

It happens only with chance meetings

Its not something of choosing

If you don’t sacrifice and give up yourself, you’ll end up losing

It comes to us without expecting

It’s two hearts connecting,

But it doesn’t last forever

Some people can live their whole life never

Even knowing love

And people change in love

They don’t remain in love

They lose interest-The flame dies

Leading to infidelity and lies

Love is disposable,

If it doesn’t work,

You can drop it, throw it away

You can find another,

if there’s more out there there’s no reason to stay

This consumes us

And leaves us in a place where we don’t trust love

Because love is pain

So we sever our bonds

And only heartbreak is maintained

We erase memories,

and phone numbers

and “un-friend” love

We box it away,

we burn photos and letters,

we forget love

We build up walls,

we mirror rejection with more rejection

Its our only protection-

To break down love as something that wasn’t,

will never be true

We’ve even lost value

in the language of speaking “I love you’s”

It’s easier for us to cling to ideas that love isn’t real

When in this world many don’t know it

and its absence is all they feel

And we are left with thoughts that

love does not fulfill

And the truth is it can’t, until

We can allow ourselves to know it

Beyond a feeling, but as an action-

Because to know love, we have to grow it

We have to give and remember to receive

We have to learn to speak our needs

Speak our truths without fear

We have to listen and be present

Through laughter and tears

We have to move against neglect and abusing

These actions negate love and oppose it,

and we end up losing

Not only love, but precious life

Husband beating up on wife,

Parent beating up on child, child grows

And never knows

Love without this

“I do this because I love you,”

“This hurts me more than it does you”

It’s becomes a cycle

We have to stop being cowards and using love as an excuse

We have to learn from our mistakes and pay our dues

We have to know love is willingness, and choice

That in relationships of love, we always have a voice

We have to seek justice in love

Let love be as love does

Create intention to grow your beloved and your self

In body, mind, and spiritual health

Support the journeys of your spirits in connection

and apart from each other

Teach one another

Through kindness, joy, compassion and equanimity

Being mindful, is what love needs to be

Love is not just a feeling its tangible,

all our senses can know it- hear, smell, taste and see

Love thrives in all we do, all we are and all we hope to be

Stop replacing love with power, control, pride and greed

We have to know love is stronger than that

and we have to believe...

That Love is real

And if we act and live in love, it can be better defined

Only then can love be yours to have

as much as it can be mine.

Womyn's Walkings

* Write a poem inspired by the song that was #1 on the day that you were born

"Walk like an Egyptian"- The Bangles

Womyn's Walkings

I settle my toes in the footsteps of matriarchs

And see where I myself with intention and humility

could grow greatness enough to fit in these molds

Taking a second to return on my own path

Beside these soles of divinity

My own imprints are planted and

from them I hope my young sisters in following

Will find their way

With willingness

to walk with us

Never forgetting to look back and understand

That this path of tremendous trackings

Paved the roads that lead to our tomorrows

I hope they always remember to be humbled

by what struggle has been endured

By An-sisters in past days

Who whether at the moment had only

their self- interests, rights and havings in mind,

Could not escape from

Their acts of courage readily equipping us with-

Hammering fists to break glass ceilings,

Shoulders transformed into

rungs of ladders and platforms and pedestals

Through their beings built up-we climb

and we rise and we rise.

And the fire they found in their bellies

where they made ashes of fears,

They placed into our eyes,

so we could see beyond what darkness lay ahead

They passed down softness of smiles

To kindle cryogenic hearts

that have ceased to beat to life's wonderment

that have been stoned and made steel and copper-

from wagings of war and wars for more wages

And they filled those same lips with words of precision

to break us free from patriarchal prisons

They filled our lungs past capacity

to breathe in patience and out compassion

And in our ears dangled whispered reminders that…

“We are womyn

We have faced burning on stakes,

stoning on streets,

banning from polls,

controlling our work life,

our wages,

our wombs

With imprisonment behind bars,

in dungeons

and basements

and brothels

and street walks

and our homes

and our bodies…

Objectification, sex-ploitation, exotification

We have been penetrated by

the staffs and swords and shafts of ruling men

But none of this has brought us to end

Our fight for equal standing

For what sisters and mothers and lovers and leaders

Our warriors, visionaries, teacher and healers

Have never stop demanding

For our share of life's livings

And these footsteps imprinted by dreams

Remind us to plant our feet as firmly

And continue giving

What has been given and entrusted in us

So young sisters-

regardless of where you will be headed

from this crossing of paths

I hope you never forget to look back at

this endless design of

attaining impossiblities and dreamings

And that you will add in your own time

A piece of your own power

To place in the hearts of the womyn

that will come to this same standing

Leaving her without question

that her footprints belong

Right beside these

Womyn's walkings

The Days I Hold Most To

The Days I Hold Most To

I grasp onto days like this

Clench my fists on to her rays

Hold on tightly

And close my eyes to feel

Her warmth

Drip down over my shoulders

grazing my sternum

and melting right into my heart

These days were more constant

When I would steal away

To uncut blades of green green grass

Dew moistening my back and cooling my spine

A quick chill

As I lay to let her bake me in her light

Break me open to see my innocence-

a joyful, gooey inside of Semi-sweetness

And brown to perfection inside and out

I felt peace

The only unease was gentle itching of skin

Against mother earth tickling me with her green green greenery

Days like these I see colors vibrant

Pink on sneakers, dusted with sand and soil

That have moved with the laughter of many children

Leaving their imprints, but taking with them this sand and soil that has traveled through

Blue skies carrying petals and whispered wishes from dandelions

and through turquoise waves speckled rainbows that glide through the currents

She beams over all of this, giving to growing

She bursts over

Orange growth of tangerines on backyard trees

I climbed them to touch these her makings of miracles,

to hold them in my palms

And remove ripeness to satisfy tastes and rumbling tummies

There she sits with me still

Tapping me with her tips, peeking her way through shadowy leaves

And lifting me into smiles

As my face puckers from juices satisfyingly sour

And I spit out seeds below me

That I wonder will grow?

I feed the earth as it feeds me

And I look up and hope she gives life to them

Life like mine

Sister sun in all her givings of light and warmth and energy

I thank her for being constant

For never leaving for too long

For reminding me when she rises

She rises for

Every one

Thing

Living

Breathing

Being

And her days are the ones I hold most to

Another Day

*Carpe Diem poem

Another Day

Another beginning, another breath, another chance, another day

Another day to live, another day to make.

Another day of my own creation, from the moment I wake

Your daily life is yours to enter and take in as you choose

I’ve had too many days I decided to lose

Lost out on hours that were given, to be present and together

Too many days I closed my curtains to sunny, warm weather

I just curled into myself and let self-loathing consume

I trapped myself in darkness, alone and desperate in my room

I have spoken, screamed words that “Life isn’t fair”

“That even if I wasn’t around, nobody would care”

I’ve let myself cry until my eyes swell,

I let myself bleed in loneliness; I made my own home hell

It’s a miracle to see how I made it through

But I had to change up the things I’d think, say and do

I had to let myself be loved, by friends and family

And then take the time and space to teach myself to love me

And with it I’ve learned happiness is a constant

If you want it

One happening always leads to the next

You have to believe that even difficult moments have positive effects

Its not that I accept things as they are or that I pretend not to hurt

It’s that I understand-I determine each moment I live for -what its worth.

The patience I practice helps me through

Compassion to self and always being true

And with sadness and pain, I know joy will still be

It took a lot of struggle and survival for me to wake up and see

That in this life I choose for myself Bad days don’t have to exist

Bad moments happen, but when days end I take the time to list

The thanks I have for all I am given

I give thanks for one more day God gives me to live in

Love, and Happiness and Health, a warm bed,

Running water, a fridge full of food and a roof over my head

A job that fulfills my heart

Time to nurture my art

I give thanks for the friendships that have been my answered needs

And for my family living another day to see me grow and succeed

Each day I am present in new experiences and I see where I’ve been

Each day I move forward and feel beautiful in my own skin

Each day I am better and each day I grow

Each day I am more me than I used to know

Another beginning, another breath, another chance, another day

Another day to live, another day to make.

Another day of my own creation, from the moment I wake

Wounds to Light

Our wounds

Our bleeding

Only makes us more whole

Its survival

They cleanse us

Create openess

to bring us closer

to building wholeness

Each part we cut,

We break,

We bleed out...

We can only fill

With light, with power and strength

Of our choosing.

Be well my sisters.

Home...

I actually wrote this on August 4, 2010, but just have not touched my blog in a while... I am going to start doing that again, more consistently. Everyday though, I have been writing a list of gratitude to end my days, a way to remember everyday, no mater how dim it may have appeared there is always light, there is always that silver lining- which are tips of sunbeams that are meant to lift us.

These were one of those moments, where silver lining was recognized:

I have been feeling change come over me in the past couple of days. The happiness from the growth of change, the movements forward, but also fear in the uncertainty of change, an anxious feeling. I was sitting at home last night and I made dinner and as I pulled the chicken out of the oven, and tuned the pasta to a low, I realized I made too much. I was thankful by the thought of leftovers for the next couple of days, but then my thanksgiving was paired with the thought of the last time I actually cooked for myself, just me. It was in my apartment on W45th St. and I remember, that day I had the the same recognition of making too much food. I've always been so used to cooking for others on top of doing so for myself. Cooking was for the purpose of not just nourishment, but also gathering. And I thought of moments of gathering in Cali, the enjoyment of cooking a meal and sharing it with family and friends, conversation and laughter over a meal made from my hands and heart. So here I was, thinking all of these thoughts, and as I finished up the last bits of prep for my dinner, I stood in the kitchen turning down the oven I felt tears start to well up in my eyes. I left my standing place and took a seat on my little couch and just let it flow.

I felt homesickness. It wasn't the same type of homesickness that have summoned tear from my eyes in the recent past, sitting in my even tinier apartment with no memories built in New York yet, and memories of California flooding my head. What I was feeling the other night was a new ailment of home longing... not to return home to Cali, but I longed to feel home in NY. I realized that moments like this were what was most familiar now, solitude and independence moments like pulling out dinner from the oven for myself. I have in one year of living in NY, so many memories to recall, and most are of me on my own. Which, has been strengthening and self-assuring and absolutely beautiful in its own right, but these memories did not feel like home to me. The realization of change rushed over me. All I wanted was to feel home again, just for that moment. I could recall the feeling of home in my head , but I just wanted to feel it, and it just made the tears come to surface even more.

Then I thought about the community I have found in NY, the family I have been blessed with that have become my constants and that have allowed me to become a constant for them and there it was, that feeling... home. I realized that I draw my feelings of home from people, in my encounters, experiences and relationships built with them. These individuals have been helping to initiate change in my life, which I have and have not readied myself for. The exchanges, happenings and experiences have heavily impacted my life and have and will continue to me a better artist, performer, leader, friend, daughter, sister and person with each day that passes.

The first people I think of that have helped grow home in my heart here are those who see New York as their home, where their heart is and have shared a piece of it with me, Enmanuel, Frank, Aisha and Frantz, Abe, Luke, Mike. Maybe that's why I feel such family with them all, because I feel the home that they have with one another in this city, the memories that they've shared in reflection and recollection with me that fill each sidewalk they've walked, each doorway they've entered, each stairway they've climbed, and each train ride they've taken... I'm building on my own memories, my own feeling of home in NY now and if any of you are reading this I just wanted you to know that I am so thankful that you are present in those memories.

Thank you for allowing me to feel home in you.