Who needs real life friends,
With online chess,
Stocked full of liquor,
Bowls full of herb,
Billie spinning on the player
And smokes till dawn,
Loneliness has never been easier.
“Mommy, am I a black person?”“Why do you ask that?” I’m amazed at the sweetness and sincerity he’s asking me.“I want to be a black person because I don’t want to be a white person if they are bad.”“Baby, do you understand what that means? Do you understand the difference between a black person and a white person?”He shakes his head no.“Aww baby people are good and bad by their actions. Being white doesn’t make a person bad,”“And being black doesn’t mean you can’t be bad too?”“Yes baby, we can be all those things by how we act and treat others.Come here, let’s go have this conversation with Smores.”We walk over to the bedroom and I ask Clarence to ask Mars what he thinks.“Smores, am I a black person?”And I catch him up on our dialogue. We both look at one another with smiling and knowing the wisdom of this question.“Clary, well you are an Asian person, mommy is an Asian person, I’m a black person, your sub is a white person but we are all people.”“So my sub is a good person too…”“Yes Clary, we are all good people if we are kind and nice to each other,”Mars explains to him, “we are all human.”“Do you understand the difference of why you are Asian and Smores black and your teacher white?”He looks at me bright eyed, then shakes his head no.I look again at Smores and we are both in awe.“It just means where our ancestors, parents And grand parents come from, like Korea, or Africa, but we are also here in America.”But I love the fact that he doesn’t see race, and I look as his eyes grow heavy and he falls asleep just like that.Mars says, “I’ve seen Clarence just like this since the first day I met him and he said to me, ‘I like you,’ as he touched my face and looked at me big eyed and genuine. He just approached me and knew I was receiving him with love, but I knew he was special that he just came up to me when he just met me. He just feels the good energy.”I’m joyful. “honestly, I love that he doesn’t see race. He just sees we are all different shades of human. I want to just let him stay this pure a little longer.”“This is what I’ve always said. Racism is taught.”Mars and I have been quoting Clarence’s words from a couple weeks ago in our daily talks and jests.We were all sitting in the bedroom, each watching our own shows one evening and sharing what we found funny. Elijah and Mars next to him and I, myself, half dangling off the the bed with my head hanging to be near them sitting on the rug.Clarence just starts laughing out loud saying with amusement, “it’s kind of funny, but we all kind of look alike.” He laughs again so amused at his own epiphany, “But me and Smores, we look exactly alike.” He squeals with laughter at the revelation as Mars, Elijah, and I look at one another than start cracking up because it’s so real, and Mars exclaims laughing so happily, “Yes Clary, but me and you, we look EXACTLY alike!” And we all continue to laugh as I am bursting from heart to toe. “Yes Clarence!” I shout, “we do all kind of look alike, but you and Smores, you guys look Exactly alike.!”
Allegory of the Cave
I’ve been thinking a lot of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave recently.
Imagine prisoners tide up side by side in darkness placed in front of a blank stone wall. The prisoners can turn their heads nor move so that they can’t see one another. Behind them there is a fire and the captors have people walking in front of the fire with puppets so that it casts a shadow upon the wall the prisoners stare at. Any sounds and talk, these prisoners believe come from the shadows in the wall. This is the reality they live in and they have no knowledge of people or the captors behind them.
One day they are set free and have to crawl through a narrow tunnel to an opening into the outer world. When first reaching the outside they see the light of the sun and it’s blaring and painful because they’ve only known darkness their whole life. It hurts their eyes and burn their skin, so they retreat back into the comfort of their darkness into the only reality they’ve known their whole life, not understanding it’s been an illusion.
However a few realize there is something more outside and decide to go back into the light. Over time their eyes adjust and the sun feels good. They realize in that moment that the shadows they thought were real were only replications of what is real under the sun while some stay in the darkness, those who go outside can finally live free.
What I believe is the reality can hurt when you live in the comfort of illusion for so long, but eventually the light of reality is the only way to live a life beautiful and free.
allegoryofthecave #plato #reality #illusions #freedom #justiceforahmaudarbery
Mama, She’s Smilin’
I picture Mother Earth
Smiling at peace,
With all her strong and robust human babies at ease,
As her fur and feather babies
could finally set back into their long forgotten homes,
Playing and feasting
on her sustenance as they please,
Her lungs clear of wheezin’,
The breeze clear of poison,
Her eyes closed this season,
Repairing, repairing,
As the human babies sit humbly wait in’.
Hear her voice?
“Go to sleep dear children,
You’ve been driving, and working,
Tromping and rampaging,
Going and going,
But be still a moment,
And let me get to my sleep in’,
Catch my breath, but believe me,
Cuz I’ve been giving you all that I have,
And my bones so tired,
And my heart so heavy,
And my mind so foggy,
I just need a minute,
Before you can come back to play.”
Dahhee
An excerpt
As a teen, I used to stare out my window and watch the few people walk by with a dog, a child, or just by themselves.
Sometimes I’d catch a flower of the Jacaranda tree float down almost magically placing itself amongst the trodden browned blooms stuck to the cement.
And if a walker stepped on it, my heart would break just a little that such a perfect bloom would become just like the rest, once beautiful and light now smeared with sticky sap turning brown, just like the rest.
Once I saw my best friend walking past with my other friend. They walked passed and didn’t stop to ask me out or say hi.
I felt nothing. A little relieved that I didn’t have to leave my place watching the world both still and alive.
Flying Dreams
I always knew I could fly,
Dreaming it since I was wee high,
But even in dreams
I felt a little slight
When I took flight
Feeling so light
I didn’t fear the fall,
But reaching heights so high,
I’d never come down,
But rather float off beyond stars.
I Had to wake up and grow roots,
Make roots in firm ground,
Stopped dreaming of moons,
And live free though earth bound
Making live sounds,
Walking tall mounds,
Rebound and rebound,
Until I found home
And came home.
In control of my power
I Bloom like a flower,
And roam Like fluff seeds
In need of a breeze
Out of dreams and into reality,
Soaring like bees
Awake and aware
In my power
Soaring higher
Then I ever could dream.
Like Butta but Betta
Like Butta but Betta
The struggle lifted,
Emotions elevated,
Moods shifted,
Life celebrated,
Love exhibited,
Heart calibrated,
Peace uninhibited,
Chaos evacuated,
No longer incubated.
God is Warm
Little Clary asks, “what does the word God mean?”
And I think, “hmmm well he’s the word of creation, the one who created everything.”
“But he’s not real right,” questions, “because I can’t see him?”
“Well he means to have faith. You can’t see God because it takes faith, like love, you can’t see love but you feel love right?”
“Why did God make you so warm? I can’t see you warm but I can feel you warm.”
And he speaks poetry to me in every word he says.
“Yes baby, it’s like feeling warm.”
The Red Road
I fell a hundred times
Face planting into concrete and mud,
Painted scars making lines of red like markers from my cuts
Dripping down to the ground.
Bruised but not broken,
I got up to rise in the path I chose,
Walking off the path most trampled on.
A hundred times trying to step away,
To run back to my spirit screaming “come back!,”
A hundred times returning to where I belong,
Cuz the voice of my heart
Shouts so loud my mind can’t hide
From the call to be free from the confines of the normal kind
Of a life which could have been more safe and sound,
But happiness only in step on a road less traveled.
A hundred times
Shaking doubt and tired pursuit,
To live the life I can’t deny,
Because I was born this way
To rise above what was taught to those in my time.
Love
We plant the seeds for our future,
Everything falling into place,
To grow bigger than the baobab,
And harder than diamonds.
We came together as seeds,
Fell right beside each other,
Growing taller than redwoods,
And harder than Visionaries
Who fell for their dreams,
So we can build the love we sense,
Into concrete beams
Taller than the tallest
Skyscraper a man can evince.
