waistoftheworld:

you see, my whole life
is tied up 
to unhappiness
it’s father cooking breakfast
and me getting fat as a hog
or having no food 
at all and father proving 
his incompetence
again
i wish i knew how it feel
to be free

its having a job 
they won’t let you work
or no work at all
castrating me
(yes it happens to women too)

its a sex object if you’re pretty
and no love
or love nd no sex if you’re fat
get back fat black woman be a mother
grandmother strong thing but no woman
gameswoman romantic woman love needer
man seeker dick eater sweat getter
fck needing love seeking woman

it’s a hole in your shoe
and buying lil sis a dress
and her saying you shouldn’t
when you know
all too well that you shouldn’t

but smiles are only something we give
to properly dressed social workers
not each other
only smiles of i know
your game sister
which isn’t really
a smile

joy is finding a pregnant roach
and squashing it
not finding someone to hold
let go get off get back don’t turn
me on you black dog
how dare you care 
about me
you ain’t got no good sense
cause i ain’t sh!t you must be lower
than that to care

it’s a filthy house
with yesterday’s watermelon
and monday’s tears 
cause true ladies don’t 
know how to clean

it’s intellectual devastation
of everybody
to avoid emotional commitment
“yeah honeyi wouldv’e married
him but he didn’t have no degree”

it’s knock-kneed mini skirted
wig wearing died blond mamma’s scar
born dead my scorn your whore
rough heeled broken nailed powdered
face me
whose life is tied
up to happiness
cause it’s the only
for real thing
i 
know

longsnatchedbythechickenhawk:

1.   It takes a lion of a man to try and be something he has never even seen. It takes another one to say “thank you,” for every flawlessly imperfect inch of fatherhood you summoned at twenty-two. I don’t know where it all came from but twenty-two father’s days later, and I’m sure we can agree that there isn’t enough room for two kings under any one roof.

2. You always vowed to keep me from your mistakes and you did. You probably didn’t count on giving me a head-start into my own though.  This is okay. 

3. When you were wrong, you were fearlessly so.  Live lambs make for better sons than dead lions, though, so I’ll have to try harder to remember the parts where you apologized, and you usually did. 

4.  I know your dad made a mess of things and poems don’t have the power to bring back childhoods but just in case you were wondering, I’ve never smelled his sin on you.

5. My sister was and is the favorite. I finally understand this. Thank you.

6.  I’ve always wondered how you decided that we were the family you wanted.  I figure the wind knows. And the moon. And the stars, of course.  That will do for now.

7.  You were always good to my mother.  More importantly, you were good to all the women, and this was the greater of the two numbers, that were not my mother.  This was not a requirement. This was not glorious. I dream of being able to light that dark-road for my own sons.

8.  However coercively, you made us love music. You knew the shadow-days would come.

9. You forgave the one you thought was your father, the trigger-man.  It was then, I would later find out, that I knew God.

10.  I realize I’ve done nothing to deserve any of this.  But, of course, the love your book teaches is in spite of, not because of.  Lucky us. 

The bolded line is my favorite. 

(via longsnatchedbythechickenhawk-de)