Sunday, December 20, 2009

High Heels

Story Behind The Poem

S
o.......this piece has been in my mind for many, many months now (conceptually, at least). The inspiration came from a side convo I was having with some homeboys. A classmate of ours happened to walk past us while we were sitting. She was wearing heels....which is not odd in the slightest, save for the little bump in the rear she had seemingly grown overnight. I asked one of the fellas, " Yo, when did such and such get that, lol". One of the guys said, "Whenever she got those heels"

And that started the conversation....It's no secret that when girls wear certain clothing.....whatever is in style now, it tends to accentuate the more feminine features that visual creatures like us men can't help but notice. And somehow the wrong head starts doing the thinking....

In a nutshell, ithe poem is about how in the grander scheme of things, we as human beings---capable of thought, analyziation, and careful consideration--- hardly exercise those gifts. We simply are stimulated by an impulse, and then we start attaching to that thing all the other things that we know we need. For instance, I need a strong minded, opinionated, humorous, self-assured, secure type of woman who can actually take it as well as she can dish it...Historically, I've typically gone for good, sweet people who in actuality lacked what was needed to deal with a brash person like myself....i.e; assertiveness, self-assuredness, confidence, thick-skin, etc... Instead, I always seem to end up with the sensitive, insecure, passive, weak-opinionated types....and it's not entirely because there weren't signs off jump to tell me this.

It's all mostly because I, like most others, am weak when it comes to a fine girl catching my eye. I disregard all the shit telling me she ain't even close to being the one, solely because she is attractive....because she is wearing heels. Still, in the same breath, this poem is also just as much about those who put up fronts to attract people., or who fool themselves into thinking they want a certain kind of relationship when the contrary is true.

So, stripped down, this piece is an indictment of myself and all others for saying we want one thing and chasing the other. For taking a pretty face, or good sex, or a person's 'statistics' and making those things the basis of our feeelings...the basis of justifying a relationship, as opposed to those things This is for everyone who assigns undeserving characteristics to the objects of their affection because they WANT to fool themselves and for everyone who has been involved with different people, but somehow still keep finding themselves in the same relationship......

Perhaps if we start seeing that this is the source of our problems, we may move on to healthier things.


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When I first met her, I paid no mind to the fact that she was wearing heels
Still, it was evident
Steel, it’s cold feel raced the length of my spine
I was hypnotized by motion that wouldn’t have existed, but for those heels
And these feelings I’m harboring, no doubt, were mothered by opened-toed stilettos

But shit, wasn’t none of it real
It wasn’t love, it was lust,
Trust, less I wouldn’t have let her just walk away
Well, perhaps I would’ve let her walk away
But only to hold a moment of silence and remembrance for her fine ass
If only to bear witness to the wave and that extra little sway
I’d become consumed by the unoriginal, the artificial
I was fooled by a flat booty
But I digress
If it were love, I’d carry her cross forever to keep her here

But I soon realized…..
Between the mascara and the shadow and the gloss
I might as well have been blinded
Because even at arm’s length, I couldn’t see her
And I’m sure, had we fallen asleep, I’d have awoken to a stranger

And the conspiracy was not complete without the push up brassiere
Masterfully and magically, it rose to its task
Somehow, the cup overflowed many times over from barely a sip
And at the risk of further digression from my point
The heels’ affects complimented this falsity embarrassingly well
My head was no longer in control
I was thinking positions and night caps
And in my mind, I’d already traveled the road to take me to that destination

But even the heels and the mascara and the brassiere were pale
Pale in comparison to the coup that was her personal façade
Her entire carry was -----intangible
Which explains why I could never grasp her…

She was and forever remained but a grandeur in May
Because there was little to her, and nothing more
No mystique, nor anything to father intrigue
A master of accentuation, her persona wore heels
And mascara and shadow and gloss
And a push-up bra
And lashes, and false eyes, and false hair, and the nails
All things I noticed and recognized as not yours
But I was a slave to primal instinct
I’d become an aggressive prognosticator, seeing what I wanted to see
And I fueled my desires off the front she put forth
And in those heels, I wanted to see the future in her
…I wanted to see a future with her
And I, in fact, did

…..Until she took off her heels
And I was no longer distracted
And, simply put, I then realized she wasn’t what I thought she was
More importantly, I realized I was the fool

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Plight of The Misfit Toys

Story Behind The Poem


My people, my people.....It's been a goooood lil minute. I have no good explanation, so I won't even venture to try. I will just promise to try and do better....emphasis on 'try', lol.

But moving on. As you all may have noticed, it's the Holiday season, so of course I've been catching all the little holiday shows. I caught one of my all time favs, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and watching it I revisited a sympathy I felt as a child watching the movie. As a kid, I always found it real messed up how all the toys on Misfit Island were just discarded, especially when at the end they ended up being appreciated by some lil kids who weren't limited by any preconceived concept of what a toy should be....the only question for the kids was whether or not the kid was a means to his having fun. (Okay, so my childhood thought process wasn't THIS intricate---but the point remains...I felt bad for the toys, lol). But somehow, someone, somewhere else made a decision that they understood everything there was to understand about the Misfits. The truth of it all, though, is that whoever was in power simply lacked the ability to appreciate individuality; he lacked the ability to see all the toys for what they truly where...And because of his inability, the toys suffered...they were typecast as 'different', the catchall concept that essentially is a saving grace allowing the ignorant to feel as if they still do actually understand.

Okay...so maybe I took the cartoon too far.....but that's my individuality, don't typecast me as 'different' for it, lol. In all seriousness though, the plight of the toys, as I have discussed them, hit home with a feeling I've been having for a while.......I admit I am an acquired taste for people; I'm not exactly the easiest person to be around. However, being an acquired taste does not necessitate a finding that I am hard to understand.

Now I haven't been told by people that I am a hard person to 'get', but the way people have treated me has told me as much. People are very good at telling me how I will feel or react to certain things because they know my 'type', and it frustrates me because 99.9% of the time, they are completely off base. The result is me being frustrated by essentially being condemned to forever being misunderstood....sorta like the misfit toys.

Stylistically, this poem is really a departure from the norm from me.....the pattern, the pace, it's all a bit scatter brained and poetically, probably a tough digestion for the average reader. I call it my 'soap-box' form.....I jus had a lot of things to say and wanted to get it all out...so how it hit the paper is how you get it....RAAAAWWW!!! I actually re-wrote/ changed the piece three times content-wise, but I never went back and tried to make it a traditional 'poem'....this is like an anti-'Wax Poetic', lol.

But without further ado, welcome to my thoughts. Enjoy your skinny dip in my stream of consciousness..


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A misfit among misfits
Even amidst those unlike others, I am apart
And I beg the Good Lord that I not be misunderstood

But I suppose, I am not entirely unlike their breed
My good providence for misinterpretation lays in cold water, on tea leaves, stale
Still, a distance remains
As the others are embraced by an intangible concept, an enabler
The masses pat themselves on the pat for defining those across the drawn line
“Different”, they say
And somehow the masses feel they comprehend
And the others feel understood
And all is well
But apart from the masses and the others, I stand apart, frustrated
Discontent with being short changed
No attention or effort put forth to understand me as I am
I am not different
Not within the confines of their definition, at least
A definition which seeks to lasso me among others who are, but, unfamiliar to most

But such is the plight
Placed in the hole where the pigeons are kept
A parallel universe governed by assumption and misplaced certainty
Where no one dares questions the politics
There’s a strange unrest amongst the contentment
Yet it is futile to rebel
Because as my father told me, struggle is ordained by God

Still, I feel compelled to burst out of the nutshell that is my summation
And I challenge all takers to truly learn me
Navigate away from the road most traveled
Shift your gaze away from their sanctuary, east towards He
The light is always proper
And you can
I always see me for who I am; what I am
My outburst do not define me
Neither my anger, nor my sweetness
If any concept at all, I am a fluid one
Like a river that will never be touched twice
I find predictions of my evolution to be asinine
Copouts for more fearless assertions

But such is the plight
Unfitting of a conceptual fit
As opposed to risking a conniption by broadening ones horizon
The option is simply this or that
This, being a concept they already understand
That, being different

Somehow the concept of relativity escaped them, along with the truth
The truth that we are all different…..
Some are just not as easily understood
Even by those who think they understand

Such is the plight of the misfit toys