High Heels

Story Behind The Poem

So.......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