i don't know what i want out of my life anymore. i don't even know if i care to be alive.

the ending

wishing i had a way to love myself differently.

why is it that i have a hard time trying to figure out how to live my life? i am not fulfilled because i have come across some disenchanted ways that have emerged at work. i feel blindsighted and not at all involved with this self assessment of who i am. like they have sat together, have had meetings behind my back about me and have decided that i am some type of way, when really i am not. i am bothered by their self-conceptualization of me so therefore i do not trust them, any of them, and it has been difficult for me to open up to my manager in a way that would yield success. i really am over the entire thing, and it makes me think less of who i am, my capabilities and my talents. 

like the entire year and a half that i was a temp, i was not given the opportunity to work on these types of concerns; they never brought them to my attention, so i was not able to develop in a way that they needed or were looking for. that is what is most aggravating.

i really believe i am going to be laid off.

The last poem I crafted

The assignment to form the Chadwick Family Reunion Planning Committee was presented to me in a way that sparked a need for a secret online journal in an entry dated 17 September 2008. I created a threefold mission of which I will share tonight.

I. creating an anchor where love and communication exist (in reference to our family networking site)
II. arrival and hello my name is
III. separation (and what do we do next?)

in order for this poem to be relevant, everyone must participate by inserting themselves as i mention "I"

I. creating an anchor where love and communication exist (in reference to our family networking site)

i birthed you because i loved you-i knew creating your backbone would spell s.t.r.e.n.g.t.h. i accelerate your growth by sending love prose through your bones. i create exceptional circumstances through h.o.p.e. i've named your space possibility and passion. i created you as future forward- for a way to create and believe in true love.

II. arrival and hello my name is __________________

i have arrived, and safely. i am nervous from the numerous untold stories that will emerge from my voicebox. i am beginning to understand correct enunciation of words, placing the value of my life as a familial contribution. i form sentences on the edge of my tongue-waiting for them to fall into the waiting soft ears of my family. we hug real big, our hands archiving love in smalls of back, fingerprints leaving traces of brown safe love.

III. separation (and what do we do next?)

i have created a resignation letter for my current life at home. i have shed any chance for return through misplaced car keys, abandoned air fare and missed carpools. i have forwarded my mail to martinchadwickfamily.ning.com where we share letter openers and "reply to all". i open my mouth to form the words iii am soooo glaaaad to beeeeee hoooooome. i am a pattern master for my new life, which i engrave in the hearts of those i love. i only can wait in the shadows for everyone else to turn the corner and join me. i patiently wait and love, because i can not thin of anything better to do.

i form my lips to say i love you, this soon.

see fazette, you ARE possible

being somewhat scared, to come over, but thinking how hard it would be for me to just leave, makes me wonder just how i was able to pull it off...


this is too soon. i have been wrong before. but there is a difference in attentiveness and passion. i have been wrong before. i just may be wrong again. but to know that being settled feels lie this? undefined and calm, with all of the right possibilities? i told myself, to go, go far from here, go home, get further away, and as i did, realized how capable i was of not running. i think in the strength of learning new activities, to open up in a way that has terrified me before, makes me realize that in order for me to create a place where i exist, i have to envision it for myself, and first. i realize how much i need that attention that i got yesterday, in the befores, durings and afters, and no one has ever made me feel attended to, in that way. eye contact and self space make me want to scream and stretch out of the way.

BUT, i am a possibility in the eyes of those who adore me. and if i remember that, i will be okay.

reaching forward

I am terrified of heights, I think I mentioned, and I was flying for the first time in 15 years or so, and this poem is in the context of four movements, when I (1) tookoff from Atlanta (2) landed in Chicago, (3) tookoff from Chicago and lastly (4) landed in Atlanta.

Welcome to my love choreopoem (an acted out piece of poetry)

(1) Love means...this
Alright, here goes nothing. Here goes everything. Your terrified of high roller coasters, love in high trees, scared of high peaks homegirl is sitting next to a picturesque square window proportioning her life through everything she can see through this small space. She is respelling her name brandnew for those who she did not tell yesterday last night and this morning that she is ever grateful for the role you have played in her life. While this may attempt to sound like the end, this is just the beginning, a plea for her ownself to recreate her life as unafraid, capable and possible. From the girl who is afraid to stand on stepstools to reach high kitchen cabinets says love means taking an airplane to all possibilities. Love Always.

(2) Bravery as a verb
Can you believe your girl? She made the tears wait on the way up, plus what were they waiting on the edge for anyway? It's not like I wasn't strapped in safe. When plane leaned to the side from the Windy City's wind she took deep turbulent breaths. She paces back and forth in her seat saying a private loveprayer as she descends (Chicago is beautiful) she tells the lorde (audre lorde, a feminist writer) and crosses her hopes with the chance of (breathe, chile, breathe) hope and is instantaneously borne. Marcus (my brother) always told me once you have wings you can do whatever you want. I will see the world on the near ground.

(3) Flyygirl
Dream chasing and able. Love means I have done it and you have contributed, See you all, and soon.

(4) Grounded
I told the flight attendant I could not see anything out the window and that people did not have their lights on. He said the economy was so bad, people do not leave their porch lights on for airplanes anymore. You see faint light from other airplanes but they do not wave. You then realize how alone you are and that singular, you are capable of taking care of self. This begins to mean that growing oneself up takes time and capability. Descent (okay chile breathe in breathe out repeat) bright lights and NOW take this moment to remember this feeling of hope of truth of bravery, because if this is what it takes to be with ones you love, then give me wings, grow me up and teach me how to fly. Plane leans to the right, gather strength, don't cry (you just asked for wings, what happened?) okay, I'm strong. You did it. Stand up, breathe, mommy, I did it, I'm home.










brown.safe.love.space

authenticity

in my attempts to keep brownsafelovespace authentic, i realize i must start discussing things i am depressed about. once i open this dialogue to myself, i will then be able to include my mother on discussions once i realize what its going on. now these things will not manifest in any specific order, but as make mention to them, maybe they will allow me to figure out a plan of action.

well, of course it started a long time ago, but i remember i'd fallen for one of my best friends. we'd spent so much time together it was almost ridiculous. we were on the phone constantly, we hung out, sleepovers, etc. i'd left for college the year before she had, and while i was mormon and supposedly straight, i vehemently opposed mormon teachings and doctrines and identified as lesbian. now remember, we'd known each other since we were 12 and had grown up together, no one else really liked or cared for her, everyone else thought she thought she was smarter than everyone which in turn meant she was better than everyone, but that was far from the truth. we'd become close in a way that i'd never been close with anyone in my life. i leave for college a year before her, and after she leaves, she meets someone to marry and is going to marry him almost immediately. so of course, she does not know that i have feelings for her, and have them for so long, plus she is not a lesbian. so i tell her, not to get married. and why. and everything changes after that.

because mormons get married in temples, i hadn't gotten any endowments (i hear god doesn't want lesbians in the temple) so i could not attend the wedding. but its not like i could have stopped it. that began all of the tension between the two of us, while we are not openly fighting, there will always be the fact that we never absolved any of this situation. and to this day, i still love her, like crazy. i felt pain in a way that i never wanted to experience ever again, so then i began to believe i was not lesbian so i would date men, like they ever meant anything to me, but they never did. now while i may would date a man if i were to marry him, maybe i would. but to disregard the fact that i identify as lesbian would just be turning my back on who i am.

but see, i have memories of liking women when i was in 6th grade. mariel was one of my first crushes. like i did not just start with the aforementioned woman, there were women i liked, for years. i remember in 8th grade, angela golden. we were in the same math class with mrs. gloede, and we both agreed that we did not like her, decided we would burn her classroom down. we both got expelled, but she, in the 8th grade. i would always think there was something wrong with me, and i would suppress these things.

but how was i supposed to be a a successful member of the musical thompson family as defined by outsiders, mormon and lesbian?

bright eyed tuesday

i had a really good weekend for several reasons. my sister who (is really turning into my favorite) lives with me and is in and out a lot on business, but came in for the weekend. there is something about living with someone else, and when she returns, she is a fresh breath of air. i admire her firstly, for her strength and wisdom. to know that she is that capable of caring for me and seeing sides i have been unable to see, really makes me honor her in that different kind of way. she brought a girlfriend home with her and she lightened up the house in a way that it hadn't been lit up in a long time. the house has been sorta dreary, because of the energy i have contributed to it. when her friend was here, she asked me if i wanted to go to wal mart, and when i told her no, i did not want to go to wal mart, that really had me thinking that i must find something else to do, with what i am doing, because what i am doing is not cutting it. i have managed to put the correlation between what Dr. Phil said and who i fundamentally am, and realized i have been depressed. not sure where these findings have come from, not sure if i can fix it by myself, but realize i need to somehow stop THIS.

so really? Tuesday isn't as bright eyed. i would rather stay in the bed, and do nothing, then get up and conquer the world. i'd rather choose life differently, if it meant Tuesday could be bright eyed.

i did just spend 100 dollars on books i've wanted to purchase for a long time. 100 dollars i don't have, but 100 dollars that i hope will encourage me out of this funk i am in. but you know what? to be completely frank, i have tried this before, thinking i could get slightly involved and that things will turn around for me. and they never don't. so i guess now, i need to focus on noticing when i am most depressed.

i think i will open this dialogue with my mother, soon.

America's Doctor Dr. Oz

So I usually catch up on Oprah on the weekends, and there was a particular show that Dr. Oz was on and said there were 5 main steps in detecting depression. The 5 steps are

1. Assess energy (hence my staying awake 16-20 hours a day)
2. Weight loss or weight gain (i have done both in the last year)
3. Change in sleep (i have not slept on a specific sleep pattern in a long time, it having gotten worse in the last year)
4. Problems with concentration (it is hard for me to concentrate on poems from alpha to omega and tasks at work)
5. Apathy (i seem to be indifferent about almost everything in my life now)

I pay a $125.00 phone bill a month, and sadly, I talk to the same two or three people. I do not call people back, I do not call often, I am in this slump that will not go away.

My sister is here this weekend, with a friend. While the first night we were all pretty interactive, I shied away from going with her to people watch, didn't want to go with her to even wal mart. I told her I was going to bed, and I got under the covers, knowing full well I was not going to fall asleep. My sleep patterns are so bad I don't have the energy to go do anything, and I know full well I will not actually go to sleep.

My good friend lexi comes into town, I miss her like crazy, and I do not even make accommodations to see her and she is ON memorial drive, passing my house. I really have distanced myself from my activism, from the black women i love, because i am depressed, and it feels indefinite.

I have example after example, excuse after excuse, and I do not know what has triggered the depression as much as I know I am depressed. What do I even do?

I miss the relationships I should have with women, with black women, and I do not know how to rekindle them. I think it is absolutely too late.

i miss marcus

i have to be strong. i have to tell about what it meant to lose my brother. it has always been hard to move on, thinking i would somehow leave him behind.

what hurts me the most is my siblings do not want to talk about him, as i he never existed. no one approaches me to say "when marcus... or i remember that marcus used to...", i mean, they do not even mention his name, like they never even knew him. and that hurts. because the people that knew who he was can not even mention his name. why do they not want to ever talk about him?

my mother says, not every one has dealt with their grief the same way. she said all of her children have come to her at one point and mentioned marcus, except for one sister alyce. she said everyone else has told her how much they have missed marcus and she has helped them cope.

i am trying to figure out how to cope with having lost him without talking about him, and i am finding it to be really difficult.

loss

it has been nine years, one month, twenty one days and three hours since i received a phone call that would absolutely turn my life upside down. i was sitting in my dorm room, about to go to class when my sister dawn broke the news to me. she called to let me know marcus died, and that it was not a joke. i left my room, walked copiously around campus, shrieking and screaming at the top of my lungs. i remember i was coined the crazy freshman, who'd lost it. my reputation meant nothing at that time. i vaguely remember the words that my sister used, other than to be around when they family pulled up in a couple of hours. i sat in my room, waiting for the news to not be true and it never was disspelled. i remember sitting in my room,waiting for them to come. i felt like i just waited and waited and waited and i paced the floor, stared at the few pictures of my brother on the wall until they showed up.

its too heavy for me. i can not even write any more.

nu beginning

i have come to learn that the only way my vision will be evident is if i am as honest as possible, in a way i have never been before. Instead of using this space as a place to create poetry I will use it as a channel to pass energy from me throughout the universe. i hope to create a path for wholeness and inspiration- something i can be proud of. i want to spend this space as a way to express my inner feelings and expectations i have for myself. i plan to use it as a way to create and draw from my experiences and grow. thank you for following me on my journey.