YHWH

22

I find it hard to find meaning in birthdays.
I believe in the necessity to celebrate ones life, but, for me,
it's less of a celebration and more of a reminder.
I'm a year older, but nothing has changed. Nothing.
I have reached major milestones in my life, yet,
nothing has changed. And I can't help but focus on them.
I can't help but think about everything I have not done,
and everything I need to do by this time next year.
Thank God I've made it to another year,
but I thank God more for the 365 days that got me here.
Seeing another year is not an achievement when I've survived the previous days.
Thank God I woke up day after day after day.
Thank God for those days when nothing truly happened.
For days when I hate the rain and days when I'm dancing in it.
For days when I didn't know what I was going to eat,
and days when my belly had an abundance.
Thank God for the days when I didn't think I would make it out of the bed.
For days when I need to send a letter, buy pens, and shave.
Days when I run from wasps and welcome butterflies.
Days when I'm cleaning a bedroom so calamitous
that I fall asleep in the middle of the floor...with the light still on.
Days when I can't stand to see myself in the mirror,
and days I admire the imperfections of my skin.
Thank God for the ordinary days that turn into another year.
Thank God for the unforgettable days woven in between.
And at this very moment, I think I found the meaning in birthdays.
Happy Birthday to me. Thank God for another year.

We spend hours in the mirror, staring ourselves in the eyes, examining our hair, touching our skin, lips, and nose, but we don't know our own features.

We don't know what we truly look like.

"People empty me. I have to get away to refill." 

- Charles Bukowski

Worthy

Trying to understand an indescribable God.
He loves us despite who we are.
We love Him because of what He's done.
I don't think we can honestly say we love God unconditionally.

So many times I take a step back from my own life,
and I look at all the things I was blind to otherwise.
I am in complete awe that a perfect God
has blessed me beyond measure.

I'm never worthy.
He's always trustworthy.

Learning to be Last

Slam poets and spoken words artists have always inspired me to not only become a better writer, but also a performer. I desired to bring my words alive and truly make it an art form that I can share with others. A few months ago a man from Southern Word, a Nashville based literary and performance arts organization, introduced me to a world that I had been so intrigued with for years. A world that my laptop screen separated me from as I watched Brave New Voices on YouTube all hours of the night. A world that I admired, but dared not step into.

Until now...

"Letters to a Young Poet" | Rainer Maria Rilke

National Poetry Month 2014

For most people the first day of April signifies a day devoted to dunce caps and droll jokes. For others, it is the beginning of National Poetry Month: 30 days of celebrating poets, self proclaimed and well known, and the poetry that comes alive through them.

Time for Change.

//It's time for a change.

Today I got hit with a brick

And...I'm trying to recover from that awful blow.

It weighs twenty one years and nine months worth of thoughts and wrapped in pieces of words sprawled across magazine covers and repeated on the t.v. screens. I for one do not own a television, but their agenda reaches my mind anyhow. More than five thousand blows against my weak heart.

Today I realized how much I hate certain things about myself. So much so that I don't think I can find a single thing that I at least like, let alone love.

Today I actually cried because I did not look like the girl I was stalking on Instagram. I could not believe what my heart was telling me at the moment. Alone in my yellow room, I embarrassed myself.

Today I realized how much I really didn't want to be me. I wanted her hair, her clothes, her words, and even her personality. I wanted to be pieces of women whom I've never met.

I don't really know who I am. I don't know what I enjoy. I don't know what makes me the happiest girl in the world. I don't know if what upsets me actually upsets me because I feel that way or because that's how I think I'm supposed to feel. I'm not sure if I love the company of others or desire to be alone forever. I don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life. I don't know if I hate chocolate anymore. I mean...it's good on strawberries, but do I actually like chocolate? I don't know why I don't really care about much, and that makes me upset. Or does it? I want to care about something! I care about succulents. I love succulents. That's all. I don't love anything else.

I don't care about owning pets one day. Dogs are cool. Cats are alright. But they don't mean anything to me. I don't think I have a favorite color any longer. It's just a freaking color.

What the heck am I talking about and who the heck am I?

Ugh.  Now that that's out of the way.

I'm about to change all of that! I want to be me: a me that I love and enjoy. A me who knows exactly who she is and what she likes. And finally be the me. The me that I truly am to my core, but I have to dig deep and find me. (I'll let God do the diggin'.)

Because of how I've been feeling lately, I said "Heck no!" and the following tweets are a result of the inner snap.

if you don't like something about yourself, then change it!

— Danierykah Badu (@thatgirlshel) March 12, 2014

if you can't change it, then focus on what you love about yourself!

— Danierykah Badu (@thatgirlshel) March 12, 2014

suffocate and drown self hate in a sea of love.

— Danierykah Badu (@thatgirlshel) March 12, 2014

Shut up Self Hate! I don't hear you. I love me. 
The me now and the me I will discover.

I feel pretty wacky after this insane post.

I feel behind in life compared to my counterparts who never went to college or who did not choose a four year track.

While I'm completely broke and jobless, I have no car, I literally have nothing but on top of that I have 25k in school debt.

"Go to college," they say. "You'll be ahead of everyone," they say.

Everyone I know who didn't go to college have found careers, not jobs, but careers. They have money, they have the ability to purchase new cars, and clothes and food, and things they want. For goodness sake my sister makes more than my mama!

I know I don't know everyone's story, but everyone around is certainly looking well off than I am.

I feel so behind. Like a loser and a failure.

I graduate college in 2 months and it's hard for me to be happy. I don't even have a freakin' plan after school.

Ugh, and now I feel like a stupid brat for crying and complaining.

I became a pessimist when...

I became a pessimist when I realized everyone else has my happily ever after and I always fall short of my own little dream.

I became a pessimist when life gave me a contact high of privileges and opportunities, yet snatched them out of my eager hands.

I became a pessimist when the way he spoke of my existence scared any chance for butterflies to perch on my esophagus. If there is a chance in hell one could fall in love with me... well sometime's I want to jump in the fire. To allow the feeling in my chest to engulf my entire being.

I became a pessimist when my own reflection was an unfamiliar face. Her wired hair and scarred face reflected her heart more than the mirror.

I became a pessimist when I realized somethings are just too good to be true.

"Reminded of the love we had."

My ex boyfriend--you know, the guy who swept me off my feet in high school and broke my heart thereafter? Yeah, that ex boyfriend-- came to visit.

Parted August 2010. Met and conversed October 2011. Ran into each other June 2013. Came over December 2013. Was I shocked? Sure. Was I happy to see him? Of course. But I couldn't figure out why.

For the hours that led to his arrival I was like a giddy school girl that wanted to strangle the rowdy butterflies in her stomach. "I'll let you know when I''m close." What do I wear?? "I'm ten minutes way." Okay, play it cool, but casual. *takes deep breath* While trying to contain my composure and keep the butterflies from escaping my throat, it hit me: Your first love will always be your first love.

That cannot be undone and taken away.

Over the past few years I have envisioned someday being together again. "We just needed time apart. We simply needed to grow separately to grow together again," were my hopeful thoughts on the matter.

Over the past few years I've tried to disregard how I might possibly have felt about him. When his name came up I tried not smile. When I ran into him in the mall I wanted to run behind the nearest kiosk from bashfulness and the fear of my red flushed skin. When a mutual friend would give me the 411 on his life, I tried to pretend that I didn't care, but all the more keeping a keen ear.

3pm to 10pm. 7 hours of catching up. 7 hours of laughing.

There were times of silence and times of awkwardness, but there were also times of reflecting, going down memory lane, and learning about the person we used to love 3 years prior.

The person that we used to love.
Reminded of the love we had.

As I watched him walk to the same car I rode shotgun in for 365 days, I remembered why we fell in love.
But it wasn't the same. 

"I felt everything, yet felt nothing."