Update

I love my friends so much. Below, I posted the poems I read at my poetry reading today (with the exception of "Odessa, AR" which I ended up replacing at the last minute with a different poem). I'm really grateful that so many of my peeps came out to support. I felt super loved and I definitely had the loudest cheering section! hurrah!

I am writing a paper now but here are many things that I want to talk/write about after i'm done with all my work on monday:
1)Libertarianism and its relation to the constitution (which is part of my con law paper)
2) What qualifies as an education
3) The Myth of the Dominant Black Woman (or reality?)
4)Emotional transparency
5)Economics and the auto industry bail out
6) I'm moving!

These are all things that I am interested in right now but who knows how i'll feel tomorrow.

A Notification Letter

You halved her like someone eating a chicken,
A casual separation of breastbone,
Her ribs arranged and flattened like planks,
The woman, a wooden walkway.

You forced her apart like someone reaching for change,
A relentless scraping and her insides pouring
like green pennies from a coin purse,
The mother you left me, made of copper.

You died like one death was payment enough.
But I am writing to notify you that
Upon further examination of your application:
I have rescinded my forgiveness.

I am writing to say:
Our azaleas are still wilted
And have dropped their
petals like eyelids
Through my fingertips.

Odessa, AR

When his mother gave away her son, time didn’t stop.

If it had she would have stayed
Thin hipped, thirteen,
Leaning on the doorframe.

She would still be
watching the arid expansiveness
the determined trees
And the moths that abandoned
their fuzz on her hands.

The orphan stop light
Would hang, mid-swing, always red,
Still bleeding into their side of town.

She wouldn’t have turned around,
Gone deeper into the house,
Gotten ready for work.

3 A.M.

When I knocked over the lamp, I knew
he was dead. In the hotel room with his coma
on my eyelids, my hand woke up needing
light. As if flicking a switch would unstring
The last three days, and re-pin the sheaths of skin
I saw his body shed.

In the next bed my brother
Sighed and through the dark
I felt him turn his back to me and
knew that he wanted to touch my shoulder,
to reach an ember of our father
still flickering in my body.
But we were still stopped by
the sound of his words as he'd unpeel his
belt like a husk from his corncob body,
"You can't raise a boy to be too soft."

Amy Winehouse

“They say decrepit pop hag Amy Winehouse is back in the sick house once again”~bossip.com

The tabloids say you smell of urine and unwashed hair
And smoke cold cigarettes that taste like refrigerator.

I read somewhere that when you’re tired or high
You and your husband lie beneath the windows
With a redwood growing out of both your hands
Listening to the paparazzi in your branches


But I bet that when everyone leaves,
You climb to the roof of your house
And miss those shiny droplets of light
Slow sprinkling like oil
With every flash.

A House Divided

So Barak won. I have been really surprised by the reactions of some of the christians I know. I have like three different friends from my church in jersey whose status was something along the lines 'america you made the wrong decision and you get what you deserve." Like seriously? Does God really call you to rejoice in the future suffering of this nation? And can you really be a Christian and believe you got what you deserved? How is that helpful?

Today my mom forwarded me an e-mail from Dutch Sheets explaining why Obama's election was not God's will. Well, I know God (which is not to say that I know what his will was for the election). But who the fuck is Dutch Sheets? Because he wrote a couple of books on prayer he gets to tell me what God's will is? THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!!!!! Everyone is listening to someone else. We should just burn all the bibles because apparently no one can read them for themselves. I would say that 99% of the conversation that I heard leading up to the election from christians were "Well my pastor says this." Well guess what? I really don't care what your pastor thinks. what do you think? what does God think?

The thing that this election makes me wonder the most is whose pastor was it who decided that the only way to stop abortion was through presidential elections? Anyone who knows me knows that I make it a point to never talk about my personal political beliefs. This is in the most part due to the fact that I think it's usually more useful to listen. But here's a freebie: I am pro-life. With that said, I honestly believe that the day that abortions are no longer performed in the United States will be the day that Jesus comes back to earth. Even if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I personally have had conversations with medical professionals who have said that if it were illegal they would still perform them. And I think that anyone who has grown up in a super liberal state such as NJ or MA will admit that there would be more than enough doctors who believe so strongly in abortion rights that abortion could never really be outlawed more than just on paper. More importantly, the Supreme Court has the most direct impact on the legality of abortion and all the president does is appoint people who might be pro-life (or who might be willing to say whatever it takes to be on the Supreme Court!). And even if they do not decide in favor of abortion rights, they can simply drastically reduce the amount of cases they hear like the Rehnquist Court did.

I'm not saying to give up but what I am saying is evangelicals need to stop pretending that they don't personally play a role in the amount of women having abortions. Women don't just chose to have abortions because they like to kill babies. How many christians actually go to churches that have used their benevolence funds to help a single mother or even have day care services? And even in the case of women who have been raped and get abortions, when have you ever heard a sermon or a christian friend speak out against sexual violence? I have been to dozens of churches over the course of my lifetime and i cannot recall ever hearing a sermon speaking out against rape. not one. So why should it surprise us that women get abortions when they're raped when we as a community don't even provide a space for them to address this trauma!?!?!?

Basically what I'm trying to say is maybe if people took as much time actually living out their beliefs as they did bitching about how Obama is leading our country towards godlessness this nation would be in a different position. If you actually believe in God, I think he deserves more than this inconsistent passivity.

Psuedo-Update

I was crossing the street yesterday and this guy was riding his bicycle and was singing the chorus to that wuthering heights song. It was really weird and random.

My parents and I are now finally somewhat on the same page about my tentative plans for next year. ALL BEND TO MY WILL EVENTUALLY. (just kidding.)

I'm kind of intrigued about the upcoming election. Jessica is convinced that if Obama gets elected there is going to be a slew of racial violence that is going to take place in the deep south. Conversely, I think that if he doesn't get elected, black people will probably never vote again.

On that note, we had the most amazing speaker at IV this past week on racial reconciliation. It was really cool because there was such a wide range of people who were touched by what she had to say. She told this story about this African-American pastor that she worked with who bought a house in the deep south with a white pastor and they moved their families in and lived together for 13 years for the express purpose of working together to serve the oppressed and figure out what racial reconciliation really is. And that is the difference between diversity and reconciliation.

I have experienced diversity my entire life. It has been interesting, it has at times been incredibly awkward, and often entertaining. But it has never been real. In this sense, I mean diversity that brings people together for the purpose of having different people together or because we're supposed to want to have friends who are somewhat different than us. Seriously, if you think about it diversity as its usually sought has no purpose. The only thing it is working towards is a nebulous sense of how we should feel. There's no real connection necessary. For example, I spoke to a friend of a friend last week who made a series of mildly offensive comments. And I wasn't upset because it was like hey i know this person means well and they're not my problem. Basically, I didn't care about them enough to deal with possibly making them upset even if that's what they need.

In contrast to this attitude, an attitude of reconciliation is different. It requires a level of vulnerability that I usually don't have. It requires actually articulating the things that really hurt, both myself and others. It means saying and hearing stuff that is real and honest and sometimes ugly. Quite a calling and i'm not really sure what to do with that.....

Wuthering Heights

So we're reading Wuthering Heights in one of my classes and I thought of this video. It is probably the most ridiculous thing I have seen and my friend Karen is obsessed with it. Thank God the 80s ended.

The part where she creepily sings 'i hated you, I loved you too,' brings up a central part of the book that i recently discussed with a friend. It is incorrect that love and hate opposites. When in reality, they both imply attraction of some kind. One way or another your thinking about that person a lot. The real opposite of love is indifference. This notion is actually scarier to me. I am indifferent to a lot of people and a lot systems that keep my life comfortable while oppressing someone else, so essentially the life I lead is a testament to a severe lack of love. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one for whom this is true.

Hate is actually more of a counterfeit of love than it's opposite because it's all attraction and no sincere concern. I'm a big believer in counterfeits. By this I mean that I think the world was intended to be full of beautiful things but the way that things are currently beautiful things end up twisted and perverse. For example, the summer before freshman year, I worked at a day care center. There was a kid, named David, who clearly showed signs of autism but his mom refused to believe it. She was in my opinion a perversion of what a mother should be. When you first meet her you think she's the best mother in the world because she dresses her kid so nicely and has the appearance of a good mom. But in reality, she was probably one of the worst mothers i've ever met because her relationship with David was completely self-serving, it was entirely about how he made her look. So what was meant to have been a beautiful, fulfilling relationship was just plain ugly. All that aside, I have been thinking about my friends and what paths they're going down and I think that the urge to counterfeit oneself is so strong. Pretty much all of my friends could make themselves into something else simply because they are talented and capable. And most of the people a school like Penn attracts can do this. Musicians can turn themselves into bankers or accountants, filmakers into physicians, etc. because they can and that's what people expect they will do.

I have been thinking a lot about my next step lately. And trying to honestly evaluate what I love and if i'm really ready to leave behind English/literature/writing. Over fall break, I was talking to my dad and he was complaining about his 401K getting destroyed and I told him that I don't think retirement is necessarily biblical. Obviously wisdom and planning are a good thing when it comes to finances. But at the same time, if you're doing a job in eager anticipation of when you can leave it behind then maybe that's just not what you're supposed to be doing. More importantly, what is the point of retiring? Is it really healthy to just stop working and wait around until... you die?

umm...no thanks.

Lynching

It is not corkscrews in flesh,
Folded body hung
Like fetid laundry in papered air,
And the darkly aromatic scent.

Nor is it the velvety red strips
Of James Byrd, Jr.’s face
Against the hard asphalt
And the cruelty of consciousness.

It is the moment before the moment exists
The surprise, the submission to it.

The Thirteenth Amendment

I took the LSATs on Saturday...hopefully, I am free now. What I mean by that if I did poorly then I will have to take them again which is just the worst thought ever. This past week, I was so freaking stressed I was seriously roaming penn's campus like a crazed homeless person. Saddest thing ever: I have missed class night all four years of IV. Best thing ever: emancipation (from the LSATs) celebrations are in order.

In other news, I accidentally said the word bitch today while I was making a comment in class. It was really unnecessarily awkward. My goal is to fit one expletive in every time I make a comment. I have no real reason to do this other than I think it's hilarious and I'm curious to see if the professor will eventually say anything. Today he kind of made a face and then agreed with the point that I was making. Basically, I have been reflecting on how this is really the last year for me to do something stupid before it really ruins my life. So find me some authority figures to piss off and bring on the ill-advised love affairs. Or better yet can someone just show me how not to avoid confrontation?


"it's been one hell of a crazy
ballgame"~ Bukowski

(yea i know...so pretentious)

Update #2

As per my earlier post: I have a friend who saw the police report (long story) apparently I was right...the burglar wasn't trying to steal anything, he was just trying to look in on girls changing. So much less creepy....Also in the police report I am described as a white female. That must have been why the cops actually showed up.

I am thinking of just changing my name to Shaniqua Stewart-Jackson. I think it would end a lot of confusion.

Update

Update:

I have been thinking about the whole burglar thing from a different angle and really it was a blessing that I was studying LSATs when he was climbing my fire escape. I actually think that if I hadn't seen him he could have really hurt someone. I do think that his intention was to do just that because normally if people are going to steal something they do it during the day when people aren't home as opposed to 1am on a weekday night in which case someone will must assuredly will be in their apartment. That and the things that he could steal out of a college students room are of limited value. The three most expensive things that I have in my apartment that you could carry out of a window (i.e. not my couch) are like my tv, hair straightener, and my laptop none of which would be worth enough to get arrested for. I feel like this is the case for most college students. I highly doubt that anyone has like heirloom jewelry or a ferrari with them at school.

Tomorrow morning I may or may not have to go down to the DAs office and give a statement or some crap. Who knows. Philadelphia is an incredibly disorganized city. On the bright side, I spoke to a police officer yesterday (the boys next door were inexplicably playing on the fire escape and one of my neighbors got scared and called them) and she doesn't think he would be out for awhile because apparently there are a ton of charges against him. I've decided that I want to want to pray for him. I was doing some research on James Byrd Jr., who was dragged to death in '98 by white supremacists for a poem that I was writing for class and I came across this really powerful article about his son. His son believes so strongly that life is sacred that he protested the execution of his father's killers. That is just the most insanely beautiful thing I have heard today. And I think my class liked the poem.

I am tired. I am stressed. But I am excited about the people in my life. So life kind of averages out to be delicious.

Hurt Me Soul

On Thursday, I caught a burglar on my fire escape. He's in custody but I can't help but feel like I'm just as confined as he is . There's more to the story and that actually wasn't the first time he was on the fire escape but I don't want to think about it. I am tired of being scared. On thursday I slept at a friends in Harrison, on Friday I made luis sleep on my coach (between my room and the fire escape), and yesterday I had a veritable garrison of IV guys sleeping in my apartment (shout out to my homies josh,bill, zach, and luis). Tonight, I was originally planning on staying in Harrison but I have to pull an all nighter so I am debating whether I should just stay here because I am less likely to fall asleep. Someone keeps calling my phone from an 'unknown' number, which of course started after Thursday. They called on Friday and then 4 times today (i stopped picking up after the first time where they just repeated 'hello?who is this?' over and over again). I have been so stressed from this and from the LSATs and from school that I got really sick. I initially thought it was food poisoning but now I think that it might just be stress. I haven't been able to keep anything down that isn't saltines or ginger ale.

On Friday morning, one of my friends e-mailed me a recording of me singing 'How He Loves Us' from early this summer. It was supposed to make me feel less scared because the song is about how much God loves us and thus presumably would care that we're scared that some deranged psycho is going to come through my window and stab us to death. But it actually had the reverse effect because I think I have a very young sounding voice. (This has always been one of the great tragedies of my life that I don't have like a gritty, soulful voice. Like one of those voices were you're just like 'HOT DAMN THAT'S A BLACK PERSON SANGING!" maybe I should take up smoking?) Anyways, so when I listened to the song I was like holy crap, I am small. I am not 5'11" like my sister. I am not a 6'4" black man like I usually feel I am. I probably can't beat up half of the people that I think that I can. And bullets aren't my only weakness.

I am vulnerable, but not powerless. And I'm definitely ready to stop feeling afraid.

How to Make Black Friends #2: Know some slang!

(this is me procrastinating)

So I have been reading all day today. And am bored with being productive.

I had an interesting interaction this past saturday night. I saw one of my friends standing in line at Smoke's and she had a very unhappy expression on her face. So I said "Dane, what's with the stank face?" There was this random girl standing between us and she was like 'haha what is stank?' and I had to explain it to her. It was just rather surprising to me because I thought that word was fairly integrated in american society as a whole but I guess not. I have definitely never been someone who used a large amount of slang but I think there are probably a couple of words/phrases that are almost universally understood or used by black people that I also use. I have taken the liberty of defining a couple of these phrases/words and used excerpts from real conversations that I have with my friends. So take notes:

1. Stank-n./adj., most commonly used to refer to an unfriendly or snobby demeanor.
Examples:
"No one likes him. He is so stank."
or
"She's actually nice. she just looks stank."
2. Talking To- v., refers to the state of heavy flirtation that comes before dating. This could describe anything from two people simply expressing interest in one another to actually going on dates to hooking up. An important aspect of 'talking to' is that usually it describes something which is a well known fact (i.e. not secret).
Examples:
"I can't believe you're talking to someone from that frat"
"I'm not. I'm not talking to anyone."
or
"Last year he was talking to this other girl in my grade."
3.Jumpoff-n. someone of the opposite sex who is attractive but for whatever reason is not dateable usually as a result of a lack of respectability (this is the sense my friends and I use it but it does have a more explicit meaning).
Example:
"Adam* is boyfriend material, Jack* is just a jumpoff"
*names changed to protect the identity of the speaker
4. Dust-n/adj. a term almost exclusively used by my closest black friends (although it is gaining popularity campus wide). It is a way of describing any behavior that is clingy or stalkerish or generally demonstrating a lack of self-respect concerning a romantic interst. Judi Dench's performance in "Notes on a Scandal" is the perfect example of this type of behavior. Additionally, dust or the word asbestos can refer to a pathetic love life.
Examples:
"I was feeling rather dusty today. I spent two hours on facebook looking at his photos."
or
"Were you just sitting in your room by yourself listening to 'Free yourself' by Fantasia? You are so dusty."
or
"I have terminal asbestos, there is no cure."
or
"Whenever we get in a fight he goes into his room and listens to Bright Eyes"
"Ugh, that's pathetic. Dust and cobwebs."

These are the words that I use the most....so if you're reading this looking for black friends, you can probably be friends with me lol.

On another note, I'm in a poetry writing course right now so my poetry might be making a comeback yay...(or nay?)....

And finally, if I were a British pop singer, I think I would be Lily Allen. Pretty sure on that one.

"I Had a Dream"

So my friend Karen gave me a bunch of christian CDs when I saw her in August. This gift has led me to the following conclusion: Christian Rap will never catch on. never. There's really no way for it to get any better in the future than it has been in the past. The production quality is just so bad and outdated. Which makes sense because a rap track from a big name producer (i.e. someone who produces stuff ppl like) like the Neptunes or Scott Storch or Timbaland costs far more then most Christian artists make. If I end up with nothing to do after I graduate I'm seriously going to buy one of those cheap Casio keyboards and make christian rap.

Anyways, I fell asleep listening to this Christian rap group LaCrae who are awful btw. While I was asleep, I had this really creepy dream that a friend of a friend's girlfriend had an eating disorder (i don't know if this is true or not) and that he broke up with her because of it. But his reasoning was that she was being a bad g/f because she loved herself more than him and would rather try and look like a model than have a healthy relationship. Obviously, that whole thing doesn't make any sense but it of course made was perfectly logical while I was asleep.

I am only writing about this because the weird thing was that later today, I ended up having dinner with the friend whose friend was in the dream and he brought up eating disorders. Anyways, i don't really know anything about dreams but I feel like I've had many experiences where they have been useful in understanding things. I'm not going to go into the whole convo but there is so much death on this campus that it's not surprising that there are so many girls who experience such extreme alienation from their bodies. Btw, I mean death in the relational sense. Girls and boys are alienated from themselves because they don't know how to just be. Then as a result you get all these broken, dysfunctional relationships, both platonic and romantic. I would say that I'm an exception but I have pretty much been watching a few relationships wither since school started.

Speaking of relationships, I am advocating the abolition of the 'phantom relationship.' The phantom relationship is the phenomenon in which people assume that any pair of guy-girl friends are dating, thus placing them in relationships that are as shadowy and nonexistent as say....a phantom. In the past 3 days, I have been asked twice whether I was dating one of my male friends (a different friend each time). Similarly, over the summer one of my friends from high school who was working in the city called me and asked me if I had a secret b/f because some girl from Penn who was working at the same bank in the same division thought I was dating one of my guy friends. So I propose a solution. Why doesn't everyone just agree to tell their friends when they're dating ppl? Only you can prevent phantom relationships.

I am very happy for my friend Jennifer Rizzo (formerly Croson). Mainly because she is beautiful and has a beautiful marriage and a new, 9.2lbs, beautiful boy. But also because she is super badass and had a completely natural birth during which she still managed to text me that she was in labor haha. I will most definitely be having the drugs when the time comes. But I ALWAYS appreciate texts.

How to make black friends #1

So I've decided to use this blog primarily to express my random thoughts. This is vitally important because I have more random thoughts than normal ones.

So at IV's leaders retreat we were talking about cross-cultural relationships and one of the leaders expressed her frustration with trying to make friends from a different culture (specifically referencing black ppl). Her issue was that she comes from a completely homgenous background and thus has no clue what to do/say. I'm of the opinion that if you are genuine and really want to invest in someone then no matter what your background most sane ppl will be receptive to that.

But I was thinking about it more and I think that hair is actually responsible for 80% of conflict between black people and white people. So here's a secret for people seeking to make black friends no matter how much you want to....never ever ever ever ever ever ever touch a black person's hair.

The more that I thought about this hair thing, the more I am convinced that it is true. The reason behind it is that black people never touch other black people's hair unless they are styling it. I cannot think of any exception. This fact sets the perfect stage for conflict because black people hair is so noticeably different from white people hair which makes them want to touch it. Today I was at the Greenfield Intercultural center and I watched this rabbi tousle this black woman's hair. It was meant to be friendly but me and my friend both immediately said "uh oh" and the woman was clearly bothered. Oh well....

I'd be curious to know what the white people equivalent is to this. I'm guessing being late haha

Just a Thought

So I thoroughly enjoy reading people’s blogs. Especially, people I don’t know that well, it’s really interesting to see the discrepancies between how people view themselves and how they portray themselves to the world. I love seeing the way people’s minds work.

And some times I wish mine worked differently. I was playing the piano today and I realized that I am beginning to forget how to read music. By this, I don’t mean forgetting what the notes on the page mean but that the time it takes me to see the notes and be able to hit them is noticeably longer. I have also forgotten how to play all but two songs on the guitar, haven’t written a single song in 3 years, and probably couldn’t play the flute for more than an hour anymore.

The discovery that I was forgetting how to read music actually made me think of a conversation that I had with a friend a couple of years ago. Kate* is seriously one of the most sincere people that I have ever met, we’ve lost touch over the years but I still absolutely adore her. Unfortunately, the Kate that I knew was also certifiable. Like really, really crazy. She was always an obsessive girlfriend, and either she had a boyfriend or was depressed that she didn’t have one. She also always told them that she loved them within the first week of dating. This horrified me and in the back of my mind I’d always suspected that it was one of the reasons behind her frequent lack of a boyfriend. As I understood it at the time, love meant a commitment to stay with someone until you literally kill each other or the other person was old enough for all their teeth to have fallen out.

At around break up number 6 or 7, I finally asked her
“Why do you always tell guys you love them so soon?”
“It’s something you just understand when you’re in love.”
“But doesn’t it scare you that you might have to take it back?”

Disclaimer: I have never told someone I loved them and then taken it back. I just think that that mindset applies to so many other things, especially as I am entering my senior year. Pretty much every Penn kid is like “if this is what I’m doing right now then this is what I love and this is the only thing I will ever love.” No matter what it is.

Anyways, back to the music. If I had taken the time and effort that I put in to Penn to seriously sit on a mountaintop or something and just played my little heart out I am pretty sure I would be better at reading music than I am. All that aside, that is life and we always have to neglect something. It’s kind of like you're standing on the spoke of a bicycle wheel with a bunch of possibilities all necessarily leading in different directions. But I still want it all.

Airplanes

Sitting in my backyard, I wonder
Why we believe planes
Fly overhead. I can hear them.
But my agnostic eyes see nothing.

Maybe they only exist in our trepidation
Alive, in the fear that tony suburbs
Are still too close to
The city’s covetous poor.

Our response is to hope
In things unseen,
In endless progress,
In predictable, regular, mechanical functioning.

The average man never questions
That planes move the air around him
Though he can’t see them working
Nor comprehend their divine anatomy.

I have never been the average man
And I believe in things far bigger than planes.

Subway to Hoegi

On the wall behind me is an excuse to stare
The Korean Businessman’s eyes swim black
In narrow, almond shaped straits
Until they rest on the subway map
And he is sure that I don’t suspect
His curious gaze on my skin.

Six Hours After the Stabbing the Streets of Ankihabra Were Filled With Young Men Again

From the top of the Softmap building

The shiny black droplets

Sprinkle like oil

The surface tension breaks

And the viscous liquids merge

The black-haired young men come flowing slowly

In search of otaku goods and anime

The river formed by their bodies' movement

Only able to obey the natural laws:

That life goes on

And people so rarely do the right thing.

The Son

He forgot Grandmom.

Her throat so parched

It started puckering

Seared away at the edges

Like the rim of a fried egg

Pulling away from the hot pan.

Uncle Nate is on the pipe again.

Mrs. Acquadro

Mrs. Acquadro made me pour out my coffee

We stood there after my third period class

watching the richness of its browness

Yanked down the insatiable ivory drain

My back, a straining rubber tree, bent away from her

She lectured me on why it still counted as stealing

Even though it was free during lunch.

Of course, It’s not stealing if you’re white

In that case its mercantilism

Or manifest destiny

But I do wonder how she knew.

New Orleans

New Orleans
by Sarah Stewart

If I were white
I’d be a writer
Move to Vermont
Live in a heap of regenerating manuscripts
In a tiny attic apartment
Chain smoking clove cigarettes.

It’s unforgivably different
Being black and poor
They’ll leave you there
Tucked under brown water at the bottom of a fish bowl
In a decayed house
With ‘1 found’ sprayed on the door.

I AM JEAN LEE

So my laptop died this week and I lost about 3 years worth of poems that I've written (though not really considering I didn't write anything for about two years). Jean Lee suggested that I start a blog for my poems (like her!) so maybe next time I wont lose everything I've ever written :-(. Enjoy. Or don't. It's up to you.