I could own all my ugliness
like I’d
never had to hide,
breaking through,
the dark
silhouette of the moment,
paying for it,
shoe after shoe,
coke bottle,
stitch waist,
nails, highlight
narrow butt,
bubble butt,
cosmetics, glow,
mattifying creams
I almost let the world convince me,
I needed to buy myself
right off the shelf.
after all, it almost seemed right,
kindness sis, Krissy
Looking over my shoulder
I was 13 when poetry found me in the library
hovering over the latest beauty magazines
wondering why I couldn’t see myself
Moma’s job had just ended, we still needed money for the past due light-bill
going to church wasn’t bad, as I recall Moma gave over every last cent paying for a miracle.
In the morning the sun rose gently, helping us with another lightless day
then it was poetry and I, stride by stride,
pain and grief, blood in the middle.
I was writing,
kindness sis. Krissy
unsuspended, steady -unsteady
chaos steps out into the morning air, just the same as me
chaos beats at me like two fighters in the ring
pounding, adrenaline
all this time I thought the closest thing to God
was water.
I thought when God made man
God and creation- one big-fat human dance
and then I thought, one day to God is as one thousand to man
so that is to say, seven thousands years of grace
and seven thousand more, God would take to make man
seven thousand to my 39 years
of 14,244.458
sounds like unsuspended, unexpected steady, unsteady
ready even when I’m not,
one big-fat grace, kindness sis Krissy
Walking through the corridors of summer,
past the heated mist.
drifting winds – offering her sentimental feelings
feeling young,
feeling whimsical
feeling brave
feeling holy-sedated
I wished a tiny prayer upon a nation.
kindness sis Krissy
Innocence and ingenuity a double consciousness of the self” to be good and colored is to be provoked-powerful and powerless in the same passing breath. Like the air I’m breathing is so high, standing at the mercy of the auction block,
” bringing out your dead, you son of a preacher!”
that is the hunting growing in the Americas’ schoolyard
that is the devastation rotting in a message on Sunday Morning
that is the dead blackbird in a second-grade locker
that is a pipeline from school to prison
that is a massive, shooting dying to be dead
living to be dead
that is to pray…
God I know this is the next fire time
God I know, there is a rainbow to follow
God, I want to know good, not happily ever after
God I want to know the sweet bye and bye
God, may we live the- good life
and die happy
full of old age. kindness sis Krissy
Today the rain was falling fat like little birds fighting over the last crumb of bread, the tin roof clicks and clicks at me until I stop and pay attention. Watering the basil I’ve planted over the summer, refreshing the old yellow peppers still on the vine. Someone once said “water holds memory” maybe like a movie or a script waiting for the playback in the back of my head.
I was there two weeks ago sitting at a table. The conversation went something like this,
Mrs Potrho: you know, I’m thinking nonviolence didn’t do much.
me: how’s that?
Mrs. Portho: well my daughter said she had a bit of an incident, at the shopping mall where a woman ran into her or they ran into each other. Anyhow, my daughter said excuse me. To be polite and the other woman involved said “watch it you black B***ch”, now at this point my daughter said in haste, “do you want to take this outside”?
me: um, I hope she was able to walk away?
Mrs. Portho: you know – my daughter was right. It’s too late for turning the other cheek.
me: but, nonviolence is resistance in itself. It’s offering, peace, it’s offering something that the world is shouting for. That is to say, do I want justice? Do I want the laws to change? Do I want all persons, no matter the color of skin to feel safe? Surely I do.
me: revenge only calls for more blood and more death.
After that, we changed the subject.
feel free to add your thoughts below- I’d love to hear what you’d done in this situation your Kindness sis. Krissy
When the spirits talk, they’ll call trusting the beginning of innocence, that is to say, all that is good in the world, all that the world has called good. Beyond the prime abandonment of wanted desires, they’ll call you out of chasing your own shadows, out of stupidity, out of wanting to be wanted.
out in the middle of sidewalk stands a two year down to his white diaper, he garbles words for spirits, he knows mama’s milk is not coming. he knows the sirens. he knows the beauty of the cold – hard cement between his feet. he plays with peekaboo in the wind, he goes inside the tiny door,
combusting watching. It takes everything in me not to pick him up, not to go next door and give him all the good I’ve ever known. kindness sis. Krissy
Dear Love, I think I gave myself eczema, I knew I did it. my kneecaps are freezer burned, forearms, every day a painfully new textured, risen tree- trunk, treasures talking, broken waters, jaws out of joint…
I think I scratched out a placed called home in the layers of my skin, gut out the first layer never mine second, never mind the hallucinations in the brain, in the pain, under the covers in the night, where Jesus kissed us gently on our foreheads, soft black woolly,
I think I scratched out sacred-blood, where home never had to leave, never had to say goodbye, praying to the rain, praying to round bloody drops that bleed.
dear four-year-old, small pigtail girl, don’t scratch your prayers down deep in the night
dig deeper, to reach heaven, dig deeper, you never left Eden, deeper the taste of fields berries and mint drip and drip, nakedly.
Dear love, I give you this healing….Kindness sis Krissy
Dear wounds that wake me up in the middle of the night, more like 3:44am
I wanted to sleep like my life depended only because I think my life depended on it.
I wanted to trade my frustration, any sense normalcy
I wanted my Kumbaya moment,
I wanted the rapper on the hip-hop station to include real words that even at 39, I could say was relevant and I could relate
I wanted the humans walking to stop, feel the earth rotating
I wanted to see people hold their brown babies, mija, mijo, welcome to the good life, with little centavos (pennies) we’ve saved a good place to close your eyes and sleep
relax those heavy dark circles inside your head and dream
dream the trees preparing themselves for winter,
see the city ripe with opportunity
see the small business, see a proud family
I pray you dream the red-river,
remember the slave codes
dream- and remember the gas-chamber
walk down the remember the trail of tears
and remember, the ghost of nation
dream -rapid sharks in the mouth
teeth in acid
I pray you remember…. Kindness sis. Krissy
As summer makes its grand-ending, 39 strings, harp, worn over. Air-taste so sweet, we laugh and laugh as if to say. Goodbye. So long necklace-beads of sweatbands Mari-Gras- bass to the sole of our shoes, still dancing, muddy, middle-toe rubbing index, said we’d stayed up all night to watch the sun play tricks on us. Bless us all our days. As if to say, till we meet again, Toni Morrison,
Mesmerizing one sun to another, hips so thirsty, we drink, blue waters, ice-so-cold til our tounges quiver, let the ghost rise, high beyond the beams of 88′ degrees in 2019.
Wonder “how-she made it over” In the shady black and blue ink. Correcting the eyes of millions – to read- to read- to love and pause…
I’m not saying this right..man o-o-o man, fe-e-l me, girl. cmon. feels like a cry, traveling, made its way from my ankles, only now, it’s standing in front of me, feels like, God’s shoulder, I can get a good lean in.
and the words, just won’t come in right.
this ain’t goodbye,
we’ll be reading, it will last a lifetime- your kindness sis. Krissy
Krissy Mosley Ministries 