Love Happens in a Flash....

I miss everything about that woman now that she’s gone. It’s amazing how a man can take so many good things for granted. I always lust for what I don’t have but then isn’t that the very definition of lust? I mean if we had it then would we yearn for it so uncontrollably?

She was the daughter of god and I was a young heathen. Never before had a woman made me feel so wretched and not one time since. In my mind I thought that she would wait for me but in reality she already had. Love happens in a flash and by the time I looked up she was happily involved with a better man. I had no get back. I lacked the confidence to fight for her or to attempt to woo her with my words because he was simply a better man. A better environment produced him and he believed in himself in a way that I never will.

When I happened upon this young lady I didn’t act like I was happy for her. I acted like I couldn’t see the ring glistening on her deep brown finger. I made no mention of her chubby cheeks and I willed myself not to notice her caressing her protruding abdomen. I forced myself to flirt with her just like I did in the days of old but I believe I may have smiled too hard and licked my lips one too many times to be convincing. I told her I was gone holler at her, but of course I never have.

-YB

The Curious Case of Katt Williams

Have you ever taken the time to listen to a person that society has deemed “crazy” and been completely captivated? That’s how I feel when I listen to many of Katt Williams’s recent so-called rants. With that being said I would like to point out that I do not approve of any of his behavior. I am from Oakland, CA the city where he first showed that he might be at least slightly unstable when he behaved very erratically in front of a sell out crowd at the coliseum on November 16^th.

But even then he said some things on stage that I thought, dare I say it, were very insightful. He spoke about other races of people being able to get together without any problems but then black people pay their money just to boo him. Then there are his recent comments about Jamie Foxx’s decision to star in Django Unchained; "F**k Jamie Foxx and the 'Django Unchained' check he cashed. They offered me the script and I said, 'Any n***a that do this deserves to die. And the next thing I heard, Jamie Foxx was in makeup." It’s wrong for Katt to question another black man’s sexuality in such a demeaning and public manner but I actually applaud him for having the heart to publicly criticize the film Django Unchained. More people should be suspicious of a story that is supposed to be that of an oppressed group but is written and directed by a member of the group that directly benefits from that groups oppression.

Katt also seems to be annoyed by black comedians always having to wear dresses on stage to be funny. He performed a freestyle in which he lambasted several prominent black actors namely Martin Lawrence, Tyler Perry, and Jamie Foxx for doing just that.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2fJwVwAbLU]

I have a lot of respect for Katt speaking up for black masculinity when black men are constantly being emasculated. Be it by the police, at job interviews, or in stereotypical movie roles. A lot of people are aware of this but none of them have had the courage to express themselves. The fear of never working in Hollywood again keeps a lot of black actors in check but Katt, for whatever reason, is immune to this fear and that’s what makes him crazy. People are labeled crazy when society has no interest in trying to figure them out or make them “normal.” To put it another way crazy is the word that a lazy society uses to describe the individuals their words aren’t suitable to describe.

http://www.tmz.com/videos/0_my3bt3ig/

I wouldn’t call Katt Williams crazy and I wouldn’t call him funny either. If I had to label Katt Williams I would refer to him as necessary. I can only pray that he can keep himself out of jail while continuing to provide for his family. I’m pulling for him in 2013.

-YB

Reflections in Raindrops

The rain has more rhythm in its descent from heaven than I will ever have in my body. The sound of it keeps me asleep when it’s steady and wakes me up as its pace quickens. Rain always represented excitement to me. Imagine growing up in a place where rain is the most extreme weather possible. As a child I discovered that rain cleanses the flesh and the soil. Rain symbolizes the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Kisses in the rain are more special, dinner in the rain is more meaningful, a movie in the rain is more intimate. I love to go to my favorite creamery and eat ice cream in the rain, for hot chocolate on such a day would be too cliché. Ice cream taste sweet but the rain is sweeter. I’m enamored with the concept of millions of people being wet at the same time. At rainy day recess we used to sneak outside and play anyway. We would jump in puddles and make a real mess of it. As an adult I have never regularly used an umbrella. I don't like the idea of something coming in between me and god. I will receive every blessing that is sent down and I will let it wash over me. Maybe the rain will make me better. Maybe it will make me less fearful and more consistent. Perhaps it will give me a vision so I can see what I need to do to become whole once more.

YB

SOULFUL II in Review

Last Saturday I got a chance to be the host of a phenomenal literary event entitled Soulful II: Telling Our Own Stories Our Own Way. It was an extremely powerful happening that was dedicated to raising money for Kim Glanville a youth advocate who on October 27 was shot three times in a tragic case of mistaken identity. She told her story in a manner that only she could tell it; with humor, passion, and depth. It was clear that she had been feeding off of the energy left on the stage by the other performers. Sean King blessed the audience with a poem about love and an always-relevant story about police harassment. Rami Margron who is the curator of www.theshoutstorytelling.com   told a very engaging tale about an encounter with a deer, Sayre Quevedo shared a few stirring poems about what it’s like to be 20 in the year 2012, and Jezebel Delilah X straight up ripped it. And then there was the Russian literary sensation Zarina Zabrisky. I could use a thousand fancy adjectives to describe how amazing her performance was but thanks to youtube I can just let you see it for yourself.

Enjoy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B7CVGpgA2qw]

Notes on Jovan Belcher

 

It’s been less than a week since Jovan Belcher of the Kansas City Chiefs killed his girlfriend and himself with a gun and it’s been a little over a year since someone broke into my home while I wasn’t here and left the place completely disheveled. They stole my laptop, a safe (which was completely empty), and my digital camera, among several other things. In the moments right after I discovered that my home had been burglarized, I couldn’t help but to wonder what if I was at home with my gun when those cowards broke in? Would I have enough rage in my heart to shoot them all dead? Now of course all of this is deeply hypothetical because in actuality I don’t own a gun. Unlike both of my parents I am not from the rural south and therefore I never went hunting for diner. In urban California guns represent human death. Their prevalence played a major role in the murders of several of my childhood friends. In short, I really hate guns. I believe that guns make it too easy to kill. One must ask if Belcher did not have access to a gun would he have actually carried out those gruesome murders?

Obviously there were multiple factors that played into Belcher’s actions. He had to be under severe emotional distress, and from listening to other people’s accounts of him it sounds like he must have suffered from multiple personality disorder as well. But now he as well as his girlfriend is gone, and the weapon used to carry out the deed was a gun.

About once a year I seriously contemplate buying a gun. Having a growing daughter to protect and living in a rough neighborhood are just two of the reasons that make me want to purchase a firearm. Another one is that I’m a man and men play for keeps. Meaning if I get into a physical confrontation with a guy and I come out victorious then chances are he may run to get his gun. In which case, since I don’t have a gun, I would just have to run.

What always keeps me out of the gun store is the other side of the equation. If I bought a gun then about a month later I woke up in the middle of the night and caught a person trying to steal my car, would I actually have what it takes to take another human beings life? Could I actually justify putting a gaping hole in the flesh of another man because he attempted to take one of my possessions? I don’t know that I could.

I’ve seen contorted bullet riddled bodies lying just beyond yellow caution tape on the concrete. I’ve seen a half-empty misshapen head propped up in a casket a week after a man had gotten his brains blown out. I’ve heard fatal shots, I’ve listened to horrible screams, I’ve seen the shell casings, I’ve heard mothers cry, and I’ve seen a once victimized kid stand prouder than Superman on the street corner once he got his hands on his first gun. I never wanted that.

I always wanted to move as far away from that world as possible, but alas, I have yet to do so. Those heartless savages kicked in my back door and stole my daughter’s piggy bank and took my camera with all of those beautiful family images that I had never gotten developed. They left boot prints on the very bed where my daughter lay and of course my neighbors saw nothing. They heard nothing. They knew nothing and in that moment that I discovered how wantonly I had been violated, so help me Jesus I felt like I could do it. I wanted to kill them all. No matter how young, how old, or how pitiable their lives were. Needless to say those feelings dissipated. At the end of the day I was grateful that I wasn’t hurt, nor was anyone in my family. I decided then, like I always do, that a gun wasn’t worth it. I don’t want to even have the option to do what Jovan Belcher did just because I’m having a hard time. I want to live freely without having a justifiable homicide on my conscious. But I also want to be prepared.

For there is always a time when a man must defend himself. People don’t fistfight anymore, everyone is toting steel and if I am to protect my house and my family I fear that one day I may have to adjust to the times. That day, however, is not today. Today I am thinking of another way out. Today I am still thinking about Jovan Belcher and his 22-year-old girlfriend. Today I am thinking about life.

-YB

Growing as a Parent

Sometimes thoughts explode in my head like firecrackers packed with blinding light and other times they wash over me very slowly. This one took about three years to finally reach the shores of my conscious mind but in order for you to fully understand its significance then you must know a little bit about me.  I’ve been a parent nearly my whole adult life, and for most of those years I have been single. Therefore I have been on several dates with a car seat in the back, and I’ve invited a few women over the house on Saturday nights after my daughter has gone to sleep. Over the years I’ve hung out with women and gave them a lot of my time but almost none of them have ever met my little girl. I’ve kept the two entities separate for multiple reasons. The most important by far being that I never feel like the woman that I am dating is worthy enough to meet my daughter. I don’t look at her and see the lady that I want my daughter to be. And this is what brings me to my point.

The concept that I have just recently grasped is this: If the women who I date are not worthy of meeting my daughter then I should not be dating them.

Telling OUR own Stories OUR own Way

I’m tired of being a ventriloquist dummy in the movies. We do have our own voices you know? We do have beating hearts and amorphous souls. We exist in every dimension. We exist at great distances and we exist in focus. We do not want to rape your virtuous young maidens (Birth of a Nation, 1915). We are not your ride or die servants (Gone With the Wind, 1939). We are not your wise yet shockingly docile sidekicks (Casablanca, 1942). We are not here to prostitute the innocence of your daughters (The Mack, 1973) and kill your hardworking, blue-collar, tough, rugged, but loveable fathers (Colors, 1988). Nor do we want you to make us feel good (Monster’s Ball, 2002).

We are not circus lions who only roar when cracked by the lash but are otherwise harmless creatures (Ali, 2001) and our stories don’t necessarily end happily when we finally achieve your capitalistic wet dreams (Ray, 2004 The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006).

Our stories are told in beauty shops, on front porches, and in barbershops. They’re told at bus stops, in county lines, and in the county jail. They’re told in study groups, at Baptist churches, and in hot kitchens. And our stories are told the best when you aren’t there; therefore, you really don’t know us. What you do know is essentially nothing more than a shadow. Yes this shadow is dark like us but it is not nearly as soulful. It is not nearly as dynamic. It is not complicated nor is it multifaceted. It’s not multidimensional or unique. It isn’t bodaciously shy or passionately indifferent.  See the thing is that when you tell our stories you are guessing and we know that. We also know that when you tell our stories you’re telling them to an audience of your own peers and that we really don’t matter. We know what’s real.

We can tell the difference between your voice and Big Mama’s. We know that our stories come from Arkansas and Tennessee. The Delta here and The Delta back there. Our stories were carried up the river by Pharaohs before they were carried down the river by slaves. Our stories are told with fingers in faces, knuckles slapping against hands, shoulders rolling, and tongues clicking. Our griots spit game to judges and parole officers and for the most part they never make it to Hollywood because they’ve been trapped in the hood.

Granted, sometimes when you tell our stories you get it right but you are still guessing (I suppose that some ventriloquist are better than others). And let me just say that when you do your film on Nina Simone The High Priestess of Soul, I hope that you get it right for your sake. For the time is rapidly approaching when we will be speaking for ourselves and we will leave you to your own guessing games. Yeah, imagine that? Close your eyes and try to guess how our voices sound when you are not around. Imagine a day when we control our own bodies, our own minds, our own shadows, and our own reflection, and all you can do is sit in the back of the room and listen to us speak. I can only smile at the thought of such a revolutionary exchange.

-YB

Write or Run

 

It’s come down to this. My need to perfect my craft has been overcome by my urge to run away from time. My fear for the future has moved me into the past and my detachment from reality has created an unrealistic sense of nostalgia.

I work hard during the day and I often times bring my work home with me. I have a child who lives with me on most weekends. I have a 2^nd job that isn’t quite as demanding as the first but it still requires my time. I also have to dedicate at least five hours a week to my personal crusade against obesity. For my metabolism has gone down quite considerably as my age has pushed past 30 and the last thing I want is to become a fat ass. So I run.

As you can see there are many things that pull me away from my writing but, alas, none of these things should be enough. In my youth I had ambitions of being the literary voice of my generation and for many years I actively tried to make that happen; but as of lately I have been immersed in a prolonged state of reflection. My production has slowed down. There are so many thoughts in my head that need to be released; I need to know what I’m feeling.

It has been a while since I’ve been on the literary scene. I haven’t performed at a reading since July but I think I found a new venue. I went to a place last week and the people read work that came from all angles. There were poems, essays, and declarations and there was an abundance of culture. Last week I checked it out and perhaps next week I’ll perform. Then maybe once I have an audience (that I can actually see) I will write more.

-YB

The Imprisonment of Temptation

The sun still shines brightly, even though it’s the middle of October, and I can see the serpents on the road before me. I can feel all of the temptations pulling at me but none will succeed. Temptation comes in the form of all of those people who try to get me to settle for less than I’m worth.  All of those individuals who try to get me to stray off track. Whether they know it or not they will forever be avoided.  

But alas the whole world can be seen as an evil temptation as well as everything inside of it. Every human being has an agenda. Every beautiful woman has a seductive voice and every one of your friends wants to use you for something.  As I have grown older I have learned that temptation exists only in the soul of the individual; not in the outside world.

We are all weak. We all have urges and we all transgress. No one wants to be confined by rules that constrict the very essence of humanity. So we cheat on our spouses, we take pills that promise us a foretaste of heaven, and we take things we feel we deserve, instead of working hard to attain them. It is only after we are sober or after we get caught that we feel ashamed and I have discovered that it’s always easier to gaze through an open window than it is to stare into the mirror.

No woman has ever put a knife against my throat and forced me to cheat on my girlfriend. No friend has ever threatened to kill me if I didn’t have a drink with him. I exercise my own free will and I do the best I can but alas; I am weak. I confess to being selfish and I further confess to being judgmental afterwards. While under the influence of my many misconceptions about how a man should behave I found that it has always been easier for me to act than to verbalize my emotions. Instead of telling her that what she said hurt me I went out and became intimate with someone else. Instead of asking that man politely to respect me I jumped on him and tried to prove myself violently.

We are all in jail. We all need to see others in bondage in order for us to feel free but we often forget that we are what we project.

If I hold the key to the lock, which holds another man in captivity, and I must check on him every hour to see whether or not he has escaped am I not in a state of imprisonment myself? Am I not a slave to the actions of the man who I am attempting to enslave? If I try to put my mistress down by calling her a whore but I have risked the love and respect of my wife and children in order to spend time with her then wouldn’t that make me less than a whore?

I scrutinize every syllable/ letter/ sentence that I write while I compose this, however, I live my real life in a perpetual state of looking back. In the moment I am naïve, easily moved, and always weak. I look back on my past and try to make sense of senseless mistakes. I look forward only to close my eyes and shudder at the enormity of my own fear. I stumble backwards into the comfort of my own insecurities. I look back nostalgically upon a time in my life when I never once thought of looking back.

-YB

Faith in the Ghetto (An East Oakland Photostory)

So I recently hit the avenues and backstreets of Oakland, CA to take some pictures for The Oakland influence: Three Women from Oakland, CA share their thoughts wisdom and hope for the future (a creative project that I’ve been working on for the better part of 2012. Hopefully it’s coming soon) and as I searched tirelessly for beautiful black women to photograph I realized how faith-based my Deep East Oakland community is. As a matter of fact even the door to my home has a cross with the words “He Is Risen” inscribed on it. Which I never noticed until my Jewish friend pointed it out a few years ago. At any rate while I put the finishing touches on The Oakland Influence I thought I’d share a few depictions of faith in the ghetto.

This apartment complex is part of the infamous Macarthur strip, however, one may think it was in the Holy Land based on this very outward display of Christian faith.

I found this clever poster on a home in the backstreets of East Oakland. I really wish that I had come across it in junior high school though. It would have made me feel good to know that even though the young ladies never looked twice at my nerdy self, Jesus still loved me.

Here we have a young woman who was literally raised in the church. So I decided to take a picture of her in front of her 2nd home.

I really liked how this mural flips the biblical passage Though Shalt Not Kill. Obviously it’s very important and unfortunately the message is extremely relevant in East Oakland.

When people discuss the identity of East Oakland they often speak of sideshows, drugs, police brutality, and crime but if they really knew the area they would be more inclined to incorporate faith into the conversation. The flatlands of Oakland is a very spiritual place that I was only able to show a small piece of in this blog; but maybe one Sunday morning you can come see it for yourself. There  are more places of worship than there are liquor stores, hair salons, and barber shops in this area that has been given the dubious title "Baby Iraq." Even though my community is neglected economically we never neglect our Lord and Savior.

Amen

PS Be on the lookout for The Oakland Influence featuring journalist Niema Jordan, founder of Outdoor Afro Rue Mapp, and Emergency Medical Physician Evelyn Porter.

Peace and thanks for reading.

So Surreal

It’s not that I miss her specifically; I only miss what she represented. It’s unhealthy to live your life from night to night not knowing where your next intimate moment will come from. I found myself at a museum a little while ago taking in some surrealism. I stared at the photographs as if they were living breathing beings from another planet and I looked at the paintings in the same way. I was moved by the art, like I have been so many times in the past, but this time I realized that the reason I looked at each painting for so long was because I didn’t want to go home—to no one.

One would think that I would be over the situation by now but it still bothers me. The way it ended bothers me and I sometimes become irritated by the things that she took with her. Not the material goods but the intangible things like my trust for women, my confidence, and my pride.

Women come and go but none of them stay for long enough. On a subconscious level I think I like that. There are so many things that I don’t have to face when my love life is constantly on the move. There are so many questions that I don’t have to answer and so many more questions that I don’t have to ask of myself. The single life can be very liberating but the single life can also cause a certain emotional retardation.

I worry that maybe I’ve forgotten how to treat a lady, or how to be accountable. I fear that my heart may have become obdurate from such a prolonged period of inactivity. At times I feel like I choose to be with women who only take up time and space but who aren’t essentially real. And then I fall for those who are incapable of receiving the love that I give which begs me to ponder the question: If you give a gift to someone and they do not accept it then did you truly give it to them?

My heart tells me no if it can still speak to me at all. My body continues to yearn for destruction and my soul craves for a sense of security that it has never had. My love life is so surreal.

-YB

What do dreadlocks represent in Urban America?

It's very unfortunate that dreadlocks have come to represent hopelessness in urban America. I would write on the phenomenon but Lupe expresses it better than I ever could. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LpqYyXmeNvI]

Kendrick Just Might be the Truth

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7meHTFit4Ic&feature=player_embedded]

A Fallen Warrior

Last Saturday I witnessed one of the more tragic things I’ve ever seen in my life. I saw a warrior quit fighting up close and personal. I was on hand September 8^th at the Oakland Coliseum to see Andre Ward land just about every left hand that he threw to the face of Chad Dawson. I stood up in my seat and cheered for each of the three knockdowns that Andre Ward scored. But then after the 3^rd one, the event got really sad for me.

It was at this point that Chad Dawson who had previously shown the heart and grit of an all time great boxer said, out of his own mouth, “I’m finished…I’m done” causing referee Steve Smoger to stop the fight. To his defense it was a really intelligent decision by Chad. After all he still has his belts at the 175-pound division and there was no way he was going to win the fight. I only wish that Dawson’s trainer John Scully would have thrown in the towel or that Smoger would have stopped the fight on his own because boxing, for better or for worse, is the only sport in which a man cannot quit under any circumstances. It is rather callous and undoubtedly barbaric but true fight fans expect their fighters to be willing to die in the ring in the same vein that citizens expect marines to be willing to die for their country. In other words one plays basketball, one plays soccer, and one plays baseball, but one does not play boxing because boxing is not a game.

If anyone knew this “Bad” Chad Dawson did. He knew it when he begged the ref to continue after he sustained a terrible cut over his right eye in the final rounds of his fight with Jean Pascal. He vehemently demanded that he be allowed to continue even as blood gushed down his face and onto his shoulder. Even though the fight was ultimately stopped and Dawson suffered his first loss, no one could be upset at how he behaved at the sight of his own blood. He was willing to fight to the death no matter what the consequence.

Chad knew the fighter’s code when he hovered over his then 46-year-old opponent Bernard Hopkins while Hopkins lay on the canvas with a dislocated shoulder and hurled expletives at him because he chose not to continue. After calling Hopkins a bitch and a pussy Dawson repeated during the post fight interview; “You don’t quit. I don’t care what happened. You don’t quit.” And then less than two years later—though in far less dramatic fashion—it was Chad’s turn to be logical.

Credit must be given to Andre Ward for cementing his claim to the Mayweather's spot as top pound for pound fighter on the planet whenever Floyd decides to hang up the gloves. Ward put on a spectacular show against a world-class opponent. He touched up the taller Dawson on the outside and roughed him up on the inside. In the 8^th round Ward landed an uppercut that sent Dawson’s blood flying several feet in the air. But Chad kept fighting. Even though he rarely landed a shot and never really hurt Ward he seemed determined to finish the fight for the sake of pride and pride alone. When the best young fighter in the world lands 83 punches to the right side of your face, however, the idea of pride becomes very relative.

So “Bad” Chad the former undisputed light-heavyweight champion of the world was reduced to whispering to the referee in a tone so low that it would have been inaudible were it not for HBO microphones; “I’m finished…yeah I’m done.” And as Smoger waved it off my elation for the victor quickly turned to despair for the fallen warrior. Dawson fought a brave fight but in the end he was forced to violate the lone rule that he held so dearly as a fighter. He was forced to quit for his own mental and physical wellbeing and it was the saddest thing this fight fan has ever seen in the ring.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfN_VzfFeE4]

YB

Unconquered and Still Dreaming

It’s pretty painful for me to lose a thought before I can write about it. I’m sure one would have a hard time believing all the brilliant things that come into my mind when I’m away from paper and pen.  Sometimes they come to me while I am working and therefore I can’t even take my phone out and text them to myself. Thoughts are often fleeting like the seeds of a dandelion when I make a wish. Unlike misery, beautiful thoughts are difficult for me to retain. And to make matters worse I believe I may have lost a little bit of trust in the page. I sense that our relationship has become somewhat estranged. I’ve been meditating about the past more often. I’ve been involved in several conversations that have ended with me rambling on about my past. Perhaps I’ve been trying to replace my craft with an actual person. Instead of using human beings as my muse to create more art I’ve started to join them in all of their social activities and verbal communication.  This could mean no good for a writer.

I feel my life getting better. My goals are beginning to become more visible. So I suppose that’s why I’ve fallen off the scene as an artist. I haven’t been to a reading in months and old manuscripts remain unfinished. I think about the ever-growing conflict between my artistic ambitions and my professional endeavors. I liken it to the war between my own carnal lust and my spiritual well-being.  Everything is sacrifice. Everything is balance. Money, sex, heaven, peace, climax, rage, passion, judgment, poverty, shame, success, failure, depression, cultural death…and I oscillate between these themes of life as if I still haven’t got a clue. For I know where I want to go but at times I become confused as to how to get there. I can sense myself getting closer but one can never be too certain. At the moment life is still very perplexing, however, I am adjusting to it. I do sincerely love my life and I cherish all those who love me. Life, as ill-defined as it is, is so good. I’m blessed, I’m alive, and I will never be destroyed.

-YB

The Sun

The sun rose before me this morning. On this day, one of the very last in the month of August, I wake up inspired. I have lost many people on my journey of 30-years but somehow I have retained righteousness and for that I am thankful. I can still see the many forms of beauty that present itself in everyday life. I can still feel the dogged determination of my ancestors and if I look hard enough I can still see my future in the eyes of a gorgeous woman.  

Time has just begun for me. There are many pieces of this game that I need to attain, however, there is no doubt that I have the ambition to get them. Yesterday morning was extremely overcast and I could scarcely see what was before me but on this day, one of the last days of summer, the sun is highly visible. I have finally placed myself in a position to feel its warmth and for that I am grateful.

-YB

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2XCgcxsvTg]

Lupe for President!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3m3t_PxiUI&feature=player_embedded]

Notes on Being a Mama's Boy

On the night before Thanksgiving when the rest of my family would be sitting around the television watching a Charlie Brown special or a college bowl game my mother would be in the kitchen baking a turkey and whipping up some sweet potato pie.  I would always come help her. She would tell me what to do and I would gladly do it just to get some one on one time with my mother. Sometimes she would give me advice too.  The most important thing that she told me was that even a woman who really, really loves to cook really hates it when a man expects her to cook. I didn’t get it back then but now I understand.

Before the Fall

I remember those days before sex was required in a relationship. I even recall those days when I was too shy to kiss my girlfriend. She was very dark, very beautiful, very hard, very thick, very graceful, and very smart. She was in the 8^th grade and I was in the 7^th and one day she began telling her friends at school that I was her boyfriend. She was so shapely and so popular that I couldn’t disagree, thus our relationship became official. But then what is a 13-year-old boy supposed to do with his girlfriend when he only sees her at school?

I knew what my friends wanted me to do to her. The same thing that they claimed to do with their girlfriends but I didn’t really want to. For some reason it seemed like such a rather vile thing to do to a girl who I actually liked. So I walked her to class. I waddled behind her while wrapping my arms around the front of her ribcage, like teenage boys tend to do with their girlfriends, and I placed myself against her perfectly rotund backside. That may have well been sex because that was as far as we ever took it. I enjoyed telling my friends that she belonged to me. I enjoyed her glances and stares from across the hallway. I loved the way she used to gel her hair back over a scrungy in a style the girls used to call “a freeze.”

Her image would come to me at night and I so appreciated how she always pleased me in my dreams so that I would wake up sticky and excited. I saved the gum wrapper that she wrote her number on even though I had known it by heart for months (568-8125). I bought her a Jessica Rabbit card for Valentines Day and I even let her wear my San Jose Sharks Starter jacket a few times during the winter. To say that I was enamored would be an understatement.

To be able to transcend a crush and actually attain a girlfriend as an adolescent boy was sweeter than life itself. This was before pregnancies, before heartache, before trauma, before pressure, before infidelity, before promiscuity; this was before the corrosive power of sex. This was before the fall.

YB

We All Make Mistakes

I approached her skeptically fearing that she was the type of woman who was insanely in love with the idea of being in love thus reducing her man to some kind of weak representation of what she thought love should be like. I never made love to her. When we walked together I stepped very lightly because I was afraid that the conviction of my natural gait would draw too much attention to the reality of the situation. The reality being that our situation was hopeless. I took a chance on a woman from another planet because I have failed so many times here on Earth and in the end I still managed to be left alone. I would rather be enamored with an inanimate object than with someone who can grow to hate me so definitively.  I like acoustic guitars because I can’t figure them out and they slow down my spiritual tide. When I hear beautiful music playing I am able to forget about all the time I have wasted on unwholesome things. I have to remind myself that I am a good man but even still sometimes I do way too much. Unfortunately I make a lot of mistakes but then we all do. Don’t we?

YB

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f845_v41YFo]