how can i give you the benefit
when all i have is doubt?
alana davis.
so i haven't written in a while - well, a couple of days. i've been busy busy working at Port City Java as a coffee barista (i swear that has to have been my dream job for a while, and i'm finally doing it!) and Gap. I've also been keeping company of this new guy i met. i'm not sure where it's going, just sort of enjoying the company for a while. is that bad? am i using him?
or am i being used? okay i dont want to think about it anymore.
nothing else is really going on. just performing weekly at open mics, haven't written anything lately either. i think that speaks to my new occupation, and as to why i need to get that under control, yanno? i've got dreams. i can't be swept away.
slowly dying
no musical line tonight -
i dont even have the time to enjoy or listen to music anymore.
i guess, the moral of the story is...patience is key. sit back and watch God work, stop trying to undermine Him and try to figure him out, and sometimes backup plans aren't always the best thing. backup plans are a sign that you dont trust, dont have faith...are scared of failing.
and i am. i admit it. i remember junior year of high school when i mentally broke down. 3 ap classes 5 other classes, newspaper, track and field, work, student council.....not getting home until 11 pm, having to do 7 classes worth of homework (the 8th to be completed in class that morning.)....only to go to bed, wake up at 6:30 am and do it all over again. i remember just breaking down. i look back and call that period of my life when i committed academic and mental suicide. and i remember promising myself i would not ever do it again.
and here i am again. upset that the college of charleston will most definitely cost me equally or more than chapel hill. i have managed somehow to get four jobs...(and an interview on tuesday that i guess now i need to get out of)....and already my body is yelling at me. i dont know if i can take it. part of it is pride. i could just accept the loans, and pay for my housing and not have to work 30-40 hours a week while in school (not to mention having to take 15 hours every semester, and maintain a 3.0). but then where will that get me? when people ask why i left chapel hill, i was sure that coming back in state would be better financially for me. who knew it'd be signing over my death certificate, or signing over more loans that i would even think of doing for chapel hill?
and all of this has me thinking. the value of it all. the actual purpose of education, the purpose of securing these jobs to be "financially stable" in a life that is sure to end. like, if one thing's for sure, i know i'm going to die and leave all of this behind. and the way things are going, it makes me wonder if it's sooner than i think. like the way nothing in my life has ever been permanent for me. i'm just a constant drifter, trying to find some anchor to weigh me down. and i haven't found it. i'm just slowly drifting away to what seems like a meaningless existance.
but then that denies God's greatness in my life. i'm torn. i'm always trying to please - hate saying no, can't say no. i hate disappointing people, causing people to stress. i wish i could do this all on my own. not fully on my own, but my dad's not healthy enough to support me. we're no where near independently wealthy...and other family members (even people who aren't in the family - because they know my dad has the same weakness i have: saying no) are sucking him dry, and i dont want to be another notch on his belt.
i wonder if i interpreted God's will wrongly? was this another selfish act on my part? what in the hell is going on....and can i just crawl into a corner and wake up and everything's different.
but no, that only happens in the television shows and movies that we make up to make people feel better or worse about their lives.
right now, i'm already feeling as if a train has run me over and kept going as if nothing is caught within it's wheels....and i'm just continuing to be grinded into a fine dust.
love's ultimatum
Love’s ultimatum
I bet it must have torn at your heart –
leaving the house you protected when
your father left, making promises never
to forsake blood the way he left you all
as scabs, forgotten scars on his life.
I know you watched over grandma,
until it was time to harvest your own field.
Daddy, you didn’t reap what you sowed,
planted love, protection, in effort to salvage,
connect. What resulted:
too short trips to your homeland,
Charleston, paying homage to your mother,
city you loved, through distant phone calls
and faint whispers of “I love you, too” I heard
you at night to grandma long after mama
retired to her throne. I know you made
promises, and concessions, daddy,
but I would have loved to see grandma
a little more. Mama never wanted to understand
this separation – the way a child spoiled
is unrelenting in anything other than
getting her way. You said vows in her church,
lived under her roof and relocated, regenerated
your roots in a city foreign to you. I never
really saw it as home, did you?
And your children, would see grandma
occasionally. We grew an unfair bias
against her, never really knew her,
wish we did when she was gone. Daddy,
I wouldn’t have minded going to Charleston
a little more, hearing more of her stories.
I know mama held you to your promises,
and you vowed never to become your father,
but I know it must have hurt to leave
your family, start a new one.
Daddy, I’m sorry I helped
make this hard on you;
made you choose.
at least
at least, i met a cool girl tonight.
that's about the only positive thing i can say about Charleston right now.
broken
Broken
I always got the hand-me-downs
from my older sister; made treasure
from her disregard, felt it was all
I’d ever get: second-hand wishes
and throw away gifts – the things
not pleasing to her eyes. I hope
I have not become your secondhand
gift; one taste of me deemed unworthy.
I cannot help my being used before,
set aside after losing value. I pray
you find part of me worthy; hidden
secret treasure, search beyond
my surface wounds for value.
My exoskeleton marked with graffiti
reveals life-scars, pure tender heart.
Peel away the layers, watch me molt,
accept this bare, broken sacrament
of myself I offer. In the end, it’s all
I’ve left to give.
rainbows
so I've seen many a rainbows in my time, i must say, i've been blessed to witness the way light reflects off of the clouds after a storm. Althouh I did not see a literal rainbow, I'm a true believer that these past couple of days, and how i've dealt with them have been a true tempest, and i've weathered it, and yeh...God's great on keeping to his promises - much more than i can say I am. but i'm human and fallible and able to admit such things.
I'm also realizing i cannot do everything on my own. Even the most independent souls have some dependency and I've got to get off of my high horse and learn to ask and accept help when it's given.
i'm thankful for the people that God's put in my life, even if for a moment...even if their only purpose is to appear for a mear nanosecond and ensure me that everything's okay, and reiterate God's greatness in my life. They may disappear, and I'm sure i'll miss their absence, but their imprint on my life will last as long as i live, maybe more.
as of late i'm really pursuing the progress of my book. Right now i have 30 8X11 pgs. Which means resized and add in pages for table of contents and a bio page and pages for each section that i separate and epigraphs and such, it's probably nearer the end of 40. I would like to have 60-80 pgs at least - a real book length, not chapbook edition of Sage. I keep reiterating that i'm not rushing it, but really working towards getting it somewhere to be published. I'm realizing the reality of a real big publisher picking it up may be a little far-fetched for me right now. We must all start small, and in all honesty, i'm not sure if my life experiences can support something of a caliber as some of these famous poets that i know and revere, but rest assured I will strive to get to that point. It's in my cards, in the hand i've been dealt. sometimes you have to save the best for last to make sure you win, (like in spades) even if it means losing the king this round, that i may have counted on for a win, some other works in the cosmos will allow other cards to slide through my hands, and take the books, and the joker later on i have stashed away for rainy daze will take the book and give me a win.
this i know for certain.
thanks
thanks to everyone who let me just rant today....and get some pent-up emotions out. it means a lot.
in other news, crying for an hour straight can exhaust you. i think i may be peacing out soon. nite all.
it is what it is
so the bad thing i've noted about being called a "narrative" poet is that people think every poem is an anecdote. and while a LOT of poems are....some are just imaginings...picturing scenarios, and thinking up outcomes.
tonight at barnes and noble (after retrieving my car from the towing fantasy land...out on upper-upper meeting street) i overheard a preacher-guy-turned-couples-counselor telling about a woman's place (and man's place he was sure to also iterate) in marraige, how it was fated ever since Adam gave his rib to Eve long long ago.
so that concept was stuck in my head all night, and i was determined not to go to bed until i wrote something. this was in first person, then i thought about all of my christian friends and how they'd probably gasp at the content, (lol although i just killed that by acknowledging that it was originally in first person)....but it is what it is. it's a poem. nothing more, nothing less. something i know someone out there in the cosmos can relate to. here goes:
Her Adam
She saw you lying there in peaceful
slumber. Shall not disturb, just
observe your shallow breaths –
try to match the concave, convex
of your chest, unnatural rhythms to her,
your breathing. She pictures you the day
you were made, molded from the dust
you laid on as lovers. Shapes sand in your
image next to you, where she would be
were things different.
How selflessly you gave your rib
so she could join you in paradise. How
you forget you were made to last eternal
lifetimes, this peaceful existence shared.
No, she shall not wake you for fear of ruining
what you have. She watches you sleep on your
linen sheets turned dust in her mind, once
wrapped around as protection from
Omnipotent Eyes. Her intentions were not
to corrupt – possessing fruits
you could not resist.
How she wishes them back now as you
slipped away from bliss, wonder what could
have been.
And who would guess
how easy your fall from grace?
live to love life
i'm learning everyday that my dreams are not easily obtainable. and that's okay, everyday it gives me something to live for. i pick up a pen sometimes and just scribble meaningless words on a page, sometimes i come up with something worth showing others, and other times i draw a blank. this is the writing life. not always fruitful.
sometimes i wonder if i have enough life experiences to be the writer i want to be. i've yet to really love someone. you can only write about the death of loved ones so many times before it becomes trite to your readers (i'm sure people are like, ok...enough about your grandmother, and grandfather, and aunt and best friend)...and to write about race and history of african americans seems...predictable with me being a black woman
so where to then? religion? i've touched on that before, and i dont think i know enough about that to write more than surface-level-what-you-learn-in-bible-study topics...
i guess this writing life is about living....and living to love life, then turning it into art, into poetry, into music. i'm trying to write about things i haven't, and wont let myself experience becasue i'm closing myself up trying to write about them. such a vicious cycle.
this of course, slows the production of my book, Sage. How i wish it done before the end of the summer, but i dont want to rush it. I want it to be grand and marvelous and everything everyone who has ever supported my writing wanted it to be and more. I'm considering short essays to throw into the mix, but i dont know. perhaps that's a sell-out move for someone who can't think of poems, of metaphors, of beauty in life. i can't possibly have written about it all, but i dont know how to say differently what others have said. the comfort of not being well-read in poetry is that i dont know what's out there...once i get out of the ignorance-is-bliss i learn that we all have a lot of similar life experiences, and what i think i'm battling alone and that should belong in a poem, someone more famous than me has already captured so wondrously in a poem that is already on barnes and noble's shelves.
i dont know if i want to be a famous poet. i just want something that people can relate to, will want to come back to, will want to sit down with a cup of coffee and delve into my works of art, which are pieces of myself, parts of my life and suffering and living and learning and loving.
lazy daze
so today i slept in until about 12ish, then got up made some coffee and an english muffin for breakfast...er...lunch...and waited around until my phone interview for the Body Shop. It went well, I have to say. Funny, i slipped in the word "crap"...i wonder how that will affect me.
regardless, i was myself, which i'm learning is a lot more funner (i know, not a word) than who i was when partially depressed and lonely. I'm learning i crave interaction with people, i love conversation, and even though i can seem like such the introvert, put me in the right situation with the right energy and i'm golden.
so after the interview i played around on the compy...meaningless google searches in an attempt to find something to do/occupy space and time. then i opted to do my hair, which is a 2-3 hour commitment once started...today i did it in about 2 and some change...and my roommie scored me a bottle of red wine, i had a cup and some cheese (you'd think this was lifestyles of the rich and famous)...and watched a lil TV while the roommie prepared a wonderful dish of stuffed green peppers (altered the ingredients to adhere to my no red-meat-eating policy) and sourdough rolls....then i was off to meet up with marcus for a session of poetry rapping, which is always fun....then i came back and it was only 9something and i was not about to wast away the rest of the night in my house, so i went to barnes and noble and picked up a poetry book and read it - Sharon Olds - and got some ideas/inspiration for some new poetry.
this is how i wish life was like...all the time. maybe one day. sipping wine, reading, sharing poetry/intimacies of one's soul....enjoying the world God gave us.
to someone:
no music tonight. i realized that i haven't sat in a bookstore since i got here. how i loved to just sit amongst books and write, as if i get inspirtation from the mere company of the printed pages, bound stories of lives and events and fairy tales i wish to write one day.
a lot has been going on in my life. i almost wasted away today infront of the television. it'll do that to you when you're lonely i guess. something just doesn't feel right here...
it's hard. but still i know i'm blessed.
here's the one of the fruits of my bookstore sitting:
(maybe more later)
Lamentation
I am drunken on imagined syllables you’d emit
if I’d admit my feelings this moment now.
I follow words sliding off your tongue
the way you let water slip down
crevices of your grin. I watch you take
a drink from the well of calmness
we frequent as friends. I wish it were
other occasions. I find in this life
all I do is wish and drift listlessly
like a summer dress, sway with
uncertainty of reciprocity – I would like
for you to see me as more than a girl.
my dream for the misbegotten
My dream for the misbegotten
To think their world different would be a disservice
to what the children salvage and make wonderful –
cannot compare the beauty even in iniquities:
playground as kingdom, I view sidewalk chalk Picassos
of a child’s chance at claiming what may never
be theirs, but call home – sentenced to a separate
piece of town, boundaries not crossed without
a change of heart.
I can but witness from outside its walls, cannot
fathom their realm, only try. I’ve seen this struggle
before, in history books, blacks begging what
should have been theirs, more than a glance
at this dream, want for chance to be seen human.
These children, like jewels, tarnished.
I cannot ignore their potential. Their life,
subsidized, witnessing the sun set each night
on visions I’ll never wrap my mind around
understanding. They grasp illusions of a better
life with the uncertainty of a wish
upon dandelion spurs. I’ve watched them pick,
close their eyes, blow away the seeds as effortlessly
as we push them further out of our minds,
further away from our lives.
To think their world any different
would mean obligation to change.
How I wished away pains on the wandering
drifters as a child once, picking dandelions
and blowing, hoping the wind would
hold my whispers and deliver an escape – I see
this desire in their eyes, the untold, hopelessness
of cycles repeating, see it in their actions, cries
of attention from a world outside of their reach
that will not listen to their screams in darkness
we succumb them to endure.
I hear them in my sleep, fear they’ll evaporate,
their joyous cries, my lullabies. I breathe a prayer
the shackles would dissipate, the children set free.
blah
p.s.
i hate being a girl in a world full of double standards.
(and i'm not feeling so hot)
friends. how many of us have them?
so that was alana's rendition of this song. who would have thought? sometimes i do think that though.
*warning - ramblings ahead*
i wonder at times how good of a friend i am. sad, i know, kind of...selfish, maybe? perhaps that's not the right word but hey it's 1:34 am and my brain has been sufficiently fried by 4 episodes of the OC and just wasting the beautiful (but hot and muggy) day away.
but i still think about that though, how i'm perceived at times. some adjectives people have used in the past to describe me: abrasive, mean, emotional, sarcastic, cynical, very loving, strong-willed, opinionated, nice, caring, selfish, self-less. weird mix huh? i mean, i'm glad i'm not the same all the time, but sometimes i wish for more consistency....if that makes sense. then i wonder if my niceness is taken advantage of at times because deep down inside i have a very hard time saying no. i'd rather avoid and find loop holes than tell someone no.
then i think if no (in some contexts) is a selfish act. if i could physically do something that is asked of me w/o killing me, making me commit some sinful act, perhaps mildly inconveniencing, but inconvenience is temporary, you know?....then should i say no? what if i want to do something else? there's that memememememememememe mentality coming out. i guess it's so prevalent in a world where "I" comes first and then everything else follows suit. but is that how things are really supposed to be when it comes down to it?
i think of my two best friends from growing up, and how i would give them the world if they asked me to, and if i could do it, probably my right arm if it meant they would be happy, would be happy around me (but is that being happy around me selfish? saying they shouldn't feel the things they do?). i see these acts in friendships forming down here in charleston. how i tend to want to bend over backward because i know what it's like to be depressed, i know how it is to fee llike the whole world is against you (and sometimes, perhaps it is...i'm learning, it's all a test though)...and i never want anyone to go through it. i'd give away my heart if it mean someone would be happier and not see only hopelessness or just smile sometimes. i remember what it's like to be afraid to smile, to not like to smile. i remember. not that i think what i've been through is the end-all-be-all, i just don't wish pains upon anyone. i have a big heart, sometimes it just doesn't show.
and even more what doesn't show is my emotions, how i feel for people. i keep that locked up, hidden. makes me wonder if they'll ever surface one day? i think the overall view is that i'm pretty much a cool chick, calm, sarcastic, but emotion-less. a few years ago, i'd be pegged as a cry baby. i was talking about being vulnerable earlier today, and as much as i like to think i make myself vulnerable, i still have this thick concrete wall up around me...and i wonder why i'm so lonely sometimes - even when someone is sitting in my face.
then i think of all the things i never said but should have, could have. how things would be different. how i could change destinies by opening up sometimes, feeling. i don't want to hurt again. break me gently. (a song lyric i read earlier today - it's funny how things in life connect, how it's all a cycle.)
maybe my turn is coming back to brighter days...i just gotta learn how to deal with them and not push them aside....but revel in the beauty that is life, even in it's not-so-beautiful-parts.
despite it all, sometimes i'm just happy to be alive. Glad God caught me at the right moment...his timing is too perfect. i might not have been here (earth), been the same.
why do you make me wonder
(new alana davis CDs courtesy of Marcus....*eek!*)
so despite everything that has been thrown at my face in efforts to shatter my teeth, and happiness here, i'm still enjoying myself immensely, discovering more about myself....forming great relationships/friendships with people that i dont think match up to anything i've experienced at chapel hill....that's for sure.
gone out to make new discoveries.
catch me if you can
things just aint the same
times are a changing
So God's been testing me a lot lately. More so than I can say I'm comfortable with dealing with, but who am i to complain to God, right? Anyways, so i'm learning that this being on your own thing is a lot more difficult than it seems, actually living on your own, i'm talking, not dorm-style living on your own. but it's liberating and frustrating at the same time. It all boils down to growth though.
The internet, i've learned after a week and some change without, is over-rated. (see post about Reli 88: technology and self) Although i have it back, and enjoy its conveniences as far as taking care of important businesses, getting information that apparently can only be found online (how in the world were things done before this??), i still dont feel like i belong on it all the time anymore. Olive (my guitar) and I have formed a great relationship. Allegra (lol my bike) and i have formed another great relationship, and it's given me more time to devote to my poetry and writing and living and just experiencing this world outside of the technological realm.....and yet, here i am, right? i know.
but it's not the same anymore.
anywho. so other realms of life have been a little more complicated - tangled in a lot of confusion and insecurities and what ifs. I'm just sort of in this permanent limbo. some of it, i admit, is jealousy...some just utter confusion about the world and life and struggles. oh wow, yes, it's all crazy around me now.
to take the first step in this game would be deadly.
