10 Years Removed...

Now Suzy Skrew had a partna named Sasha (Sasha), Thumper (Thumper)
I remember her number like the summer
when her and Suzy yeah they threw a slumber - - party
but you can not call it that cause it was slummer
Well it was more like spend the night
Three in the morning yawnin dancin under street lights
We chillin like a villain and a nigga feelin right
in the middle of the ghetto on the curb, but in spite
all of the bullshit we on our back starin at the stars above
(aww man) Talkin bout what we gonna be when we grow up
I said what you wanna be, she said, "Alive" (hmm)
It made me think for a minute, then looked in her eyes
I coulda died, time went on, I got grown
Rhyme got strong, mind got blown, I came back home
to find lil Sasha was gone
Her mamma said she with a nigga that be treatin her wrong
I kept on singin my song and hopin at a show
that I would one day see her standin in the front row
But two weeks later she got found in the back of a school
With a needle in her arm, baby two months due, Sasha Thumper

-Andre 3000 from Outkast on the song "Da Art of Storytellin (Part 1)" from the Aquemini album

At the age of 15 I was living in a dream state
Life hadn't yet simply shaken me awake
i thought we would last until....forever ended
Bended backwards over thoughts of upright notions
Hoping that these emotions wouldn't leave me broken
But you left me...
For those who weren't like me...
Spitefully held on to the animosity...
Brought on by the absence of my best friend...

Unparalleled you were
Not I woman I've met since had beauty compared to hers
i saw you as a deity...
far be it from me to put many on a pedestal
i only wanted you to see you like i saw you...

i remember the first time i saw you...
live enough to rock penny loafers and an updo
coworker turned friend
transformed/youbecamea GODsend
created to show me how to be a real man...

i remember our first conversation...
your admission of self esteem issues shocked me...
i had the same problem too...
you...unlike me...were absolutely physically beautiful...
i was only "cute", "attractive", or another one of those names you call someone "un-ugly"
you were...an angel...

i remember our conversations on the future...
you wanted to go to UA...
i wanted to go to Morehouse...
i ended up at UA...
partially praying that you had chosen the same path...
although at that point we hadn't spoken in years...

my anger has subsided...
my heart is still crying...
i never understood why you threw me away...
we're two different people now...
and i'm a 25 year old man still insanely seeking closure...
in a lot of my past...

sometimes you never let go of the first person to understand you...

the last time we saw one another...
i was ecstatic...
you were working on my campus...
i was hurting on my campus...
you healed a small part of me...
yet there's still a small part of me...
that's leaving the light on for you...

i saw pictures of you recently...
and prayed...
fervently...
that wherever you were...
you were happier...
than i proclaim to be...

10 years later....

is it wrong for me to still love you...

i don't think so....

Black Girl Lost Redux...

Diamonds all shinin'/Lookin all fly
Pretty lil' face/she get a lil' high
Young girl strugglin'/tryin' to survive
Mother of The Earth/she made you and I
Just tired of playin' the same ol' games
Messin' with my mind/emotional pain
And there goes a black girl lost...

The first time i saw behind her eyes i saw
generational lies
that had been told to her
A part of me simply wanted to mold her
Open these arms and hold her
Because the world had been so cold to her

Behind the equatorial lines on her forehead
was a dreamer
And since my mind's eye has been blessed
with sight a little keener
i knew what those dreams were

She wanted to be directed by HIM
Unaffected by them
And to no longer the object of misdirected affection
of any man that would refer to her as "slim", "shawty", or "redbone
Because for so long she had been trapped inside these ephemisms and pet names
that the process of self degradation and defacement had reached a cataclysmic point inside her brain...
Then we got the nerve to ask, "What's in a name?"

How about an identity...

I listen to her tell me about being raped at age 12
A home life resembling hell and how her image of a fair God fell
My chest swells as tears well up in my eyes
And I think about the lies society gave to her
Trivialized her cries so much that she only sees breasts and thighs when she looks in the mirror
I fear her...

condition is irreversible...

She sees me as big brother/lover/friend/and surrogate father
trying to teach and mold her because her biological didn't bother
showing her that manhood is more than making babies, lusting for a merceedes and chasing women from her adolescent friends to much older ladies...

Because that's all she ever saw her father do...
So now she equates manhood to irresponsibility and lost family
Christmases
because instead of Toys 'R' US and KB...
Jack Daniels got all the money he blew...

The first time I tell her that I lover her...she cries...
Tears of joy and confusion fall from both eyes as she asks me why
i tell her, "The Most High gave me the divine right and duty to love you, show you...the right way. To hold you in my heart and love as if each day...was my last. i love you enough to help you grow into the future and forget your past. So if i'm ever not around and life beats you down and you forget sometimes that you're a queen deserving of the crown, I want you to understand that there's a man out there somewhere...who loves you..."

Diamonds all shinin'/Lookin all fly
Pretty lil' face/she get a lil' high
Young girl strugglin'/tryin' to survive
Mother of The Earth/she made you and I
Just tired of playin' the same ol' games
Messin' with my mind/emotional pain
And there goes a black girl lost...