I feel obliged to confess, again, how hard the present has been for me. I keep trying to accept all the things I cannot change but them mfks are piling up. I am grateful constantly for the love that surrounds me making my despair, especially ingratiatingly ungrateful. Waking up empty is now a trope in my vocabulary. I’m still writing. Still teaching. Still loving. I got my new girlfriend flowers for her birthday. My other love reminds me he has no plans to leave me. My kids are as affectionate as ever. I got their father a gold ring but he’s so good to me. My father finally knows how long I’ve been hurting. I say all this to assert there is another side to this devastation. I know there’s been nothing like this before, that this “now” is all we have. I just became unable to see anything ahead of me again. I remember when heartbreak was the worst of it.
The topic of the day is royal implications of white supremacy. I’m bored. Millionaires talking to a billionaire about the most luxurious attempt to combat colonial impropriety. Like they ain’t kill his mama. As if the Duchess is more than just a light-skinned Black girl from Amerikkka. I’m bored of the discourse romanticizing rich folks who are most apathetic peasant well-being. There has never been a “common” wealth. Revolutions won’t be interviewed by Oprah. Now one-drop diatribes dilute the digital dialogue. Race constricts as it constructs our systems. Ain’t no science to measure the ancestral metaphysics of blood & the alchemy that haunt our bodies. Still, none of this exploitative mental labor protects the Dark/Rich skinned Black folks. Anti-Blackness stratifies & determines who makes the cut by killing off unquestionable Blackness quickest. It’s scary how folks have such capacity for violent mathematics in the name of solidarity. This is not getting us free.
Meanwhile, I’ve been re-enchanted by a different Black princess. The re-release of Disney’s 1998 Cinderella featuring Whitney Houston, Brandy, & Bernadette Peters, reignited a nostalgic touchstone for my fascination with romance. My first real love physically favored Paolo Montalbán’s, Prince Chris. My two favorite songs “Sweetest Sounds” & “ Do I Love You Because…?” are such a romantic spectrum. The sweetest sounds I'll ever hear / Are still inside my head /The kindest words I'll ever know /Are waiting to be said -- a series of aspirational desires existing both existentially & somewhere deep within. Am I making believe I see in you/A man too perfect to be really true?/Do I want you because you're wonderful,/Or are you wonderful because I want you? -- a Socratic reflection on the fungibility of desire. Rodgers & Hammerstein were in their fucking BAG.
My only creative salve of late is noting the romantic (read: erotic) nature of my favorite childhood gospel songs. So many men basically describe bottoming for Jesus. But considering how submission is intrinsic to most monotheistic religions, the vernacular is rife with entendre. Put your hands on me [Lord]/& I will be brand new. Or, If I never needed you before / To show up and restore/ All of the faith that I let slip/ While I was yet searching the world for more. I’m just saying, as a femme top, I’m a romantic bottom. The Praise & Worship of things “moving deep inside”. By touching just the hem of a holy man can make me whole again, or turn me out. Amen.
These aren’t radical inquires of the secular suckling the sanctified, but I’ve decided to focus my next collection of poems on Romance. Tugging at its many shades. Music exists over my entire poetic oeuvre & I return to the sonic as a wellspring. My latest experiment is Dr. Frank N. Furter singing “No Angel” while making Rocky in the lab. Transsexualism has made me feel seen before I saw myself. The extremes we go to manifest desire. The monstrosities our lovers see us as. This is part of a larger series of poems imagining fictional Romantics singing contemporary Pop/R&B love songs. See, I’m still trying to have fun.