NEW POETRY

I have to kick the habit of not writing down my thoughts...

so I pulled the trigger.
I could feel bladed grass pressed against my face
pulling my skins
forcing me to dirt
telling me to stay low so that I could hear the earth echo into a thousand years before I was here, before I knew there was grass, before I knew.
So I clenched my hands and pulled it from it's roots,
bent my knees and stood to my feet.
I couldn't give it the honor of taking me.

realization!!!

i had a very looooooong conversation with a close friend of mine about being natural and she brought me to a realization that I would have never discovered myself. I have been fighting this fight with myself about keeping my hair natural four about 3 years now. Each time I struggle with my hair I blow it out and set it in curls. I look at pictures of my sisters who have mixed curly hair and I wish I had that. blowing out my hair, trying to imitate another form of natural that is more "mixed" and acceptable is not accepting who I am. MY tight curls will never be like their's... and that is where I have hated myself.

What african american women are now challenged with is the battle against "good natural hair", some of us have gotten over the straight/permed hair but not the curly natural. The more I try to mold and shape my hair into a curly fro with product the more I realize that I am trying to be something I am not. Our society is still telling us that thick un-mixed hair is unacceptable. Becoming natural then getting a texturizer or using gel to hold a curl or blowing out to partial straighten is still self hatred to many of us as we create something we are not. I wonder if i can ever get past it....

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"the truth will set you free. but first, it will piss you off."
-Gloria Steinem writer and activist