i'm back to

where i was about three weeks ago. only my thought process is fueled by a conversation i had w/ some sistas the other night.
i know there are systems in place to stop us dead in our tracks. literally, even. i know that it's sometimes so impossible to even see the top of that mountain made of disappointment, disaster, dreams, & desperation that climbing that motherfucker seems like a really sick joke. baby, i know what it's like to have someone smile in my face & wish to hell that they could call me a nigger but instead just say "sweetie," "honey," or "girlfriend." & i used to ache to know what it must have felt like to be acquainted w/ folks like my self, not just folks who looked like me. that ache grew.
the resentment, the annoyance, & the overall feeling of being fucked up in the game . . . those things were winning. i wouldn't let them, though. & i won't now.
because if i look myself in the mirror & decide that every fucking moment of my life is a war -- a war that i don't even think can be won -- then i may as well pack it up . . . particularly if i come out the front door swingin on everyone i can w/ my machete or cutlass.
by virtue of biology, i am a woman. by virtue of biology, i am black. & by virtue of biology, we have become targets. we remain targeted now. everyone with a lick of sense & deductive reasoning skills knows about the prison industrial complex, COINTELPRO, the big tobacco plots, & everything else on this entire planet which has been put together to snuff the poor, non-white, &/ or female.
yes, baby, i know.
but for me, that venom cannot be turned in on myself
it will not be the weapon i use to slash every hand that reaches out to give to or help me
i will not blindly love what looks like me exclusively because of that fact
it is not okay to hate
ever

cuz if they do it to us, & we do it to them, exactly what the blue fuck is that gonna get anyone?

it's not gonna give us any of the shit that's been taken from, beaten out of, drained from, or confused about us. we will not get back yoruba, igbo, twi, akan, hausa, fongbe, kiswahili, xhosa, or any other tongue. our wombs will not take back in the children of rape, nor will they serve as a place to hide the children that we don't want to be a part of this shit here. hate will not extract what makes you lighter skinned, her hair wavier than it is anything else, that baby's eyes bright green, what made malcolm's hair red . . . we can't undo it. mahatma was NOT playin one bit when he said that an eye for an eye would leave the world blind. cuz if we hate on them, & they hate us some more, & we all go back & forth when will we have time to love ourselves? how do we build ourselves up if we're wasting energy tearing someone else's shit down? believe it or not, there has to be room for everyone . . . if you believe in a creator, then how could you not think so?

i must ask this, because i like where i live
i love my people
& i've been in that position before where when i say i'm DAMN good friends w/ white women, i get that sideways look. & i have to brace myself for the cries of 'traitor,' or worse yet being shunned or pitied because i'm 'confused' about who's really got my back & who doesn't.
cuz the same sista i want to help with her parenting skills already thinks something's the fuck wrong with me since i don't dress like she does. the sista who has the same nappy hair i do, the same ntozake shange books i do, respects the gangsta of kathleen cleaver the same way i do . . . she's still poppin shit because she don't think hers stinks. because she's taking in superficial things about me & deciding FOR me what i should/ shouldn't be a part of. what part of the game is that?
& the biology isn't enough for any of us anymore. we don't respect each other by virtue of blackness, because we are not all in the same neighborhoods by virtue of such. we are all over the place because legally, we could be . . . & the status shit is SERIOUS in these streets right now. fuck the white folks gentrifying all over the nation, niggas is fightin niggas over what some niggas appear to have, be, do, want, or feel. & that, my dears, is fucked up. screw standing up for anyone who's willing to cut your ass down -- black, white, yellow, peach, beige, blue-black, brown, red, or other. i will not, under any circumstances, support destruction of others by virtue of my own dislike for how they carry themselves. not unless it's fully crucial to my survival.

i know what you're talking about, but maybe you've never experienced what i have.

i was born fighting,
i will die fighting
but in between, i will choose my battles.