Which is why like a dumb ass, she answered the damned email/phone/door-knock and caught a right hook to the jaw. Yes, the ex got her. She’d been had. Hoodwinked. Pulled down- down into swirling masses of negativity by failure to adhere to the rules she set.

Damn it!

So… let it go.

Damn you…

It isn’t about him, really or so she tells herself in order to gain a few hours of soundless sleep. Screw him. This was about poor choices, not about some head case ex-boyfriend guilty of committing the predictable, cliché ex-boyfriend thing they all tend to do. This was all about her and her inappropriate response to negativity.

So man-up, if manning-up was to be done and she kept screaming at herself, for the life of her, to stop responding to her ex’s taunts! There is a reason ex’s become ex’s. Had it been such a wonderful union, they would still be together. Therefore, letting go is an order.

Five sessions and over $300 of therapy time later, she understood what God and her best cousin had told her for free:

Rejection is God’s protection.

So why was she still holding on? Turns out, it had nothing to do with him.

Quit your whining, get your ass off the therapist’s “charging on a curve but still expensive somehow” chair and let it go because ain’t nothing wrong with you. Everything is fine. You’re just in a fight with this thing called life. We give in to staying down because it seems easier than putting in the work to move on; this is one of the worst kinds of self-inflicted injustices.

Gathering her wits about herself, she collected every dusty photo and lovely trinket gifted by her once beloved-can-do-no-wrong lover and sealed them in a single cardboard box. She then set them curbside with other baubles now rendered useless, and left them for Friday morning garbage pick-up.

She’d come too far to give up now- to break down, to throw in the towel, to lose the fight. Right? No turning back. And when thoughts of love so faux begin to creep in, she also considers how thinking the wrong way can create lies. Embracing a semblance of strength to stay in the fight is a must. Sure, she knows that while tomorrow can bring fresh new waves of pain, it can also bring a delightful sense of knowing that change is inevitable but beautiful when we don’t fight against the tide.

While time heals nothing, it’s what we do in that time that does heal. Nothing stays the same- not people, not dreams, not love and certainly not life. If we, however, flow with and never against the grain, no matter how human nature tempts us to do so, we can learn to let go when necessary. Then we can embrace the Gatekeeper’s nod and discover that the bitter tang of life will find the palate of our tongues only temporarily- as nothing is permanent. We only need see God’s rainbow as a promise of that.

Everyday, even as graying clouds encroach, the spumescent, sweet tastes of life can envelop our body’s like the energy-filled arms of God Himself. Letting go is magical: like fresh air and fresh love all in one beautiful, rose-scented breath.

Letting go… yes there is beauty living there.

…and I have faith in that.

Who will like her if she cries?

The rādere falling of tears

Only emotions borne of children given permission to shed

Without judgment

Should her tears fall, they slip as stymied ice

And shatter glass-like upon impact

So throw back her shoulders

Square off and then on the square

Take it like a man

And tears that fall in secret shall

Cascade somnific pains of diamonds instead

Or should she sleep around

As men will do?

A healing process that seemingly works for them

Fight them

Fight the kaleidoscoping view of weakness

That no one respects a sore loser

Nobody buys the swan song

~poetry by Somniay Bascomb~

Here lives a body of work meant to express what life is like through the eyes of African-American women who suffer from mental and mood disorders. Just like everyone else, we use drugs legally and illegally, engage in harmful relationships with viperous lovers, seek to make friends out of portentous mores, join gangs and break laws all in a fruitless effort to quail the broken mind.

To acknowledge depression and seek therapy is still taboo in the black community; many still refuse to acknowledge depression and other mental disorders as being real. We are taught that psychotherapy was designed for the weak minded and other races in general because the strong in spirit have God. We were simply taught to pray it away. I can’t tell you how many older black women in my community have said to me, “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with your mind. You gotta tell that devil he is a lie! The devil is a lie!” right before they drain my forehead with fucking olive oil.

Ten miles away, I can spot a black woman suffering from depression. There is a scowl permanently cemented across her face. She’s angry and probably doesn’t know why. Most of the time, she isn’t even aware that she is angry… just in a bad mood is how she views it. Someone in her personal circle may say something she finds funny and for a moment, a tiny moment, sunny laughter lights up her entire face, casting a glow clear across the room that shines so bright, it catches both your eyes. Suddenly everyone around can see the possibility of happiness inside of her and what complete inner-armistice would look like on her. She would wear happiness and contentment very well if only she knew its name, wouldn’t she?

But then the moment is over and the laughter is gone; gone from the magical curl of her beautiful full lips in a mocha smile and gone from the gold scintillation of merriment in her deep brown eyes. All gone… and the sad anger of depression returns to claim its indecorous place in her sepulchral heart. And gone is the opportunity to approach her with dreams of the peace that escapes her- peace she doesn’t believe she can have because she comes from a long, familiar line of women who hold steadfast to a theory that peace does not belong to them.

It’s an atavistic stronghold she shares with her sisters and one handed down to her like a truncheon from her mother, grandmother and aunts. It’s an atavistic stronghold that she will undoubtedly pass to her own daughter and grandchild if someone doesn’t stand up and destroy it. But the anger in her eyes and the scowl on her face makes her unapproachable, so everyone whose eyes had just bathed in the glorious promise of her second-long delight will look away before she catches them staring, leaving her lost in her own despair. Not one person is going to walk up to her and tell her that she can be saved. We will look away and never say a thing. We will leave her lost in her own darkness.

Sometimes prayer really does work if you truly believe, but I wish black people would also understand that sometimes God will put people and situations in place to help us- like a therapist. I just don’t think the Lord wants us to suffer and I surely don’t see the point of blaming the devil for every ailment that occurs in the human body.

You don’t have to be white to suffer from depression. That’s ridiculous. It’s a human emotion; depression and mood disorders have no conscience, no age limits and it sure as hell could care less what race you are…

To find a qualified psychologist in your area, please visit: Psychology Today

You don’t have to suffer. Get some help today!

Last night, I chose not to believe in the Apocalypse and for good reason. I grew up tossing and turning in my bed with fear of God’s revenge in the back of my throat. Sunday school teachers and bedtime stories scared me into capitulation, afraid to challenge God’s love for the things to which He once took time and care to create. Now I am to believe that God will some day lose the very faith  He has vigorously compelled us to incorporate into our everyday lives? Those of us who were raised by die-hard religious followers have had the duty-bound concept of faith placed as shining crowns upon our heads. Weren’t we obligated to believe and maintain unwavering faith even in our darkest hour that God, who even fed the birds, would surely take care of us? I was acquiescently nurtured on its principality.

Telling me a day will come when God is going to wash His hands of us is something I can’t hold onto. The thought of faith having an expiration date viciously saddens my soul. Who in their right minds can honestly believe in a God that asks something of us that He himself is unable to give? I can’t believe in that. However, believing in Armageddon is contradictory. It implies that I can have all the faith God wants me to have, but He won’t be able to forever bestow that same love and faith on me. You can’t say you have faith that God will love and protect us eternally and also believe He’ll get so sick and tired of us that He will lose touch with His own faith.

I can’t continue to pledge my devotion and love to God and still hold on to the biblical judicial oxymoron’s of Armageddon. If I still want to wake up tomorrow believing in the power of God’s love, I’m afraid I am going to have to let go of mankind’s hardcore belief in the Apocalypse. Unlike the generations of family before me, I will refrain from sending my children to bed at night with fear in their throats, waiting for God’s love to expire. My family and I will choose to have faith that God will love us forever just as He promised. Which will you choose?

When it comes to race, sexual orientation, or gender relations I have always been bothered with the use of the word tolerance. Since I am analytical by nature, I don’t know why I avoided the examination of what bothered me so much about it, but I knew hearing it in the usual context is like hearing an unexplained sound in the middle of the night. It gave me formless feelings of emotions that bordered somewhere along the lines of commotion. For some reason, though I refused to probe the subject. But finally, I took a long hard look at the thorniness of sequentially using tolerance to encourage acceptance and comradelier. Once placed into perspective, I knew it was worthy of an article.

I will begin with the simple defining of the word:

Tolerate: vb (tr)

1. to treat with indulgence, liberality, or forbearance

2. to permit

3. to be able to bear; put up with

4. (Medicine) Med to have tolerance for (a drug, poison, etc.)

Of course, there’s isn’t any harm by definition alone.

For example: “My tolerance for loud noises is limited” is not a cause for logical pandemonium. It’s only when I hear it being used in light of gender and race relations that the soil of my spirit turns to stone. A well-known American social writer and philosopher, Eric Hoffer once wrote in lieu of tolerance: “…The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.”

Nothing is so perfect an example of using the word tolerance improperly as when it’s prescribed to encouraging the healthy progression of human relations. How is it possible to overcome differences that we can’t help by exercising tolerance?

God saw fit to give each of us the gift of uniqueness- a beautiful nobility. Tolerance is not up for discussion here. Who are we to question “The Powers” of which we can never possess? God’s work is what it is and should never be argued, distorted, or even reconsidered.

When the meaning of tolerance goes from having the capacity to recognize and respect tangible, worldly simplicities to viewing beliefs, religious practices, and even race as shortcomings to be counseled for lenience, my anger swells without fail. I should be grateful that I am being tolerated by other human beings, otherwise I’d fall to the ruin of abdication, right?

My being a different race from the next person is not a shortcoming: It is who I am and whom God saw fit to create. I am a unique creation of God; why should I pay homage to the one who puts up with the color of my skin or sexual orientation? I did not put a bid in with God to be born a certain way. I should never have to apologize for my race, the person I choose to love, or my gender- not for myself or any of my children. I should never feel I have been besieged a great privilege by someone who feels they have allowed me to remain who God made me to be. He says I am made in His image. I am whole and I am good. Am I not? The Lord our God, our creator blesses me every minute of everyday, therefore no one will tell me I should be grateful that another human being has chosen to accept me because he has been granted the rarity of stomaching what he analyzes to be a shortcoming.

I believe the word we are looking for is embrace- not tolerate. We should acquiescently embrace that which differentiates; it’s why we are exquisitely unique. To feel that I should tolerate what I don’t understand about another is the ultimate showcase of ego and self-importance. It places far more power onto the validity of our opinion than any one person should have. We should come to understand our neighbor’s heritage, lifestyle choice and background. We should find beauty in the differing shades of the human skin. Tolerance is not an option for what I have no power or right to change.

Take this for example: I won’t tolerate having a drug addict in my home, so if one of my children or my husband decide to take up such activity, I will exercise my power of intolerance and put them out. I can’t change if they want to endanger themselves but I will not allow them to endanger others in my home. If one of my children wants to become Muslim, however, I fail to see the danger- so I fail to see how tolerance could ever play a part. If my child isn’t building explosives in my basement, who am I to judge my child’s personal religious choice? I can’t exercise tolerance for which person my child chooses to love, so I will come to embrace the beauty of that choice. I will embrace my child’s willingness to live outside the opinion of others.

I so wish that in some way, this one simple article could rise from the ashes of the moon and come the dawning of the sun, understanding by all creatures big and small will have appeared. I will settle for a few, however and pray that those few good people are willing to spread the high quality of what I intended when I wrote this. I pray that like-seeds planted for vegetation meant to feed a village hungry for God, will have been sewn and reaped handsomely. It comes from a well-meaning place inside my heart. We are the sites of beauty: a myriad of colors, individual feasts of rich religions, and genders intended to sustain the beauty of life of all beings. There are so many of us with our own brand of talent and God-given powers that we can share with those we know and don’t.

Tolerate.

Aren’t the multihues of life far too majestic and beautiful to ever find itself stuffed into the bend of a word that at its pinnacle, can only adhere to the limitations of simplicity? We have given that word far more power than it deserves. That word is too abstemious and inadequate to accurately describe the grand creations of powers too great for human sight and consumption.

The power of God is infinite, so much so that no one can even explain how it came to exist without it being by speculative description only. The only way our human eyes can view a power this immense, is if it generates itself as fire, air, earth and water. That same power created us in its image. We can’t circumnavigate around or even cram that kind of power into a subsequently simple word like tolerate. That word should only correctly be used to explain the diminutive, the tangible, and the inept: everything that we as complex human beings are not.

Think about it…

There is beauty in growing older. You’ve been told either by propagandist television commercials or by people you know and love to grow old gracefully. Despite the saying having been labeled cliché, its meaning ensconces within the striking realm of truth. You don’t have to go kicking and screaming into the next year of the life God saw fit to tack on. No need to if you can grasp the concept of how beautiful and miraculous growth truly is.

We begin our lives in The Maiden stage. The Maiden has yet to even master how to flirt correctly. She wants so badly out of her crib and she cries, shrieks and immaturely declares war for freedom against all the “big people” who don’t understand or maybe even dislike her. But mother knows what the maiden doesn’t: there are some big, bad monsters just waiting to rip her naïve little tale apart.

As we move along the growth chart, we progress from a stage of The Maiden into The Mother. Please note that we may enter The Mother stage at any age, whether we have children or not. It’s about maturity- not chronological age. It is about understanding the cool reception of Mother Nature’s dual hand of cruelness and kindness. We have heartbreakingly been made aware of the fanged monsters in line for a bite of tender, secret things. We learn the importance of protection… on every level. Hopefully, we are becoming friends with our body. We are deciding if we want to run free or follow the pre-made rules of foundation hammered into our cranium by the parents. Still indecisive, we just play it by ear until we figure this life thing out. But right now, the bills pouring in by the daily dozen are real; they remind us that we are truly out the safety of the crib. When we were Maidens, that’s what we wanted, right?

From there, we move into The Crone stage. I must admit, I am look forward to this stage. It’s what I like to call the Chariot or the summoning up of past transgressions. Here, we take the mistakes made as the naïve and foolish Maiden, along with the lessons hopefully learned as The Mother and apply them unapologetically to our new life in The Crone stage. If we were lucky to have learned anything at all, we are simply happy to have survived. It’s where I get to be fearless when it comes to sharing wisdom without caring if I’m hurting their feelings. It’s where I can throw caution to the wind and give you the middle finger because I have gray hair and what are you going to do anyway? We all have that elderly aunt or someone who seems fearless of being disliked. They say what they want, to who they want, whenever they damn well feel like. Should you become angry, that is a bag of bricks to be carried on the back of no one but yourself.

Seriously though, The Crone understands the beauty of simplicity and the peace you find in being still in order to marshal ones thoughts. If you are supposed to be The Crone but seeing a gray hair brings on an amalgamated conniption of odium and ire, you missed a class or two in the Maiden stage and it’s time you revisit the scene of the crime for a refresher course. The Crone (a true crone) knows not to make such a fuss over something as trivial as gray hair because we know the solution is simple: pluck it or dye it. L’Oreal makes an assortment of colors to suit our every need and it’s because they already know something some of us are only recently beginning to realize: We really are worth it!

Melting easily into this phase, avoiding the natural sense to fight it marks an important pivotal epoch in our lives and we are all the wiser for it. Okay, so we have laugh lines. What’s wrong with that? Thank God we have so much to laugh about. Isn’t it magnificent to realize growth in vibrant color? Love it and hate it all at the same time; it is what it is. Nature never lies and eventually breaks through the confines of all that sheetrock material you paid the plastic surgeon to Spackle on.

I often reflect on something my father told my mom when she began complaining about getting older. He said, “Well if you don’t want to get any older, you know what that means, don’t you?” Suffice to say, I never heard my mother complain again. She has grown old and gray but gracefully still at age 79. She is one of the wisest women I know and doesn’t hesitate to share bits of that wisdom learned through all stages of life with the rest of us lost lambs.

But isn’t it ironic? Life is both all giving and all suffering. The air we must breathe is the exact same air oxidizing each and every cell until we whither away like the leafless, tree limbs of November. You have to congratulate yourself if you faced head-on and conquered becoming one with the inner, tumultuous struggle we must all face sooner or later. There is simplicity, warmth and maybe even a little humor in peacefully accepting that the very thing we need in order to stay alive happens to be the very thing that ages us to death. That thing, my friend is Oxygen. Ha ha.

Oh well!!!!

Happy Birthday, anyway!

Sssh… listen. Can’t you hear it?

The doomsday clock ticks loudly for us all: the super-religious, the common folk, and especially Hollywood directors and producers alike. It has ticked unstoppably through time, surviving momentously chronicled tragedies undergone by all earthly creatures since life began; but no Armageddon tale is complete without a smooth talking, breathtakingly handsome and jarringly flawless Anti-Christ.

Far be it for anyone to question the validity of the anti-Christ’s existence when one only need pick up the bible as a point of reference. If all else fails, you could always just read Wikipedia. Google it if you’d like or rent any one of several Hollywood films to tell you it’s true. Before it’s all said and done, you’re going to know exactly who he is and about what time you can expect him. The only problem with that is: he changes face, name and location with each generation.

Millions of years ago, the anti-Christ was a dinosaur. Later, he became a white man in a business suit and tie, probably residing or going to reside in the Whitehouse. Naturally, we believe the anti-Christ is an American. Who would ever believe he was Chinese or something? No- that doesn’t make for a good Armageddon story.

Swearing that Hitler was the anti-Christ makes for a good Armageddon story, considering how inherently evil he was. People also swore Ronald Reagan and George Bush was the anti-Christ, which is foolish since neither could be considered astoundingly handsome and both of them made colossal mistakes that ensured their humanity. As of late, I’ve even been coming across a few internet literature pieces suspecting President Obama of possibly being the anti-Christ. Wow, right? If you stick to the story we’ve been told- there’s no way Obama could be the anti-Christ. Hello? He’s black. (Geez people) Apparently, everyone is suspect. Even Pope Benedict XVI fell under speculation. The only thing all of this proves is that no one is immune and everyone is susceptible to being named the anti-Christ.

Am I saying that I don’t believe the anti-Christ exists? Don’t be silly… of course that’s not what I’m saying. I only ask that you reflect on how the media plays a part in where society chooses to place its faith. Alarmists and pop-culture phenom-specialists are dedicated to filling our heads with unbridled images and thoughts of carnage and terror. If we aren’t careful to consider the information we are receiving, we may forget to embrace the beauty of life in the here and now that God has given to us.

Rest assured that there is an end for us all. Whether or not it will end for all of us at the same time- we can’t know for sure, but it will definitely come to an end for us individually without question. Why spend valuable time trying to imagine what the son of Satan will look like- the monster deemed to win our faith and adoration only to drag us screaming and kicking to a bloody, fiery end? Do you honestly think some Hollywood director is going to release a docudrama revealing whom the anti-Christ is and when he will arrive? We will not be able to breathe a sigh of relief upon figuring it all out because when he arrives, we won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.

So, the next time you watch a blockbuster film or an educational television show on the arrival of Satan’s son, enjoy it only with full knowledge that it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It’s just another person’s perception without power (unless we choose to give it power) to place an expiration on the joy and beauty God desires for our life.

Since the face of the anti-Christ changes with each producer and every television channel you turn to, you could just as easily blindfold yourself, turn around three times and point in any direction to pick who the anti-Christ will be and you will probably be right.

Or… you could probably be wrong.

There’s just no way to know for sure so… who cares?

“Clear as the shadow you have left behind- there is only you.”

It is a famous thought to believe that when we partner with another we should somehow become one, but nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s unreasonable to expect someone else to magically behave, talk, and think the same as you and it’s a precarious notion that will single-handedly destroy even the most promising of relationships.

For years now, I’ve had my own ideals on the conduct of interpersonal relationships but never had a name for it. When a co-worker of mine, Dr. Richard read a blog entry I poetically expressed on Myspace, he personally suggested a book on existentialism. I heard the electrically brilliant click of the light bulb as my eyes traced each glorious letter: Existentialism… aha! There subsists a single word for the way I felt after all! Of course in hindsight, I realized I’d read and heard this word many times over, but had to wonder why I failed to process its beautiful meaning. It was after all, so essentially perfect in describing what I’d for so long felt.

Ex⋅is⋅ten⋅tial [eg-zi-sten-shuhl, ek-si-] -adjective derived from experience or the experience of existence; relating to or dealing with existence (especially with human existence)

I struggle even now to find balance between the double-faced nature of my desire to allow others to be who they are and my need to control everyone and everything around me. It’s a contradiction without hope of successful intermingling. They slam head-on into each other like a car collision. How emotions which are so different can exist inside of me- I can’t answer, but I can explain how I exercise tolerance for the emotional paradox that lives within.

Existential is a beautiful and undervalued idiom which could very well resolve many relationship dilemmas. Even as a teenager, I understood what most adults could not fathomly recognize- that we are alone in this world and this fact essentially eliminates the equitable option of using another as a scapegoat. I’m not exactly sure how at such a young age I was able to make sense of human existence. I am only left to declare that my talent for articulating thoughts and fervent ability to think outside the box placed me well ahead of my time. It reveled in my schoolwork and radiated in earlier writings while serving as a sort of emboli for the intellectually challenged, but stimulating conversation for like minded peers. Believe me, there were precious few 15 year-old kids having the same types of conversation. To share an example of my mind frame as a teen, I tried to join the NAACP but didn’t have the money to pay the yearly fee. You can best believe that had I been able, I would have been the only 16 year-old proudly sitting in at their meetings. But I digress…

Aloneness is inevitable and embracing what is inevitable is the great divide between being alone and experiencing the self-defeating emotion of loneliness. How much more colorful and enriching our lives should be if only we could walk away from the dogmatic philosophies taught and take responsibility for our own doing? Instead of viewing aloneness as a life without meaning, it should be seen as a courageous passion for realizing our individual purpose and value.

Being alone isn’t depressing. Flourishing from the complete annihilation of another human being is depressing. How can you find solace in devouring the soul of another? I can’t understand how one human being can rob a loved one of their individuality and still call it love. Love is not the mortgaging of your personality and independence for the pleasure of others. Giving away all that is you at the request of another is an act most unkind and anything but loving; it’s control which in time will reap resentment and rebellion. The sooner you accept that it is absolutely impossible to feel, think and behave exactly as another, the sooner you will find yourself on the path to true, unadulterated happiness. In the end, isn’t that what we all want for ourselves and the people we love?

Realizing such a beauteous joy as existentialism frees you from the anxiety of living up to impossible standards set by others and in some cases, even yourself. When you learn to accept only what is reasonably within your power, it releases you from the bondage of those who aim to foist their shortcomings onto you. Suddenly, guilt is a thing of the past. Resentment and anger are less likely to enter as you materialize as a healthier, more stable person. Taking full responsibility for yourself and the choices you have made liberates you from potential emotional domination and abuse- calling for manipulative check points on all sides… yours included. When the only load you carry is the one you brought into existence, you come to know self-forgiveness very well as life is surely a heck of a lot lighter. When you successfully become a better human being, your treatment of others improves. The only way to improve yourself is to worry less about what others have done to you and concentrate more on how you have treated others and how you may rectify this behavior. To me, this is the true human experience- the true definition of existentialism.

I like to think of life and those of us who live in it as vehicles on a freeway: there is only room enough in any given spot, in whatever moment in time for one car and one car only. Should another vehicle assume a place occupied by another and at the same time, the consequence is collision. Because there is only room enough for one vehicle at a time to occupy any given space, two can not coexist in the exact same manner, in exactly the same place without tragedy. It simply can not be.

There isn’t another person on the face of this earth that can be who I am. You can only relate as best you can: that entails compassion, understanding, empathy and sympathy but you will never be able to experience my life. It is impossible because we are two different people with differing experiences, hopes, fears and desires. Not even identical twins can accomplish this feat. They can come damn close but to achieve maximum likeness is IMPOSSIBLE. They didn’t even exit the womb at the same time… one of them came before the other.

Save yourself the agony of wondering why your partner in life doesn’t know or understand everything about you. No one does. There is only you and when you pass on, just as you were when you were born, there will be only you. Once this realization materializes, you see the change in how you love and relate to the person you love and you stop asking why they don’t get everything about you. It isn’t depressing… it’s liberating, gratifying, beautiful that no one else can offer what you bring to the table. Isn’t it a wonderful realization that nobody can do it like you? I have to laugh, but it’s true. Someone may share a likeness with me but the fact remains that she can never be me, allotting me the freedom to love with integrity and take myself and others as is.

I redirected how I thought one should relate to another very early in life: I was still in high school when I stopped wasting time trying to change others. It’s an impossible mission that can only lead all parties involved down a road of unhappiness and resentment. If who you are clashes with who I am and the result is nothing but heartache, I terminate the relationship so that we can both move toward connecting with others who are better suited for us.

The moment you accept that there is only you, is the very moment you start to carefully select the company you keep and the same moment you learn to enjoy the people you’ve chosen. The drama congesting your life miraculously disappears. It is only there to begin with because you chose it and it will go away when you choose otherwise. This is why I am now in a wonderful place in life- I am surrounded by positive, loving people who feel wonderful about themselves and are wonderful to be around… just like me. We enrich each others lives, adding flavor and color because we know and understand that existentialism means no two people are alike. We can share our loves and lives with passion and elegance while properly managing natural emotions such as jealousy and resentment by healthy means.

When you learn to love who you are and what you have to offer, you come to experience life with all six senses. You have blessedly achieved that sense of quietude and self-oneness that officially produces an easy, breezy and magnificent life. There is only you and honey child… you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Since the dawn of bible beating, thumpers have forewarned that the end is near. We’ve listened to our grandmothers and other old people with old people ideals swearing the collective demise of our mortal flesh and the damnation of our immortal souls. Someone even took the time to seal the deal by putting the inevitable in writing resulting in a bulky book used by preachers, popes, and Sunday school teachers alike to bash in some sinning skulls. Every era is deemed the last era. Every era says theirs contain the Anti-Christ. The present millennium offers no recourse. History repeats itself… and often.

Everyone who lived during the first half of the last era should be dead by now, so they can’t say “Oops! Sorry. I really thought folks would be dead by now. You all should’ve been lit up in a fiery blaze like hours ago.” They check their pocket watch. Damn. Nothing yet.

When will lessons taught begin to stick? That old adage claiming that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it stands staunch and true. Maybe we indeed learn from the past, but I think it’s usually the wrong lesson. How many people drank the cyanide kool-aid listening to some thumper in a suit tell them the end of days has arrived? Biddable followers listen to their leader, believing with every morsel of their being that he kinetically receives messages via clicks and beeps from God. It tells him that Jesus is coming to bring wrath upon everyone’s head… except of course for their select group.

Just look for the sign: Armageddon 5 Miles→ (that-a-way). I666 South: Bad storms, bloody rivers, a few rogue locusts, and the Anti-Christ straight ahead.

The bible also bestows some colorful honorable mentions; something about angels trumpet-blowing from all directions and some serious blazes, so you may want to pull out your flame retardant suit. It came with the survival kit your leader gave you during orientation. (Right next to the rat poison and the Glock).

False prophets have led many-a-fools underground having claimed special by unseen powers. They fill the heads of broken dreamers with promises of being saved from the Lord’s wrath. They drink the killer juice, peel their own caps and go out in the blaze of fiery glory never once questioning why their leader is banging a ten year old child. He has something like twelve wives but God, having a soft heart for pedophiles, has told him to bang a baby instead. Why is this not a clue that something is amidst? I can’t call it, but the thing that gets me is why after nothing Armageddon-like has occurred, no one can put two and two together? Nobody wants to discuss why the prophecy didn’t happen when they said it would. “It’s coming. It’s coming. Maybe not today like I thought, but coming nonetheless.” Everyone knows this boy is crying wolf, but people still wait around for the howl.

It’s all speculative for the most part; theologians making a career out of dissecting the bible, twisting every “for art thou” to fit his own interpretation of the way our world should be. 33 saints of the Roman Catholic Church distinguished themselves through the orthodoxy of their theological teaching; “the Doctors of the Church greatly influenced Christian thought down to the late Middle Ages”. What? Huh? Is this true? You bet. There are many references of which we have to pull from. For example:

The futurist believes the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse will be fulfilled in the future.

The presentist believes that the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse are being fulfilled at the present time.

The preterist believes that the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse have already been fulfilled.

Who’s right and who’s wrong? Nobody. No one is right or wrong because we have nothing to base it against. Only God can say for sure and He’s not talking.

Okay, so this is what I say. I say quit worrying about it and let the film makers with their special 3G effects wonder about that shit. What are you going to do about it anyway? Forget trying to save the world from flying meteorites. Do you really think we can stop that shit? Come on. Live life. Have fun. Try to be happy in the mean time because whether or not we all die at the very same time, one thing is for certain- we are all going to die. We’re dying right now and if you’re healthy, you’re dying at a slower rate than everyone else but dying nonetheless. Every breath taken oxidizes our cells and we slowly crumble away like sand.

I rhetorically ask you, “Are we in the midst of the Apocalypse? Is it the end of the world?”

Well, if it’s you who’s on his death bed… the world is definitely over for you.  Take some advice:  when the good Lord comes, He will probably be pissed by then and won’t be taking prayer requests,  so say your prayers and make peace with God while you can. Nothing else matters ’cause you can’t do a damn thing about any of it anyway.

White Folks Are Something Else

Now hear this, if you haven’t already heard. If this isn’t a headliner I don’t know what is. White supremacists are rooting for Obama’s place in the Whitehouse. Yea. You heard right. Before you start asking questions or wondering if these numb-nuts have finally climbed out the ass of their own ignorance, allow me to share with you their reason.

It’s nothing short of the asinine ramblings of Charles Manson and his insane plan to ignite the bible-predicting race war. Charles Manson hears so-called messages in the Beatles song Helter Skelter. Within each lyric, a secret but pertinent message is submerged specifically for him- something equivalent to Inspector Gadget finding a note cleverly stuffed in an apple as his next clue to solving the crime. Manson says the lyrics of Helter Skelter calls for blacks to rise and take their place. Manson, being the only person with the ability to decipher said subliminal message, first appoints himself Messiah reincarnate… then throws away the apple and swallows the note.

Of all people to choose, God chose Manson and he, being the almighty and all knowing, orders his biddable flunky’s to murder Sharon Tate, four of her house guests and the LaBianca’s in order to get this race war cracking. To make sure things went carefully as planned, this Messianic genius plants a “black” person’s wallet near the crime scene. Manson counts on law enforcement finding the infamous wallet; thus erupts the race war as prophesied- a surge of anger blazing across the states like a massively rogue tornado.

The meek shall inherit the earth, the bible says and Manson preached that blacks were the meek, so ultimately winning the race war. Unfortunately for niggas, we realize we’re too ignorant to run the new world and soon discover that we need assistance. It is then that the Manson family will emerge, dusty from the hill sheathed caves of an abandoned movie set in California, to take over what blacks will be too stupid to maintain. How absolutely dim-witted is that plan? It’s like a cartoon. There is no measure to its stupidity, right? The white supremacists plan isn’t any better. Decade after decade, one thing has remained the same: they haven’t managed to get any smarter.

White supremacists are hoping that the first black president will raise awareness of the oh-so-harsh plight of the white man, boosting their overall cause. And hey… we are all aware of just how hard it is for the white man in America. But in the grand scheme of it all, they apparently believe the election will trigger a backlash — whites will rise up ready for a revolution and it will be a move that is long overdue.

According to my research, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said he’ll be a “visual aid” while others say Obama’s election is going to jerk white folks into action, force them to take a stand and impel them to do what they do best: write letters and hand out pamphlets and shit, instead of sitting around complaining. I say to hell with that, why stop there? Why not march the streets with signs, hunched over, singing old negroe spirituals?

Am I having a nightmare?

I’m just saying…

What the hell is overdue for white people? I beg to know just what the hell some of them think they are entitled to that they don’t already have nor have the ability to access? If I see a homeless white person on the street, I figure it’s because they are lazy and want to be there. I think to myself, “Man. What a waste of white skin. Let me slap a little of that shit on me the next time I go to a job interview. I’ll show ‘em how to use that shit.”

And please do not misconstrue. I am not speaking of regular white folks who go to work, raise their families, pay taxes and mind their business while caring very little about the color of someone’s skin, so long as they aren’t breaking into their homes or harming them in any way. No, I speak of whites who are racially motivated and refuse to allow this country to mature and heal from its squalid history.

Most of us are not in contact with white supremacy groups but the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center has kept a very close eye on them for us. While they think the prospect of a white revolution is fantasy (and it is), their “Hatewatch” newsletter reported in June that some neo-Nazis, Klansmen and so on are predicting that the Obama presidency could prompt a race war that whites will surely win. It falls right in line with the unremitting, psychotic ramblings of Manson’s ill-contrived race war.

I don’t understand this little plan of theirs. Who proposed quietly sitting back with swastika tattered arms folded across chests, waiting for Obama to take the Presidency so the race war can begin? They must’ve ordered that shit from ACME. What kind of Wile E. Coyote shit is that? It’s all unnecessary. Life for white people can only get better, because anything less is by their own selection. What the rest of us struggle teeth grinding, back breaking to achieve comes hand delivered to white folks via Mexican’s (who are America’s newest and latest slaves) on a platinum platter. And if it isn’t platinum, it’s at the very least silvery.

Don’t blame me for speaking the truth. I can’t make this shit up… its reality.

So if life for the blacks and the Mexican’s get a little better, well then damn… let us have that shit. Let us have something good in our lives, please. Most of us live in peace. We don’t bother anyone. We feed our families and go to work. That’s it. White supremacists and their delusions are misguided and definitely misdirected. Ignorant and afraid of their own shadows, they feel victimized for whatever reason the voices in their heads give them. It is based on nothing of substance. Nothing tangible. Only fear.

Can Obama winning the election do anything worse than what Bush has already done? He certainly wouldn’t make life for white people any worse. It’s not like the minute he sits in the Presidential chair, he’s going to slap his hands on the desk and say in a voice much like Dave Chappelle pretending to be Rick James, “Na, bitches! Ha ha ha ha ha. Round up all the nigga’s ya know, so we can put all the white folks on a ship and float they asses back to England. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

That shit is never going to happen and I really wish they would get over themselves. The only way I can settle this in my mind is to contribute the absolute lunacy of all hate groups to a lone renegade syphilis strand passed along during back-wood inbreeding sessions. LMAO (sigh with comic relief) It’s funny… ‘cause it’s true.

I choose to focus on what’s positive in the shaping and molding of this young country of ours. Obama running for President is ground breaking and I am proud to be alive to see American history unfolding before my very eyes. Many things may come of this monumental event, but a race war will not be one of them. Even if someone assassinates him (pray that doesn’t happen), all black folks will do is break into Best Buy and steal plasma screens. LOL But seriously, the possibility of having our first black President in a country borne of a certain gestating evil that includes hatred, enslavement, human annihilation, war and genocide will unequivocally be of epic magnitude. Deal with it!

Let the church say

Amen.

Niggas.

“It’s not a cult, is it?”

That kinda made me mad. For all of two seconds, I was angry that after sharing with my mom in glee that I’d finally found a church comfortable enough for me to attend, she asks if it’s a cult. I guess because the church is full of white folks, she assumed there was a high chance of this being the case; as if to say she raised children that could ever be open to joining one.

My siblings and I (all fourteen of us) hate being told what to do. We got it honestly, passed down from both parents and our strong willed ancestors. So asking any of us to give up our money and worldly possessions is a sure fire way to get you cursed out forty ways from Sunday. My family? No. We are not cult material- too much attitude, too head strong… especially me. But a black girl joins a non-denominational, culturally diverse Christian church and suddenly she has tents for homes and freshly made cyanide kool-aid in her future.

Besides, she wouldn’t ask that if she knew how I used to feel about churches and organized religion in general. I couldn’t stand churches- or rather the people inside. I absolutely swore to never step foot inside another. I would never join what I liked to call a religious gang and give away my money so the pastor can fly in on helicopters but my household can barely make mortgage. I figured I was supposed to go to church to pray… not pay. So I prayed where my money and my well being were safe: home.

Back then, my mindset was as follows: horny, money hungered pastors were waiting eagerly for me with their palms out and their “you know what’s” on hard. Hell no, man. My goal was to escape Satan’s wretched grasp at all cost, but felt that churches had become too low-down and crooked to ever offer such sound protection and adequate resistance. Just my luck in an attempt to seek refuge from the devil, I would run to a church only to find Satan already there. This ni**a done beat me to church, asking what took me so long. Standing there in a dark suit and tie, looking like Al Pacino with his index finger dangling 2cm above a bird bath full of holy water. I would look around the church in a puzzled state thinking, “You church cats are fallin’ off. You’re supposed to provide protection, what happened? You’re terrible at this, man.”

So why would I ever join a cult? My mother’s church is the only one left, I thought, that was still pure and respectable. But now I have found a church that I love and it suits me wonderfully. I walk in and feel it is tailored just for me. It’s my new spiritual home. I can breathe now knowing that there are still good churches around with wonderful pastors inside.

I didn’t stay mad at Mama for long. Like I said- two seconds tops. Anger, when used negatively, is useless energy when I know and understand how Mama works. She’s old school Baptist to the core, a natural pessimist, and after 76 years she is set in her ways. In her world, all that goes wrong can resolutely be attributed to terrorist and the Chinese. LOL But she raised us well, mistakes and all. I love and respect my mother no matter what she does or say- even if she can’t understand why I go to church with white folks.

Lmao

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