When I find myself beginning to struggle through a triggering moment, I will consciously stop what I am doing and take my first deep breath.
1) the first breath always helps to calm the anxiety/excitement that I am feeling. #breathe #repeat
2) my second breath helps to slow down any racing thoughts. #breathe #repeat
3) my last breath makes it easier for me to listen & remain present. #breathe #repeat
I’m tired dying
Moving slow
Feeling low
Actin like I got no place to go.
But it’s hard out here
Where loves got
Billions of different definitions
And potential lovers
are being gunned down
Every Otha minute
Just for living while black.
In the crypt before their time
Trynna forced me to let go of what I know
In my gut as truth
For options that honestly
Ain’t too appetizing. So I starve.
I’m tired of dyin.
These days I got it togetha
Yet they hella lifted,
They waiting, yeah they hoping
A homie fails
Goes back to the unworthy
Shit is reckless.
Energy got me trynna
Skip to new tune
And I ain’t trynna have all that.
Yeah I’m skipping steps
To this process;
It’s gotten easier
As I’ve come to know myself.
See I’ve been through worse
So I have an idea of what’s better.
But don’t get it confused
It don’t mean imma settle,
If anything lovin me is harder,
That’s what happens when you have standards,
When self love can only recognize self love
In another
Cuz building you up ain’t what I’m here for.
You gotta do that yourself,
Cuz only two wholes
Can stand true together.
im sitting here. sitting between all the i hate yous
and i love yous,
wandering through left over trauma,
potential missed connections,
wondering if you’re there
sitting in it too?
they told me i’d find you here.
stuck somehwere between 2001 and 2017.
running cirlces around a choice
we thought we made.
they’re sitting there. in between all the i hate yous
and i love yous,
paitently waiting for an answer,
childishly unmoving.
they told me i’d find you here.
out here sifiting. sifting through the amount of wealth
birthed from intuition.
told me not to let you wander on for too long
when things were just getting good.
she was sitting between all the i love yous
and i hate yous,
until the sun birthed another eden
and she found herself never in want again.
I didn’t understand it.
Where had she gone?
This little girl
Who looked so much like me
Is smiling.
reaching out her hand
Waiting. For me.
I want to smack her hand away,
I want to cover her eyes,
Make her look away from
Who we be.
I don’t want her to know
How we got here.
Without my consent
She grabs a hold of my arm
Dragging me down to her level.
‘I want to see you’ she says.
So I tell her ‘truth. You make me want to run’.
I move her hand away,
So she grabs a fistful of skirt
And her warning is clear.
She will tug, allow herself to be dragged
If she needs to.
Still smiling she tells me
‘This is too important.’
‘I need you to smile now.’
‘I need you to remember joy.’
So again it cracks. Effortlessly this time.
That fine mask,
so well polished,
painted to perfection
is peeled away by small fingers
Hoping to keep you around this time.
Piece by piece,
She does away with the falsehood
Apathy created,
Leaving you bare.
Naked as the day we were born.
Smiling.
This little girl
Living in the joy of my smile.
She tells me ‘welcome home.’
I am the before and I am the after.
I didn’t understand it.
I wondered,
Where had she gone?
This little girl
Who looked so much like me
Was smiling.
Tapping uniform heels together,
Maybe one more time
And we’d be transported back home.
Transport me back to ‘the before’.
Before that bubbled way of living
Became cold,
Back to the before
You fell out of love with self,
Back to the before
We woke up living two miles away
From the sanctuary our family was birthed in.
Back before home became lie
And lie became the out to all our problems.
Take me back to the before
Where the courage to be brave still exists
And the thought of becoming a coward scared you more so we lived out more of our truths.
Jari G. Planning 