Speaking in Tongues

lish, lisp, his glish

must come clean

from mi mouth

roll over mi tongue,

through mi lips.

What a bangarang, eh?!

lawd, is so Mr. glish is,

laden wid grief, mad fi lick mi

wid him punctuation and grammar.

I before e, heheeeeey!--

but no, on my tongue,

it have a duel with

modder tongue,

they arguing over spices

both claimin' spaces,

hisglish an' modglish.

Lawd, they not easy

though, eh?

Is a' inheritance from

"the bad-minded English"--

a generation glitch,

[...]

Seeing Double

Have you ever searched the corners of your room for answers to your questions only to find that the corners are as empty as you are? It hard when you searching for answers. It hard. It always hard. Harder than rain in the winter and snow in the summer. It hard.

I wonder who makes the questions so hard and then put the answers in hiding? It hard. It hard when you find yourself stuck and you don't know how you get stuck. It always hard. A woman can get stuck in a big city. A woman can get stuck in her own mind. Her own pain can destroy her, and no one has to look at the wreckage. In a big city you don't have to look.

When you walking down the street and you see a homeless man, what comes to mind? Bum. Here, i have to freeze off me arse just to make a shilling and i should pass it on to him, for what? Did you ever consider the psychology of that man? Like him probably saying to himself: "Cho, it too cold to work so i will sleep on the street for free, where it safe and dry, and depend on the Toms, Dicks and Jane Does in this city."

That man probably just like me. Searching for answers; only, he searches in the weather beaten feet trampling refuse smelling asphalt thinning cracks of the city.

Here's a Story

Everyday is a struggle against the odds: the odds of getting an MA in English. Sometimes i feel so fragmented, i'm amazed that i have been able to stay whole instead of being fed to the wind like debris caught in a storm.

Another Academic Muse

At what point in our lives do we stop blurring? When do we become crisp individuals? What must we do in order to end these fuzzy identities--to clarify just who it is we really are?
--Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a Coma

I happened upon this quote while reading Girlfriend in a Coma, a book filled with dark humour and an apocalyptic sensibility. I'm not too far in, but it had me thinking about that quote, especially how it relates to my personal experiences as a graduate student in English. I am realizing that the further up i go in the institution the more blurry i become, the more it doesn't really matter who i am. I become a slave to the system in such a way that i am producing essays, research papers, argumentative strategies for discussion but it provides no meaning for me, especially when i begin to survey my own subjectivity as a "crisp individual." I know that this sounds a lot like life in the big city, or even nihilistic, but i think that it is a bit more complex than that. I feel an incredible rush of excitement and satisfaction when i produce a paper and i am usually very happy with the returns, but for no apparent reason, at times i feel lost and confused. The truth is: I realize just how phony the whole system is and how complacent i am, moving to the same phony beat as everyone else. I guess that is what happens when you lose a sense of meaning and purpose in your work and your entire life becomes obfuscated by this burring: the inability to see who you really are.

I am writing a paper and i have reached the end; i am supposed to be happy at the finished product because it is coherent, the argument is solid and the structure is great. Instead, i start thinking about the next paper that i am to have done in a few weeks and i try to think about the "new" language i will need to successfully produce that argument. I have to create that new language while producing a sense in the reader that i have mastered the topic/language. But, really, getting an excellent mark has to do with how well i can argue that i am right; it does nothing, it changes nothing, it challenges nothing--at the end of the day, it goes into a drawer and takes its place with the pile of other papers i'd already written, and it stays there.

Higher learning institutions thrive on showing you how insignificant you are; how minuscule to your professors, your superiors who "know everything." They keep you in place by making you aware that you can't know everything, and if you're black like me, that you won't reach anywhere. It's survival of the fittest. The university is one of the most brutally racist, sexist, elitist, Eurocentric, xenophobic places on the earth. yet it praises itself on being the best door to a world of opportunities. In the end, it doesn't matter who you are and the University becomes a big business that owes you nothing...

I survey the drawer, then finally, i manage to get-up and open the door; i enter the parts of my house that aren't filled with phony people and phony principles. My daughter sees me and calls, "mommy, mommy!" She runs up to me, and as i take her into my arms, she starts to sing me a song; suddenly, i realize who i really am, and my world isn't so blurry anymore.

I have met some amazing professors, students and writers who are not in the least bit phony. And that is why i have survived, and still surviving, the traumatic alienating effect of higher learning.

Jennifer Hudson: Carol of the Bells

Merry Christmas! I admire this lady so much. She's a great example of what talent and dreams can do :-)

"the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"

A plaque i have on my living room wall and walk by everyday without noticing. I noticed it today...

Heart Beat

['Unedited' creative writing i did in high school; found it on a disk i had in storage]

I never thought that Jamie could hurt me, no, not in a million years. We were supposed to be the perfect couple, utterly flawless. Now all that we’ve shared for the past eight years was coming slowly to a close. As much as I would like to forget the entire scenario and pretend nothing happened, I couldn’t, it was already planted in my mind. My mind raced, my heart thud, I cursed myself for being so sensitive. Damn Jamie, damn him to hell! I almost said aloud. I steered the car into the driveway and sat transfixed, the ignition running. I couldn’t think, concentration was impossible, I ached inside. Once inside the house, the house Jamie and I shared for eight years, I retired to our bedroom to claim my possessions. Jamie must have come in early for I heard the shower running, though I could not recall seeing his car out front. I searched frantically for my suitcase trying without success to control my anger, fear, anxiety or whatever it was that I felt. Half way through my packing he came in whistling bringing the sweet smell of after-shave with him.

“Hi honey, I didn’t hear you come in,” he said casually.

“You won’t hear me go either,” I said bitterly.

“Why, are you going somewhere?”

“Yes, someplace where I won’t have to see your lying cheating face again,” I yelled.

“What…”

“No, let me finish, for eight years I remained blind, blind because the love I had for you pulled the wool over my eyes.”

“What the…”

“It all adds up Jamie, now it all makes sense: the condoms I found in your jeans, you taking in your sleep, the pictures, those phone calls, showing up late for dinner because you had to work late, you bastard!”

I hurled a vase freshly filled with white roses at him, but it hit the wall instead. Furious I strolled past him, haling my suitcase behind me.

“Cathy I can explain everything if you just give me a chance.”

“Explain, explain?” I laughed, refusing to look at him. “Well maybe you could explain why you have being after my friend Joan for the past two months.”

“Whoa, whoa, did she tell you that? She’s the one who has being coming on to me and when I told her that I’m committed to you she backed off a bit,” he said calmly.

“Cathy I love you, I always have and I always will, I would never want to destroy what we share,” he said, taking the suitcase from my hand, as I stood motionless.

“ The condoms you found were meant to be used with you since you have being complaining about taking the pills, me talking in my sleep I can’t really explain but I’m sure it had to do with my up coming plans for us.”

“Oh, Jamie for the past few weeks we have being so distant, I thought I was losing you.”

“Wait, Cathy, let me explain everything. Those phone calls were totally work related and platonic, I never lied to you about missing dinner because I had to work late, and I wouldn’t do such thing, I swear. The girl on the pictures is my cousin Leona, I was going to show them to you but you found them first; I’m so sorry, Cathy.”

“I love you Jamie, I always have, and I always will,” I said smiling.

“Now that’s better. Are you still leaving?”

“No,” I purred, “not for a long time.”