By: Kindaka Jamal Sanders

To Grieve and to Love

To grieve
And to love.
To believe
and to fail.
As we grieve for the world,
Who grieves
for the children in us?
As we believe in the world.
Who will believe 
in the realness in us?
To be deceived 
And still trust
To bereave the unjust
Is a desire to die 
just to consume our own dust.
Is to grieve 
And to love.
Is to believe 
and to fail.

How bitter sweet it is.
To love unrequited
To feel  the impossible pain 
Of change uninvited.
To endure all the slights
and to submit to it all
Is to wittingly enter the ball
we roll into to cry
to rush straight towards the place
where we wish we would die.
Oh the courage it takes
To live with mistakes
To love through it all
To have faith in heartbreaks 
To feel… 
To feel each slice the knife makes
To embrace the dark night
That disables the breath 
But stabilizes the fight.
To be filled with the light
That invites the heart strife
Is to experience one night
Of what it means to be Christ.
To grieve 
And to love.
To believe
And to fail.
To be kind when confined
Is to have heaven in hell.

THE POWER OF BEING TWO

I told you then, you didn’t love me,
So in hindsight, I guess I was right.
You admitted that yourself
When you said you didn’t love me for me,
Nor unconditionally,
Because if you did you wouldn’t have left.
And, being you, you didn’t give a damn how I felt.
Not only would you not let me make amends
You wouldn’t even be my friend
Because it was not what YOU wanted.
You always did what you wanted to do,
But did you have to flaunt it too?
After I poured my heart out to you
And then asked you for your view,
You willingly exposed yourself
Like you always do.
I mean, everything you said was always the naked truth.
But then again, I was the one who asked for honesty
In how you felt,
So in the end you were only being
True to your wonderful self.
And I guess that’s what I loved about you the most:
You were incredibly open, beautiful,
And girl! You were dope!
Not to mention lustful,
Pure of heart, impulsive, and full of hope.

But in the end,
The bull in you doesn’t allow for amends,
Well, at least, that is the case
In anyways when it comes to men.

I just could never understand
how you were so willing to risk your health
For a weekend or even a single night
Of unprotected
Pleasure.
But after two months of inattentiveness
you took me off your ledger.
But I guess it’s all the same,
Only difference is the length of the stand,
One night, three months,
or however long is in your plan.
You once told me that everything you plan comes true.
So why didn’t you plan for us
Like you always plan for you?

My mom always said
That there were things worse than cheating.
I dismissed her without thinking
Twice,
But what may, in fact, be worse
Is a partner incapable off enduring a few slights,
Before packing up her luggage and leaving you for life.
So I guess my mom was right.

On the other hand,
You can’t imagine
The relief that I felt
On those two occasions that we separated,
And the last leave I unilaterally took
The reprieve the final weeks we were together.
But to me we weren’t untethered
It was simply a moment to breath until the second book.
See you were an alcoholic lover
But me? I needed moments to recover
From the fire in you that left me drained.

After all we went through
And all I taught you about you.
And all of the energy, I poured into you.
It was so easy for you to ultimately detach,
And leave the relationship without ever once looking back.
And going on to rather quickly find the love of your life,
When months earlier you were excited about being my wife.

You know the difference between me and you?
I can sacrifice myself for you
And still be me.
That’s the power of being too

Putting yourself first
Is the fire in you’s point of view,
And the love of your life
Probably shares that same view.
But can he be me for you?
Can he do that for you?
Does he have my rare identity?
My mental agility,
Spiritual capability,
Physical virility,
My ability to sooth?
My sensitivity
My sensibility
My stability,
My power of being two?

TOP OF THE LOVE CHAIN

Top of the love chain
How lonely it must be….
Loving all
Yet
Truly being loved by none,
As if their love was incapable of reaching that high,
Although encumbered only
by a stained-glassed ceiling
and protected solely
by a feckless sky.

Not at all that high…
Not long that ride
Not short that stride
To reach that light beam
that never divides.

Where her teardrops
Engorge the roars
Of the oceans.
Their concerns
But obstinate
Weeds in the sea,
Enwrapping the mast
Of a craft floating randomly
To a landlocked landlocked inside the porcelain-glass portion
Of a figurine that never figures out it is the very thing
That forms around
The ugly dregs of broken dreams.
Yet love wedges its way between
the in-between
At the top of the love chain.

At the top
Of the
Love chain,
He swings
And dances in His seat
Dressed in raiments made of kings
Stitched in the inseam parts
Of the dark that longs to sing.

At the top of the love chain.

I HAVE BECOME LOVE

i have become love,
like he became death,
it feels like I’m losing
A part of yourself.

it feels like i’m speaking,
but ain’t no me left.
as I have become love
As he became death.

Begonias

Love, The Essence Of Space ANd Black Holes
Is The Light, The Very Light, 
The Darkness Fails To Comprehend 
For True Love Can Only Be Found
In The Midst Of Darkness.
ANd True Darkness Can Only Be Found
In The Hearts Of Men. 
So On This Scandalous Lot
As we labor through
The Wicked And Idolotrous Generation, 
We Give Each Other
Mouth-To-Mouth Resuscitation
Recycling The Remnants of Righteousness:
the Remains of an Evaporated God,
But Off This Feeble Air, We Go Hard.
As Our Love Was Created,
In The Very Image ANd Likeness Of God.
To This,
I Can Hear The Angels Congregated In Heaven Say
…Teach. 

Love, The Animating Spirit Of Life Itself
Is A Substance,
For It Is Substantial,
ANd For It, There’s No Substitute.
With This We CaN Find Common Truth.
That love is the root
That Provides Undisputable Proof
That There is A God.
That Love is our Guiding Light,
Our Homing Device
Allowing Us
To Circumnavigate
The PERDITION Of The Soul
‘Cause Hell Is Well Decorated, Brother
ANd The Trick Of The Devil Has Always Been 
ANd Will Always Be
The Disillusionment Of The Chosen.
ANd To This I CaN Hear The Angels Orchenstrating In Heaven Say
…Preach.   

 It Was Established ANd
Is Now Decreed
That Love Is The Greatest Ancestor Of All
In The Beginning, It Spread Its Seed
ANd In The End, It Will Conquer Them All. 
For Love Is An Energy,
And, As Such, CaNnot Be Created or Destroyed.
This Means Our Love Will Exist In Permanent Bliss,
Long After Our Souls
Are Submitted To God.

Love Is The Printlless Path 
Etched In The Invisible Mass
Of Space And Time;
It Is The Relentless Grasp
Of All That Exist
To Be Pulled In The Path
Of The Divine.
I Belong To You
‘Cause We Are Begonias,
Begot ANd Begotten
From A single LifeLine,
ANd The Force Of Life
That Waters The Root 
Is The Love We Share In This Lifetime.
ANd To This
I CaN Hear The Angels
With Bowed Heads In Heaven Say
…Amen.    

Pussy

Pussy is discernment.
But it is also
Stubbornness
And thoughtlessness.
It knows the difference between right and wrong,
But lacks a bit of common sense.
It made me gulp the forbidden fruit,
Knowing
It wasn’t either right or decadent.
It was power.
And so is pussy,
Mixed with a lot of ignorance.
But is that not what knowledge is?
A little self-awareness with a willingness to grow
And raw intelligence with the ability to grow
From experience, but needs experience to grow
And with each experience it learns
How much it does not know.

So pussy is knowledge which is power
Mixed with a lot of ignorance.
Does it not entice you
To ditch your own ignorance?
Does it not endeavor every hour,
To devour innocence?
To seduce the reticent?
And suck the light of lust,
Right up out its residents?

Pussy is also
All too willing
To self-destruct,
Using the very light
It consumes as a knife,
To open up and gut
It’s childish inner slut,
Who knows how to read and write
But not how to lead a spacious life.

Since the first, and only time, I got some pussy
I’ve been looking for it ever since.
Even though I abhor it,
What a delicious hate it is.
It’s the truth, so it hurts
But I can’t forget how great is.
To experience the beginning,
When it was science
And not sinning,
When experience itself
Was nothing but an infant.

To know is how we grow,
And to be aware of ignorance
Is how we know we need to grow
And that takes experience
Which helps us know ourself
Which is the only way to know
Everything thing we need to know,
Which is everything else.
And that’s how pussy felt,
It was like a sweet death
Followed by a new life,
So now I have lived twice.
I want to live again,
But first I have to die,
Which is ultimately why,
I’m in the daylight with a flashlight
Looking for a passer-by.

So I really want some pussy,
But they keep running out of my size:
The type that wouldn’t mind
A private dick
Investigating it,
Longway or lengthwise.

And yes, of course, I know,
That “that sentiment is sexist and just WRONG.”
But cannot an agreement be reached
About some shit
That’s been with us
All along?
(I’m sorry. I got a bad (delicious) sense of humor.)

Pussy hides in the dark.
A coward invented it.
But I got a lot of mutha fuckin’ heart.
I just need some clear indicative
To stick my dick in it,
To use my black arts
To make it more sensitive,
To get it to move
From its grave near your feet,
Through the maze in your pelvis,
Overcoming your solar plexus
Becoming a slave to your heart.
But I wan’t be completely satisfied
Until it escapes your rib cage,
Treks up to your brain,
Where it explodes into a star.
That erodes
Into another universe,
With a thirst for the bizarre.
Which in the end
Becomes relatively perverse
Until it “sins” again
And creates another universe and
Yet another thing to know.

But if I can’t,
Then
I’m wise enough to know,
To get the fuck up out of dodge
Lest that gaping black hole,
Opens up, lessens me,
And then swallows me whole,
But even then,
I’ll be the happiest captive
The world has ever known.
Running around inside,
Barely damn alive,
But what a beautiful grave.
And me, the dutiful slave,
Will be proud to be able to say
To all the escapees at my wake,
That my biggest mistake
Was the best mistake I ever made.
To force them to have to wonder
Whether its better to be saved,
Or die addicted to seeking knowledge,
An overdose of getting laid.
But
With a
Potent
But wily
Smile on your face.

BLACK MADONNA

She is a naughty little slut,
But I don’t say that with disgust
But with the utmost respect,
Because she was rebellious at its best.
And that part represented a single spot
That became so oppressed
That it exploded
And became all the delectable rest.
But what’s more
It gave diversity
To the purity at her core.
And the two, in complicity,
Created her irresistible allure.

Her beautiful black spot
Emitted an all-encompassing,
Cascading light,
And represented the darkness
That gave birth to light,
That assembled the garden
That gave birth to life,
That resembled the spark,
That gave her delight
Which trembled
The darkness that had caged me for life.
And resurrected the martyr
I had slaved for life,
And retrieved the heart
From the compartment
I’d protected from the light.
And made me the author,
I had hidden out of sight.
So despite all the trauma
That resulted from our plight,
She remains a goddess to me,
The Black Madonna of Purity,
Creativity,
Femininity,
And vice.

MERMAID MARMALADE

The love we made,
The sound it makes,
The all it takes,
The life it gives.

The odds its beats,
The hearts it beats,
The love it gives,
The price we paid.

But oh how lucky
I must be
To have your light
Inside of me,
To have the path Madonna made,
To eat mermaid marmalade,
To have it spray
Across my face,
To taste the grace
It had to take
To make a face
So wonderful.
To eat a cake
Made by faith,
a touch
Of the impossible.
So on this day,
We celebrate
A love that is
Unstoppable