Driving Slow

By 18 I'd known 5 homosapes who were murdered as a result of gang violence. Not to mention the RIDICULOUSLY high occurence of wife-beating to the point that women were being put in hospitals on Friday, getting flowers on Sunday and cooking dinner by Monday with their husbands.

My schools mates and I all probably suffer from PTSD to some extent. No-walking-around-with-a-s

crew-driver.

Then I went to college and things changed. I could fall asleep before 10 p.m., nights didn't always end in someone getting jumped, people hated me way less for being black, but folks still died.

Up to that point I'd come to terms with there being no such thing as someone being "too young". Dying is what we do, no one is safe from it. But I had yet to experience what it was like for someone to die of something they couldn't help.

I couldn't complain about a disease or a plane crash because sometimes those things just happen. But to hear of someone dying in a way that was not violent, and to feel a sense of relief because of it ... that reaction, in my heart, felt like something I can't describe as any thing other than fucked up.

I drive slow now 'cause it's habit. It's not a metaphor for how I approach life, although that's definitely a dope reason. My cruising speeds stemmed from two things:

1) I went for two years without a license so I was like EFF that. I ain't trying to get caught not being cautious. If you drive like an old lady, people assume you are.

2) I didn't have a cell phone for a while, and it was my belief that if something crazy happened between where I was and my destination, I would at least be able to finish that ride in peace.

The sentiment behind Number 2 is a big reason why I wouldn't answer my phone while driving before it became illegal. It's also why when people call twice within a short period of time I answer 'cause I'm scared to shit that something might have happened.

I Love you.

In defense of the defenseless?

There's a sense of competition in doing the right thing sometimes.

You hear about a man beating his woman on the daily, and you wonder why he would take out whatever frustration that's got him frosted with hate, liquor breath and a heavy hand on his wife.

Why wouldn't he do that with someone his own size? Why won't he try that with me?

There's the pacifist's way, where we know you can't stamp fire out with more fire. You need to sprinkle on some water.

But when a man wants to defend a woman who's getting beaten by another man, we're resorting to violence with no question. Someone's getting ruffhoused.

For some reason, when it comes to things like that, a lot of us are thinking "I wish you'd try that with me and see what happens."

But there's no rehabilitation.

So then I wonder how much of a factor that she's a woman has to do with us wanting to shut shiznit down. How much of it is us actually protecting. And how much is wanting to prove we could stomp a guy. Kn'amsaying.

Hospitals are pretty stigmatized considering all the good that comes out of them.

People don't really die there--and when they do, about 30% of the time it's because of a human mistake. Every day--or other day--the number of people that die in these hospitals because of misdiagnosese and eff ups in the United States of America is equivalent to that of two jumbo jets crashing.

So aside from that, when we die in hospitals, it's not because of the hospitals, it's because we're dying before that.

That's expected though. What's crazier to me is the number of people that don't die. So many more lives are affected by people not dying than those that are. When people die, there is only that number of people that know them. It will be that number until shrinks as they die too.

When people walk out alive, though, they reach a lot more people.

Since my brother was in a coma for a month and expected to die, but didn't, that's how I've regarded hospitals. He didn't die. And that place helped him not.

Since forever and a half, in the month of December--when the rain starts up and Californians ride freeways like cars don't hydroplane and crash and wrap around light poles like pink ribbons--I would think about God.

The cold in So. California is not something we sun-kissed homosapes are used to. There were the early years of my high school career where we'd walk to school in shorts so that the dye wouldn't bleed onto our shoes, because even though it was raining, it wasn't cold.

But then recent years happened and the cold started stomping my rib cage and putting out statewide fires ... and it made me think about God. And not just because fires were going out and peoples' homes were being saved, even though that's dope too kn'amsaying.

But only in the cold am I ever aware that I have bones.

The ache inside is a deep, deep feeling. My bone marrow starts slushing around. It's crazy. It's dope. I don't even realize my insides are touching things on the inside too.

And this is not a metaphor for God showing God's self through suffering.

This is one some quantum physics tip, kn'amsaying. I'm on some tenth dimension contemplation right now. I was not aware of how deeply I could feel until I felt it.

NOW. I have to figure out how to feel with my atoms.

All we want is Love

When I was in 6th grade, every night before I went to bed, I would talk to God in my head and ask that he let girls like me.

All I wanted was to be the guy--which in my mind seemed all my home bois were--the ladies loved.

Then Perlita, one of my best friends, moved away. And I dedicated a song to her. I said "From now on, when I hear this, I'll think of you." And maybe I didn't say that, but I did think it, and it definitely does happen. EVERY time I hear the song I think of her, no matter where I am.

There are only four other songs I can think of off the top of my head that also remind me of women, and two of them throw me back to the same young lady.

We never kissed.

We never sexed.

We never saw each other exclusively.

All the songs that take me back to a time, take me to my friends, the people I could talk to. And after Perlita moved, I realized that was really what I needed.

So I stopped asking God to let girls like me.