toe-tagged truth.

my cousin had me out here feeling lightweight bad. making me feel like i'm asking too much from these women out here.

"you still looking for perfection." that's what he hit me with just on friday. after he left my crib, i was up for a minute thinking about what he said. i mulled over all the women that i knew, used to know. maybe i judged wrong, or too harshly. maybe the mistake was that i judged at all. maybe the criteria i was looking for was bullshit. maybe i set it up in my mind for them to fail from jump. 

maybe cause of my last relationship, i was still fucked up. going too hard, you know? looking for diamond flaws though a 20x loupe. your bound to see the feathers and cleavage.

looking for that fairy tale. that notebook. i was up for a minute, mulling it all around. this isn't the first time he hit me with that. aint the first time i heard it period.

then a thought showed up like a 4am raid. why is he telling me this?

_________________________________________________________

you know the best advice? advice that comes from another man's fuck up. you put the pussy on the ceiling, nail it, and tell the next man how not to. your failure has the power to teach another. but you gotta stretch it out that cold slab naked, and lift up the sheet. with this future relationship i'm going to have with my future wife, i need the people around me to show me the autopsy:

this is how the relationship died. this is how i messed up. this is how i picked wrong. this is how i was weak, this is how i let that loneliness get to me. i was lazy and aint want to try. it could be a million reasons, but there are reasons nonetheless.

at the end of the day, if you give me that, i'm going to learn forreal, and hopefully with the information i can do it right. and when i have some failure, or out and out get a cold F, i can tell my honest tale to the next, and he can learn from my shortcomings. but don't set me up to take the same bogus trip you just made. 

you read the map wrong, so we both at AAA?

 

i know i'm my own man, we are all our own people. but you a fool and a liar if you think you make it through this life leaning on just your own understanding of what is around you. we all get advice, and we all need it from time to time. i'm not asking for proverbs or meditations. just the truth.

yeah, you probably not going to walk this path and come out clean on the other end. you might look like a simp, a sucker for love ass nigga, but who hasn't worn that uniform before? can't be a g all the time fella, don't let them rap songs tell you different. that shit is going to sting like iodine when you think about all the bogus rap you laid on the track, all the bullshit you wish you had never said. all those things you wish you had. actions you took that began the downfall. 

you might cringe. i know i did. but to speak fallacies is to teach lies, and learning and lies aint in the same schoolhouse, much less the same classroom. those people who may learn may do it better than you...seeing that will highlight your own shortcomings, exposing the regret hiding in the shadows of you. 

but though all that discomfort, you can learn too. exposing your story gives it a different hue and your forced to look at it brand new. it has not only become the truth for someone else, it has become the truth for you. now, with all you've given, you get something back. 

a chance to do it differently the next time it comes down the pipe.

and it will. always does. 

...

now, i knew she was bad. we all did.

but did you know about that radio flyer she was toting on her back?
she's got more action following her than a bookie on superbowl sunday. jesus.

from baltimore.

i remember when i first went away to college. i was sitting in a lounge during my dorm orientation. we went around in a circle, and everyone said where they were from. it got to me.

i'm from baltimore.

boooooo. damn. got booed from being from my fair city.

i'll take it. and it was war from then on out. we all got cool, but i'll ride for my city. and ride i did.

i owe baltimore more than a quick hit. i'll do it justice soon.

the undefined, part 2.

what is the downfall of things moving to the realm of the undefined? it creates chaos and disruption, where esteem and peace are merely cannon fodder on the front lines of a massacre of the human spirit. without definitions, people never define themselves. instead, the world creates their definition, that is subject to change without notice. and it does change, almost every minute of every hour of everyday. trying to build a house in a whirlpool. got you going in circles? this shit is more like a mobius strip. your never pretty, strong, man, happy, advanced, informed, social, woman, liberal, conservative, concious, rich enough. or maybe your cups runneth over with all of those things. the problem is that if you are relying on the world to let you know where you stand...

it's like being in tanzania with a map a of quebec, playing a game of 21, down by 22.

you already lost.

the world loves this confusion. they profit off of it.

don't know what happiness means? that's just because you never read the box of this 3,000 dollar 61- lcd television. or is it the new touchscreen camera mp3 player phone this month.

a woman? cop some wrinkle defining cream, stop eating and do coke...it just melts of the pounds. when the lack of food and salt shaker of soft white you just ran through starts making its magic on your mind, pop three zolofts and a half a vicodin. then read glamor. or is it elle. paste all them shits back to back so you never miss an update on some celebrity that you will never look like or sex secret that aint a secret.

you don't know what a daddy is? shit, that aint too hard. work all your for three skittles, never see your kids, your wife and fill the void with booze, hookers and a corvette. your son learning what it means to be a man from the men on tv. and your daughter doing the same.

and for all the worlds ever changing and slowly fading definitions, none of them actually define anything. no one ever is satisfied enough to move on along a true path that gives them something worthwhile to aspire towards, much less achieve. the people in your life, in this world whether they are cognizant of it or not, still need those definitions. it's essential for any semblance of success. they need you to be a father, even if you haven't figured it out. They need you to be decent and good, even though those words should be on the back of a milk carton, progressed for age.

they yearn for it just as you do, and this yearning will never fade, no matter how long the feeling goes unsatisfied. a lack of true definitions will lead to the acceptance of any definition no matter how shoddy and slipshod. changing and empty, given to them by a world that desire to neither know or love them, these definitions will render them mindless and numb, shells of a beautiful humanity that is no more. driven on by an innate desire, they will continue to search, but will search in vain.

you've seen the search. driven from their homes wednesday through sunday, mind bent on getting bent, falling in love for the night and giving up something that will never return. at the mall on one of the few days away from work, but back at work, shopping for hours for things that don't need, but treat as if they do. back home and filled with goods, but still unsatiated, they wonder why they still feel empty, but only until the next commericial spins its 30 second yarn. children jamming drugs in every available orifice, and when none that god gave will sufice, small ones will be created. gangs or death metal, they seek out solace even if it hurts, lose themselves in it hoping that home and all its monuemental dissapointments will be forgotten. and will never find them.

because the definitions they seek were supposed to come from us. it would have fed their souls and taught their minds. they would have been better for it and more importantly, with a true definitions, been able to show others what these words mean. that you can't buy it, acquire it...that you have to learn it. but somewhere along the line, we have to learn the definitions for ourselves.

baltimore vs. the slouch socks.

tell them dirty little niggas to wash behind their ears before they come to baltimore with that bullshit.

men do what they want.

boys do what they can.

the undefined, part 1.

everything in this world has a definition, and i don't when that that became a bad thing, but it has. i was talking to one of my co-workers about going out and drinking. she asked me what i drank, and i told her scotch. she said what else. i said beer. 

no mixed drinks?

not unless the liquor is in the title.

why?

cause i don't like those type of drinks. and i don't think men should drink them. that last line got a raised eyebrow. 

a drink doesn't define your manhood.

so if you went out with a dude, and this nigga ordered a sex on the beach, you would be cool with that?

if that's what he liked. that last line made me raise a eyebrow. at what this world has become.

_____________________________________________________

man, woman, child, daughter, smart, stupid, rich, poor...all those words, along with every other word in our lexicon has a definition. sure, some things about the definition change, but they all have definitions nonetheless. it's definition gives it meaning, makes it more than a grouping of letters. it gives us a standard, a baseline, some foundation.

it lets me know that 10 dudes on a basketball court running with hockey sticks hitting a volleyball aint necessarily playing basketball.

what's happening is that slowly but surely our definitions are being rubbed out. started off as a smudge. then certain words were erased, until soon, every word will have one definition.

"undefined."

i think its that people hate being held to a standard, or more importantly, falling short. the fall is far, and excruciating when you hit the ground, but that pain is for a reason. the next time you have more incentive not to fail. fail at living up to the definition. 

but now people feel that sting, and run away from it. instead of stepping up, they step out and instead re-reading the defintion so they know what to do different next time to fall in line with it, they just tweak it so failing aint failing. and no pain is felt. 

and they never get better.

my pops. we had a good relationship, but things changed when i went away. i got caught up in my own little world that i didn't remember that i had to reach back to my old one. my pops would call, and i wouldn't call back. when i came home, i didn't spend as much time with him as i should have. i didn't completely fuck up, but i didn't do all that a son should. because being a son means certain things. the word has a meaning. i knew the meaning.

then he died. now i know towarsds the end, i wasn't doing what i should. does that mean i lie to myself, and change the definition of what being a son means because i fell short? it hurt like shit. my pops gone. i can't go back and tell him "my bad." can't go back and return those calls, spend that time. 

but what i can do is make sure i don't ever fall short of the definiton with my moms. be a son till she's over and all i have is her memory. what i can do is check the other definitions that apply to me, and make sure that i'm adhering, staying close. when i stray, and i will stray, i know that i have to get back. because whether they know it or not, those people are depending on me to live up to it. my niece needs me to be a uncle for her. my sister needs me to be a brother. my cousin a cousin. 

the world needs me to be a man. and for men to be men. straight up. 

i hear alot "i like to see a man that is comfortable enough with himself to do (blank)." I can dig it, but that man can't keep on doing those blanks and be still considered living up to the definition.

i like to see a man who is comfortable enough to wear pink. drink fruity drinks. get facials. watch sex and the city. wear tight clothes. go to a gay club. get a tounge ring.

you see where this is going? eventually, dude aint a man. buy him a maxi cause he's about to bleed. not one of those events alone means your any less of a man. but you have to have limits. boundaries. it was a reason your peoples told you that you couldn't go past the mailbox on one end and the last lightpole on the other. because you might get lost out there and forget the way home.

as a man, i do plenty of shit that i don't like to do, but have to do. women do the same. plenty of shit, but you do it because you have a standard to live up to. my moms doesn't drink out of bottles or wear pants to church. in her era, women didn't do that. i know times change, and the definitions follow suit but they cannot change to the undefined. it can't be a free for all, whatever feels good, and hurts less. whatever is less work.

damn the general titles. you have a name, a name that someone gave you. generally, us sons and daughters of slaves, our names mean nothing more than the definition we give them. 

don't you want it to mean something?