Where in the world is D’Angelo?
No, really. I want to know. After watching the “Untitled (How Does It Feel) video for the seventeenth time in a row, I think its only fitting that I find out what happened to the man who caused me to lose my composure on multiple occasions by simply standing there…naked…with sweat dripping all over his body…
I’m sorry, what was I saying?
My pinky finger still smarts where I accidentally bit down on it as D’Angelo licked his lips for the fourth time. My eyes are watery because, for fear of missing something, I didn’t blink for the entire four minutes and twenty-eight seconds he was on the screen.
All kidding aside…actually, I’m not kidding, but I feel I should probably move on to the meat of my story before I get too distracted by the side dishes…
What happened to good music? What happened to FEELING a song instead of just singing it? What happened to songs that make you close your eyes and reminisce each and every time you hear them. Songs that, years later, you are amazed because you still know all of the lyrics?
Lyrics. What happened to lyrics that made you shiver while still leaving something to the imagination? Now, singers are licking you and sticking you, and making sure the neighbors know their name without even attempting to romance you out of your panties. Nothing is sacred. Instead of making love to your ears, they are just screaming about SEX. Excuse me, but when did SEX become a romantic word? Okay, unless you are talking about ‘Sex Therapy’ and in that instance, my man Robin Thicke gets a pass. Hell, he gets five passes and get out of jail free card, but I digress.
I don’t think I’m asking too much by requesting REAL MUSIC make a comeback. I don’t think I’m out of line by requesting lyrics be the forefront of a love song instead of just a banging beat and a hip-hop collaboration at the bridge.
D’Angelo… I humbly request your presence. You once asked your audience, “How does it feel?” Well, I’m here to tell you that, musically, things aren’t feeling too swift right now.
My name is Ebony Farashuu and these have been the random thoughts of a black butterfly.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
FULL CIRCLE
FULL CIRCLE
In their minds, I have failed them. Taken them from the only stable home they have ever known and thrust them into an environment where they feel alienated from the world as they know it. I excluded them from the process of moving, instead, sending them to their father as I dealt with all of the emotions and self loathing associated with emptying out the home I made for my family. I didn’t want them to see the furniture being carried out piece by piece. I didn’t want them to have to stand in the middle of their empty bedrooms and cry the way I cried when I realized that my children would never set foot in them again. I didn’t want them to see that the bench we loved to sit on was now gone from the front porch, the hummingbird feeder hanging as a sad reminder that we would no longer be able to attempt to sit completely still as our little friends fed right before our eyes before disappearing in a flurried flash.
I wanted to spare them. I should have prepared them.
I should have allowed them an opportunity to say goodbye to their home. I should have given them a chance to cry. I shouldn’t have opened the door to that apartment and prayed that they wouldn’t hate it, which they did, by the way.
Who can blame them? They have never had to worry about anything and yet I expect them to understand my struggle? I expect them to just accept the fact that they are leaving a 2,000 sq ft home for an 1100 sq ft apartment in a completely different school district? I can barely accept that and I’m thirty-seven years old!
I can’t bring myself to put the key to the apartment on my key chain yet. I can’t even wrap my head around calling it home. Last night, as I was leaving work, I made a wrong turn…heading towards the house instead of the apartment on the other side of town.
It doesn’t help that my laptop was stolen as I was moving things into the apartment on the FIRST DAY! My children feel like I’ve moved them into a ghetto. They aren’t used to having to lock the door between each trip to the car as you bring in groceries. I realize the world I raised them in wasn’t the real world according to their current reality. It is indeed, a culture shock.
They don’t remember the crappy apartment we lived in when they were babies. Even then, I made it a place that felt great to come home to. They only, truly remember the two houses they were raised in, the last being the place I thought I’d grow old in. I thought I’d sit on my bench, on the porch and read Shel Silverstein poetry to my grandchildren the same way I’d done with my son and daughter.
It’s a period of adjustment for all of us. However, I want my children to understand how fortunate they are. Yes, mama lost the house, but we aren’t living with family, we aren’t living in a shelter, we aren’t going without food, shelter, or love. We’re just going without the things WE considered necessities. Things like, internet access, cable, cabinet space, and room to get away from the family that we need to be clinging to right now.
Now is the time for us to truly become a family unit that spends more quality time together as opposed to all being in separate rooms doing separate things and watching separate televisions. Now is the time to say, ‘HEY, no televisions in the bedrooms, not even mine. No eating in the living room. Lets all eat at the table together while music plays instead of NBC, ABC, and CBS being our mealtime entertainment. Let’s just be…together…making lemonade out of the lemons being pelted at us right now.’ Let’s be happy and continue to praise GOD through it all. We can handle this. As long as we believe, when we look back on this time, we will see one set of footprints in the sand instead of four…He carries us, even when we feel abandoned.
This morning, as I drove to work, I thought about the irony of my situation. At the age of nineteen, I moved into the very apartment complex that I have now left my house for. This was my first venture out on my own and as a nineteen year old, I saw that my entire life was spread in front of me just waiting to happen. God has brought me back to the beginning. He has brought me full circle. He is giving me a do-over and this time, I get to show my children how to receive the blessings that are waiting for them if they just smile and see the joy our situation.
My name is Ebony Farashuu and these have been the Random Thoughts of a Black Butterfly…
In their minds, I have failed them. Taken them from the only stable home they have ever known and thrust them into an environment where they feel alienated from the world as they know it. I excluded them from the process of moving, instead, sending them to their father as I dealt with all of the emotions and self loathing associated with emptying out the home I made for my family. I didn’t want them to see the furniture being carried out piece by piece. I didn’t want them to have to stand in the middle of their empty bedrooms and cry the way I cried when I realized that my children would never set foot in them again. I didn’t want them to see that the bench we loved to sit on was now gone from the front porch, the hummingbird feeder hanging as a sad reminder that we would no longer be able to attempt to sit completely still as our little friends fed right before our eyes before disappearing in a flurried flash.
I wanted to spare them. I should have prepared them.
I should have allowed them an opportunity to say goodbye to their home. I should have given them a chance to cry. I shouldn’t have opened the door to that apartment and prayed that they wouldn’t hate it, which they did, by the way.
Who can blame them? They have never had to worry about anything and yet I expect them to understand my struggle? I expect them to just accept the fact that they are leaving a 2,000 sq ft home for an 1100 sq ft apartment in a completely different school district? I can barely accept that and I’m thirty-seven years old!
I can’t bring myself to put the key to the apartment on my key chain yet. I can’t even wrap my head around calling it home. Last night, as I was leaving work, I made a wrong turn…heading towards the house instead of the apartment on the other side of town.
It doesn’t help that my laptop was stolen as I was moving things into the apartment on the FIRST DAY! My children feel like I’ve moved them into a ghetto. They aren’t used to having to lock the door between each trip to the car as you bring in groceries. I realize the world I raised them in wasn’t the real world according to their current reality. It is indeed, a culture shock.
They don’t remember the crappy apartment we lived in when they were babies. Even then, I made it a place that felt great to come home to. They only, truly remember the two houses they were raised in, the last being the place I thought I’d grow old in. I thought I’d sit on my bench, on the porch and read Shel Silverstein poetry to my grandchildren the same way I’d done with my son and daughter.
It’s a period of adjustment for all of us. However, I want my children to understand how fortunate they are. Yes, mama lost the house, but we aren’t living with family, we aren’t living in a shelter, we aren’t going without food, shelter, or love. We’re just going without the things WE considered necessities. Things like, internet access, cable, cabinet space, and room to get away from the family that we need to be clinging to right now.
Now is the time for us to truly become a family unit that spends more quality time together as opposed to all being in separate rooms doing separate things and watching separate televisions. Now is the time to say, ‘HEY, no televisions in the bedrooms, not even mine. No eating in the living room. Lets all eat at the table together while music plays instead of NBC, ABC, and CBS being our mealtime entertainment. Let’s just be…together…making lemonade out of the lemons being pelted at us right now.’ Let’s be happy and continue to praise GOD through it all. We can handle this. As long as we believe, when we look back on this time, we will see one set of footprints in the sand instead of four…He carries us, even when we feel abandoned.
This morning, as I drove to work, I thought about the irony of my situation. At the age of nineteen, I moved into the very apartment complex that I have now left my house for. This was my first venture out on my own and as a nineteen year old, I saw that my entire life was spread in front of me just waiting to happen. God has brought me back to the beginning. He has brought me full circle. He is giving me a do-over and this time, I get to show my children how to receive the blessings that are waiting for them if they just smile and see the joy our situation.
My name is Ebony Farashuu and these have been the Random Thoughts of a Black Butterfly…
Saturday, June 5, 2010
I DON'T WANT ANY MORE!
There are a wide range of emotions that one goes through when dealing with a break up. The hows and whys come into play. Despair, Anger, Hopelessness, are all feelings that take over sometimes before you can find peace. During the past week I have gone through so many emotions that today...I just feel like I have to share. No matter what we go through, there is someone out there who needs to know they are not alone. I know that I will NEVER go backwards because all i have to do is remember the words he said to me and the way he looked at me the last time we were together. My mind knows that I deserve much better, I'm just waiting on my heart to get with the program. I wear my heart on my pen and when I feel my emotions taking over, I write them down, get them out, and pray that my experiences will help someone else...surely I don't go through this without some ultimate purpose in the end. Below you will find the poetry i have written over the past week as i deal with my emotions...
The Broken Circle: Reflection, Recollection, Recognition
5/31/10
Broken #1
Lock my mind
Make the past fade to black…
Fate snacks on my heart and eats my soul for dinner
Drinks of my love and bathes in a river of my tears
My fears are but an appetizer for the one who terrorizes feeds upon my anguish
As I languish in a bed of salt...
Burning my wounds…
Cauterizing them with self-doubt…
What is it about me that caused this?
I wish I could rewind my life and pause this
Scene that keeps replaying in my head…
I’ve looked at it from every angle
There’s no clarity
Instead…
I see one who controls and one who refuses to be controlled
No longer able to deny the truth
My heart cannot be consoled
Broken #2
My body is a temple
I allowed him to worship
The courtship was fast
The emotions ran deep
His standards were too steep
And yet I climbed until my fingers were bloodied
Put band-aids on my boo boos and ignored the pain
Because the incidents were few and far between
Verbally cut, my ears ooze from the infection
The inflection in his voice let me know that I was nothing unless I pleased him…
The affection he caressed me with let me know it was alright to tease him…
But the moment I voiced an opinion or thought that didn’t appease him
Led to the verbal bullets that eventually caused me to release him…
Broken #3
Peace, be still
The truth is a bitter pill
Best swallowed with wine
Today I dine alone with my sorrow
Knowing tomorrow brings a new day with new possibilities.
An epiphany as I write off the top of my head
Instead of curling up in my bed
And placing myself in a fetal position…
The God in me won’t make the admission that my life is over
For each death, be it physically, mentally, or spiritually
Only makes room for the Birth of a new me…
The tomb of my heart will one day open
And my love will be resurrected…
Directed towards one who can handle what I have to give
Without verbal crucifixion
That affliction has nothing to do with me…
Still Can’t Sleep
6/1/10
Sleep escapes me
My mind debates the
Reasons…
All things have a season
And my spring became winter too soon after the fall.
UNTAMED6/3/10
Untamed
I can’t be blamed
For the words that are coming outta my mouth…
Love life went South
Broken hearted
Dearly departed
Never finished what we started
For a reason…
He marinated my love in his juices
Seasoned my mind with his special blend
Until the bitter taste caused an end
To the tumultuous dish called “we”
Tip-toed around it
My high was grounded
Buzz killed
Instead filled
My papers
With that spiritual “ooh wee”
Took a toke and said
“I’m just gon do me”
Cuz my tongue can’t be tamed
And I can’t be blamed
For the words that are comin’ outta my mouth…
Love Is…
6/4/10
Love is a vacuum that sucks your soul
Takes something whole
And shatters it with a sledge hammer.
Love breaks your heart.
Love fills your mind
With the illusion of forever
And yet the final conclusion is that
Love makes you believe in love
And then convinces you that love doesn’t exist.
Love tears you apart.
I need a midol
Cuz love is cramping my style
Walked into it with the giddiness of a child
But ran out of it like a war ravaged vet
With
Post traumatic stress
My mind is under duress
I’m tired…
Love is exhausting
Haunting you in your dreams
And taunting you in your awakened state.
Love takes everything and gives nothing in return
I’ve grown so weary of the burn…
Love cremates your trust
places it in an urn
and asks you to snort the dust.
love is cocaine…
and I’m checking into rehab…
Love is unapologetic
It’s a genetic defect
That infects us when our immunity is low
And our tolerance for pain is high
I
Don’t
Want
No
More.
Love is something I’ve grown to hate.
The Broken Circle: Reflection, Recollection, Recognition
5/31/10
Broken #1
Lock my mind
Make the past fade to black…
Fate snacks on my heart and eats my soul for dinner
Drinks of my love and bathes in a river of my tears
My fears are but an appetizer for the one who terrorizes feeds upon my anguish
As I languish in a bed of salt...
Burning my wounds…
Cauterizing them with self-doubt…
What is it about me that caused this?
I wish I could rewind my life and pause this
Scene that keeps replaying in my head…
I’ve looked at it from every angle
There’s no clarity
Instead…
I see one who controls and one who refuses to be controlled
No longer able to deny the truth
My heart cannot be consoled
Broken #2
My body is a temple
I allowed him to worship
The courtship was fast
The emotions ran deep
His standards were too steep
And yet I climbed until my fingers were bloodied
Put band-aids on my boo boos and ignored the pain
Because the incidents were few and far between
Verbally cut, my ears ooze from the infection
The inflection in his voice let me know that I was nothing unless I pleased him…
The affection he caressed me with let me know it was alright to tease him…
But the moment I voiced an opinion or thought that didn’t appease him
Led to the verbal bullets that eventually caused me to release him…
Broken #3
Peace, be still
The truth is a bitter pill
Best swallowed with wine
Today I dine alone with my sorrow
Knowing tomorrow brings a new day with new possibilities.
An epiphany as I write off the top of my head
Instead of curling up in my bed
And placing myself in a fetal position…
The God in me won’t make the admission that my life is over
For each death, be it physically, mentally, or spiritually
Only makes room for the Birth of a new me…
The tomb of my heart will one day open
And my love will be resurrected…
Directed towards one who can handle what I have to give
Without verbal crucifixion
That affliction has nothing to do with me…
Still Can’t Sleep
6/1/10
Sleep escapes me
My mind debates the
Reasons…
All things have a season
And my spring became winter too soon after the fall.
UNTAMED6/3/10
Untamed
I can’t be blamed
For the words that are coming outta my mouth…
Love life went South
Broken hearted
Dearly departed
Never finished what we started
For a reason…
He marinated my love in his juices
Seasoned my mind with his special blend
Until the bitter taste caused an end
To the tumultuous dish called “we”
Tip-toed around it
My high was grounded
Buzz killed
Instead filled
My papers
With that spiritual “ooh wee”
Took a toke and said
“I’m just gon do me”
Cuz my tongue can’t be tamed
And I can’t be blamed
For the words that are comin’ outta my mouth…
Love Is…
6/4/10
Love is a vacuum that sucks your soul
Takes something whole
And shatters it with a sledge hammer.
Love breaks your heart.
Love fills your mind
With the illusion of forever
And yet the final conclusion is that
Love makes you believe in love
And then convinces you that love doesn’t exist.
Love tears you apart.
I need a midol
Cuz love is cramping my style
Walked into it with the giddiness of a child
But ran out of it like a war ravaged vet
With
Post traumatic stress
My mind is under duress
I’m tired…
Love is exhausting
Haunting you in your dreams
And taunting you in your awakened state.
Love takes everything and gives nothing in return
I’ve grown so weary of the burn…
Love cremates your trust
places it in an urn
and asks you to snort the dust.
love is cocaine…
and I’m checking into rehab…
Love is unapologetic
It’s a genetic defect
That infects us when our immunity is low
And our tolerance for pain is high
I
Don’t
Want
No
More.
Love is something I’ve grown to hate.
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