I love you like the smell of rain before it falls

@ Jodie-Ann Geddes, 2012

I don't want to write poems anymore
I want to say some shit that's true
Something that will make people respond with curled lips and a sigh
No snapping fingers
The only melody to my words should be a conversation with you
Please refrain from astonished thank yous'
I am not a poet
I write poetry 
I hurt the way language needs to be studied


It is easy to forget
Who you are
Where you are from
Where you desire to go
@ Jodie-Ann Geddes, 2012 

Memory Association piece

Archaic, dusty, faded
You're nothing but a memory
Glass in the shape of cartridges
I want to ride you like Mario rides Yoshi
Find me a golden star
Open the door to innocence after you rescue the frog

Restart
Press X to select

Ancient or Enlightened
They are each one and the same
Never enough memory to fit your heart into
Always deleting another requiem to build new shapes
Like triangles and squares
Nothing round enough to pump the words to twinkle, twinkle
never reaching (star)
Forgotten how green you shine
I've never beaten you b4
The cheat codes don't work in real life
@Jodie-Ann Geddes, 2010

We can't love love the way it needs to be loved
Like petals falling atop a river basin
Frogs flipping Lily pads

We love like a composite hit and run
A premature arsonist
The crumpled and used napkin under the 2 train bench

The love is evil and bursting like a shooting star
Fearing of no one and is always confident
It does not get nervous but it feels resistant and uncontrollable

I want to love you without the needle trimming the outline of our music box trying to fix itself
@ Jodie-Ann Geddes, 2012

There is love in all that I do

My heart is a trunk submerged in mud

Digging its way through like a baby birds beak

Stuck in a place it doesn’t belong

Sometimes I feel like I’m better than the world

They don’t care enough 

Weak and insensitive beings

There's passion in all that I do

There is love in my anguish

Love in my tears

And love in my trunk

Sinking into the roots of the earth I am waiting for a leaf to fall and lay its falling pieces onto my branches

Friendship bracelt and a letter

Tie me onto your wrist

Take me everywhere you wish to go

I am not afraid of traveling roads with you

I give you permission to sweat, shower, and wipe your tears with my thousand threads

If I unravel in the midst of your confusion lay me in a safe place

The same place you keep objects without wings waiting to be born again

I have a rampant midnight spur of the moment words of confusion for you to decipher

I mean all that I say

I hope you feel what I mean

I won’t lay myself down with you and whisper in your ear at the same time

I want to take all the time I can get with you

I am afraid there will not be enough for us

I choose to give you these gifts separately

What kind of writer are you?
The dark corner with acidic tears
Cracked floorboard ready to collapse
Ghost writer in the booth
What kind of writer are you?

I have been searching for a way out but I haven't changed my route. I am still writing what and feel and the way I know best, through poetry. Although I feel comfortable with this method there is still this part of me reaching to find the perfect line. That line that everyone feels and has said to themselves once upon on a time but it still has a profound effect. A statement that in its simplicity captures a lifetime of wide smiles and heavy frowns. I want to give myself fully to the fruitful world. I don't want to pick from the apple tree but I want to plan coconut trees.
For those of you who are consistent followers of mine, I hope that you continue to follow my work. I am inconsistent and a sporadic busy body but I would like to still stay connected with you. I will try my best to post poems when the shaking of my hand touches the page.
I got  Tumblr and still don't post or keep it up consistently. ha!

I was asked to write a podcast on diversity for my Change, innovation, and Impact course. The issue I choose to write about has recently surfaced through interactions with a close friend. I hope by posting this, a conversation can begin that is truthful and engaging. I will not give you a summary before hand so with that being said, read and comment! 

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When many think of culture they see race and color but for me culture is much more than this. I think that the word diversity expounds upon what it means to exist in union with different forms of people. 

I remember coming to America and there was this preconceived notion about a world called foreign by many Jamaicans. When I arrived I was taken by the sights and lights that blinked in front of my eyes. There were people everywhere and it was so congested. After a few months I began to adjust but I still felt out of place. I can remember the coming of Black history month and I think that the month of February is what always sticks with me when I think about diversity. In Jamaica I have no recollection of Black being a main identifier; upon being present in America I did not see myself as black. I believe that I assumed that being Jamaican encompassed being Black and African- American.

In my later adolescent years I began to realize that there were multiple ways of identifying one’s self. There were Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, and etc. yes, I learned of all this in my schooling but it wasn’t as apparent as the way it was when I arrived in the states. I began to become a form of blackness that I observed in my neighborhood; this was the struggling single parent household and Jordan wearing young women. This way of seeing the world was not one that was allowing me to understand who I was and why I felt so excluded. I was called an Oreo and many assumed that I was assimilating to a white culture. I am in no way putting the blame of my own self expression onto those in my community but highlighting a lack of understanding. My association to Blackness was not based on the immense love I felt for my community but the struggle I examined.  Though this may have not been the right way to identify with those that I looked like, I am now able to look back and see all that different shades of my people. These shades aren’t just limited to race but so many other forms of being. With that being said, all I could see was the assortment of color, not who people were. My mom does not call herself Black, she calls herself Jamaican. It hurts me to know that the men and women who share such a distinct history with me aren’t engaging in storytelling with me. I want to know what it is like to be a Black American and I would like the chance to tell what it is like to be a Jamaican woman in America.

My analysis of self shows a misunderstanding of the world that can keep culture intact but also cause a separation within another. I am in between two hurt cultures trying to find a middle group for love and rehabilitation.

I am a black Jamaican, Maroon, African-American searching for who I am, not based on the color of my skin but my experiences. Please do not judge me, let's speak.

Here to Stay

November has been the last time I have posted something. I have however been finding more truth in my words. I currently attending school in Greensboro, I may or have not have mentioned this before. I have had the chance to hear some amazing poetry. The form of storytelling that slam takes on in the 'Boro, has been very significant in my quest to move from seeing slam as a horrible breakup in one essence. I able to find that middle ground between theatrical and humane. I will soon post some of my new writings and as always, thanks for continuing to read my many tales.

I have seen empty bodies roaming the streets like left over Chef Boyardee
Layers of meat and flesh sliding alongside one another
And no matter how hard I try to prepare the meal there are some parts that stick to the side of the bowl like names on side walks and candle wax in between dripping on fresh flowers because this one is an early death
The smell of tomato sauce escapes me like the first time I saw snow and labor day when the bloc used to resemble home
Flags waiving from street signs ans light post
not a speck of red white, and blue
The beat of our hearts drumming folk songs and correcting our mistakes
We once used drums and campfire silhouettes to deliver obligations
Now we confine one another to metal bars and stack ourselves in the middle passage
We don't know how to be humans and I don't blame you

Don't let the world package you like something microwavable
Your spirit is too vast to be seen through a hole
They still wonder how it is that when thrown into something you don't own you can still burn like fire
Warn the world that your shadow is trying to escape your body to remind your spirit that there is a home hiding in your rib cage
Do not bound your hands across you body when the air in your lungs traps the sound in your voice like a whupping cushion
You are a human
Fighter
Triumph
You are love

Your dark hands release from the pockets of air kept in the corner of the block
Embrace her shoulders standing tall like pillars and drop the pistol 

LOOK OUT FOR THE MIXTAPE!!!

I think this comes close to reflecting my current state of writing

I want to make it through the mazes in my heart w/o hitting a wall

Graffiti my insecurities in the pavement

It should be a crime to not feel beautiful

Like Enough

To doubt

I keep trying to write something perfect

Perfection hides the truth

Suppresses the depression

Living a divided life

I hate it when my feelings don’t reflect my actions

I want to say something without meaning something different

10 things I want to say to a Black woman

Cornel West and Al Sharpton

I agree with Cornel West when he addresses the hesitantion many are hold in terms of challenging Obama because he is Black; however I also agree with Al Sharpton that there is a fear inside many of those people. I see both issues of fear and race as interconnected themes.

The silence in me

There is a stammering silence inside of me
Repeating to itself mistakes with deep breaths of exhaustion
[puh]
There is a separation in my throat and the words are stifling itself
Is the life I have been living my own
Is it one that covers my indiscretions and disappointments

The silence tells me who I am so I choose to speak
I choose to block that heart that beats
The nervous feeling that takes me on a path to freedom
[puh]
I am living through my frustrations
I am forced to confront things
If there are no problems where does my purpose lie

I am often faced with this silence in increments
While I'm running through the woods
[Not for fun]
Rolling my neck in the shower
And the awkward moment that I try saying my prayers and then the worries of the world begin to invade my mind
I think the the light sometimes enters my body

I am silent
The silence is speaking
I am silent

Turtle Doves

If tonight is my last I would ask if you wanted to sneak into the auditorium of 390
Where the the piano keys are waiting for your fingerprints to touch it again
Where the seat I sat in is waiting to absorb the sweat from my buttocks
I sweat when I get nervous
[But you already know that]
When the cocoons in my chest burst unfold butterflies in my stomach

I would watch you play the same song you played that day
We were the only two that knew that Stevie was dreaming of a love like ours when he hummed that melody
When the liberty bell in his heart shattered when he saw us letting go
We are closer than a mother and a fetus
Than a autistic artist that can paint every detail of a city after flying over it one
We are unexplainable

I know that I have always loved you
And you will always love me
When I decide it is time to tear my soul apart from my limbs
I know that you will let me
Not because misery loves company
But because you will be here to catch me

I would pretend to be sexy while laying on the piano
You'll laugh and tell me that I looked sexier and more beautiful while trying to stop my ass bone from catching a splinter from the wooden auditorium chair
I would resort to that night I cried for over eight hours and you can still remember what every tear sounded like
What every word felt like
And I can remember how I tried so hard for you to see the cracks I saw in me

You couldn't

I would tell you that there are a few secrets that I have left locked in a pouch waiting for you to hold on to in remembrance of me
I want you know everything about me
I know that you would tell me that you know everything
Not what you need to know

Madea Goes to Jail

Her body laid broken on the wrinkled twin sheets
Her tears reflected the empty stained picture frames that laid hallow on her father's vanity
He was too selfish to see her cries for help
How bad she wanted to fit in
Separate from the material items, money, and straight hair she only wanted him to be her friend
The hood had been standing silent for years
There was still a spirit the Black on their skin shared

"I needed you and you weren't there [...]"

Where was the dark face she cried for when the sweat from their bodies mixed like a Black sunset with her's
When they thrust something ugly and molded inside her sculpted and beautiful vagina
Her body stood scattered and dismantled on the twin bed
She glanced at her lingering ghost hanging on the sheets
He cried alone and spoke apologies in his head
They say she had problems before the rape ever occurred
She was called a victim before she ever knew it
Before the system labeled her

She's a woman Black and folded into stories of Black womanhood
Four virtues left non existent
We stain easily but seize to break even when every bone has been broken more than once
Spine a painted collage illustrating Black women's history
Our hands still remain beautiful when cradling the blood dripping from our middle passage
Holding the Black boys face
Embracing the dust and smell from printed pages
And in the way we raise our fist

There are still pieces of you lingering in the air
The trickle of your sweat still degrading in the grass
Your fingerprints digging deeper impressions into the walls
There is still that shade of Black roaming in the gym and your words are still thriving in my bones
There will always be a moment I shed a tear for you [for myself]

I wear the V-neck you left behind sometimes
As my sweat stains the armpits and pushes the cotton fibers further away from my curves

I hope that you are moving simultaneously with it
I want to forget you but I want you to remember me
Not my name or who I ever was but the way you felt my spirit holding you over the edge
The way I took air from your lungs and gave you life
I want to tell you that there is still friendship in my heart for you
I want to capture your smile in a song
The way a song captures the pain of our darkness no matter how distant the words may be

Write by Kahlia Roberts

Why am I told,
Write poetry, Write poetry,
Write something?

Why am I commanded to Write?
It is so much more sacred than that.
Poetry must flow.
It cannot be induced,
But must be felt,
Must be born,

As of all writing,
And all things.

Write, write, write!
It is a process, unstructured,
And is based on living, not
Doing.

We the scribes and writers,
We must deflect or words
To our hearts,
And our souls must fly and
float, simultaneously –
For any true literature to be Born.

Write, write, write!
It is a process, unstructured,
And one cannot rush birth –
It must be loved,
And cultivated gently,
And then, like a flower, like a soul,
It blooms.

Write, write, write.
In the calm, in the
pulse,

Write.

I feel like this sometimes when something is blocking my mind and heart and there feels like there is no time to sit and write because it is being forced out of me.

Skinny girls also want to be thin

I hate when people make remark about how thin I am
And when I complain about eating ice creme they tell me how they once had a few more years on them
These love handles can just as easily illustrate pictures of the playground you cried on
Fog your bathroom mirror like get thin cigarettes draining the color left inside you
I sometimes wish I were thinner
A size 4 isn't good enough when everyone assumes your a size 1
Sometimes I'm afraid to capture a portrait of myself
Afraid that the imperfections I have invested mile runs and sprints into will move to my neck
Beauty is defined by our bodies
I even run to feel beautiful

My Sahara toned skin will never be perfect
I'm a Black woman with a limited amount of shorts
Shaped out by my measurements
A Black woman isn't suppose to be this thin
My rear end is suppose to be the first thing you see
Its hard to distinguish the times we have faced forward
Many are still bowling with our chest
The box springs of the ring are pushing us back and forth like windshield wipers

My black isn't thin enough
My Black isn't curvy enough
My Black isn't fat enough
My Black isn't woman
I don't know what shape I'm suppose to be
There are no geometric symbols to identify my swaying branches
The whole in my trunk
And the names carved into my age
There are only mainstream hip hop lyrics
Music videos
And reality t.v

I liked it better when our breast hung forward like treasure chest
Cradling pain and pleasure
When we laid backwards on grass to follow the sun
When we were sculpted with natural materials
Not steel instruments
Our margins are so thin brothers can't leave their stories with their thumbs