For Nina Simone

I wish I could say I knew how it feels to be free

I wish I could fly till tired – and like a bird, settle in a tree

I wish I could say my tits are so big because I breastfed too long

Two and a half years pulling stretches tits out

Maybe so big from eating chickens force-fed hormones,

I think my problem is memory rot, because I have trouble focusing

I need a friend to stick with me through thick and thin

Literally, physically, emotionally, mentally, lean and leaner

both metaphorically and literally,

A special friend who will give me what I need

Who will be there when need

When I do deeds that make me feel alone

Who will be there for me as we agreed?

Someone to stand beside me when I succeed

Someone to be near when I fail but tried

Stand there with me while I wish they’d chosen me

But realize when it was time to pick

They didn’t pick me

I stood there under their watchful gaze, hoping,
yet knowing they won’t choose me

I’m not who you think I am,

The one you see with bright smiling gaze, nothing fazes her,

Turns her back fearlessly on hazing, moving in stride

I go it alone day after day

Like I’m in another time zone in the artic zone

I want a friend to see me through thick and thin

So please look the other way

Don’t say what you think you see because you can’t see me

Turning stones with my last breath I cry out friend!

There you are

Stand there beside me

I want a friend to see me through thick and thin

To understand my moans, use me

to help me chase away the blues that plague me –

Chase those blues away with surety like night fades to day –

I want a friend to see me through thick and thin

A friend who can give and take

Take generosity turns

I need a friend to be there when I let go, 

when I can’t hit high notes that sing songs to my heart

Need to play to know better days ahead

When your lips speak lies, I'll hold my head high

I need a friend to heal my blues – chase them away

Help me see sunny days, forget mud slinging out of tune

Songs that have no rhythm or rhyme to my heart of gold

Take this heart of gold and make it mine

I want a friend to see me through thick and thin

Make a shrine to this golden heart of mine

Tripping The Light Psychosis

I’m going to start writing narrative poetry again because they say they don’t understand my poetry anymore, I’m not writing poems, I’m writing songs. People rarely get me because I’m always so off tune. I heard a few new stories about myself today, so many people telling stories. I wonder why so many stories are untrue and always unkind.

My neighbor said, “Hey let me share what people are saying about you. Many people living here say you’re very unstable, like Ms. Humble on two says this is true about you. I try to explain you’re just a little different, that your mind is very good and it’s not true you’re unstable. I tell them you worked hard all your life so you can collect a pension and how could they think someone unstable could think that one through. I know though, it took a lot of planning and calculation, but they don’t want to hear it.

Their minds are already made up, “Unstable,” you’re labeled. They say you’re really not very sane; you don’t do things the right way. I point out that you’ve been able to thrive, you calculate interventions, and you’re savvy to the system you survived. They see how colorful you are so they judge you by the colors you wear and are blind to your capability. They don’t see you know how to face adversity. They define you as flighty.

They judge you by their own veracity. They can’t see who you really are.

I am tired of this same old story. Well, better stop telling them then I say to my supposed friend. They can’t hear if they refuse to listen.

I’ll always be an outcast. What can I do? I keep making amends and trying to make new friends.

Leave me alone to sing my blues, tone deaf and off tune, alone, singing my blues.

Sally Is Dead!

I should have known how wrong things were when she rang my bell suddenly at midnight on a day before work. I didn’t know what to do and at first considered not ringing her in. I hadn’t heard from her for at least ten years. I rang her up and tried to make short work of it but spent over an hour listening to her repeat the same sentences, sometimes as many as three times. I knew something was amiss but couldn’t figure it out. I wondered if my old friend had Alzheimer's. Sally was only 43. How could she have Alzheimer’s? It seemed strange that she would repeat sentences I told her and act like it was the first time she asked the question. I gently asked her, “Sally, don’t you recall? We just said this same thing 20 minutes ago. Realizing that it was now going on 1 a.m., I told Sally I had to get up at 6 for work the next day and escorted her to the front of my building both of us promising to keep in touch. After many unanswered calls, I ran into John, her ex-husband, in front of the hospital where he’d worked for 25 years. It was 10 p.m. He sat there calmly eating a sandwich in his blue scrubs, chatting with a co-worker.

“How’s Sally?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear?” John responded.

“Hear what?”

“Sally’s dead.”

“Dead from what?” I asked surprised.

“She died in her apartment about a month ago. She’d been dead at least a week and neighbors noticed the smell.”

“She visited me two months ago and I hadn’t seen her for years,” I said. “She showed up at midnight.”

John laughed. “That would be Sally,” he said. “No one could handle being around her anymore. Even our daughters moved in with me.”

“I didn’t know that. How old are they?”

“Stephanie started college this fall and she’s 18. Brenda is 23 and just graduated Queens College.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “How did Sally die?”

“Sally just stopped eating and going out. She was found on her bed. They said it was death through starvation.”

“Oh my God! Just starved herself to death just like that?”

“She said she was too fat and needed to diet. She used to come here on my lunch hour and sit here with me while I ate my sandwich. She did it at least once a week.”

“Yes she told me too she’d gotten too fat but she didn’t seem too fat. Maybe she could’ve stood to lose 15 or 20 pounds. She had no one else in her life?”

“Her mother died some time ago. Her grandmother is gone too. There was no one left. I guess that’s why she used to come here to sit with me. She had no one else in her life.”

“No one knew how desperate she was?”

“We were all used to her eccentricity. When she showed up here a month ago and said she was starting a new diet, we figured, here goes Sally again, off on a new spin.”

“No one saw how ill she was,” I said, “not even me. I saw she repeated herself over and over but I didn’t suspect things were that bad that she’d starve herself to death in seclusion.”

We said our goodbyes and I left wondering if there was anything I could have done to prevent her death. I knew her mom had been institutionalized when Sally was a child and we used to hang out at her grandma’s apartment. I remember we visited her mom together in the institution. Her mom never left the hospital except once for a visit. I remember grandma made us matching dresses in a beautiful stretch nylon sleeveless with a round neck and knee length. Sally’s dress was gold, burnt sienna and brown diamond patterned and mine was blue, turquoise and green diamond shaped pattern. I remember because it was the first really pretty sexy dress I had clinging to all my curves. Back then I wore a size 34 size A bra and had a 25 inch waist. I weighed 125 pounds. Sally weighed 115 and had brown gold eyes and a heart shaped face. I introduced her to her husband. She married him when she turned 17 and was pregnant with her first child.

I sit here today, 18 years later, remembering Sally and wondering if anything could have prevented her death. I miss Sally too as she was my first true friend.

 Sally took this pic of me in the dress her grandma made for me when we were 14 years old.

FRIEND’S INFATUATION

Hands on her hips she tested me, “Don’t tell me you didn’t know he was watching you.”

“No,” I replied, how would I know? It’s not like I walk around room to room with a guide telling me there’s a spy nearby.
“No, No, I really didn’t know.” I shook my head vigorously emphasizing the obvious.

“Oh man girlfriend, don’t ya’ know? It’s like they selling tickets there- say you freaky and all.”

F R E A K Y – YOU GOT ME GIRL THAT’S WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU.

“Wow no, I never suspected anyone of watching me with binoculars from a nearby rooftop – no I suppose it never occurred to me I never assumed that men were hiding lying down on a nearby rooftop to spy on me on the off chance that if they’re there at a particular time when I happen to stroll by naked they lie there waiting with binoculars in a trance like an audience, hmm no I honestly never considered this ... “

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“OK,” I said “Don’t believe me, it’s still true anyway whether you believe me or not. I don’t care what you say; I don’t need your approval. It’s not like you’re my best friend either and since your boyfriend dumped you; you hang around me all day flirting and smoking pot with my bf . Now you pretend you’re my friend - bring this news that you’re on list of a few people who buy tickets on a nearby rooftop to catch a glimpse of me naked.
If these people are your friends I wonder why you’re here when you already saw what you came for. What do you want?”

“I want you to hang non see through blinds on each window,” she said.

“Oh OK you’re looking out for me, you’re my friend. Why don’t you hang those shades then, I’ll buy them - you hang ‘em.”

“Me, come’on! I don’t know shit about hanging shades.”

“Neither do I missy but I’ll go getta’ hammer and nails and hang a dark blanket. It’s always about money. Either I get a new blanket or shades. Blanket’s cheaper but they got you either way.

Now tell me Patricia, just one last time, did you buy a ticket to see me too? Tell me the truth Ewww, Patricia! Yuk! Why’d you wanna do’dat?”

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know

Don’t know who knows don’t know anyone who does believe me I don’t understand