(feb 21 2014) "don't stray away from your obsessions"

i am sitting at the table with one of my friends, surrounded by eleven white canvasses.

the other black girl speaks first.
(i am too afraid to say anything--i feel as if you could be my father.)

you speak of your life as an artist in dc, of spending the early years of your writing career in the bookstore/restaurant/performance space that i went to a couple months ago, where i met the man without an age. (i'll try to forget his memory in you.)

i think you're as averse to making eye contact as i am--brown skin avoiding brown eyes. half of your responses are spoken to the table--your entire reading last night was slightly muffled by the pages of your books. i've begun to notice little things in your speech patterns. like whenever you say the word "human" it sounds as if you say it with a "y," as if constantly referring to the most personal part of us--
youman.

you say you like to do readings with another person--you read two poems, they read two more--a sort of call and response.

you don't watch television anymore, a modern day thoreau finding tranquility and inner semblance in the symphonies of the streets. white critics paint you the portrait of the artist as a negro, composing hip hop in the margins, leaving kinky strands woven through stanzas. i applaud you for striving to confront their bias, for striving to break the mold.

you are a black man who listens to regina spektor, reads comics and the occasional volume of manga and i could be the magical girl for you.

i'll be your "literary love slave."

you went to catholic school which really fascinates me because i love biblical imagery in creative work (not to mention you decided to equate clitorises to the holy grail, praying with your tongue on every bead of our rosary parts).

thank you for praising saul williams. thank you for saying "nigger" without flinching in front of this mixed community. thank you.

you say that hip hop utilizes mostly internal rhyme rather than end rhymes. unconsciously, i realize that i do this a lot. hip hop flows through our veins.

you spoke of the gentrification of dc but these are all twentysomething hipster writers--gentrification is in their DNA. their past, present and futures are tales of the threat of perpetual colonization.

you are trying to combat the patriarchy one poem at a time.

thank you.