Brandelyn: Lyrical Contradiction

A List: Totally inspired by an exchange with Mr. Washington

1. Its 7:45 on a Monday night and I’m warm.
2. My mind is full of thoughts but mostly daydreams. Possibilities. Unfulfilled fantasies and thoughts that make me smile. And think.
3. I realized that everyday for just one minute, for an entire 60 seconds, I believe that each thought in my head is real and I will find that place where I am free happy and content.
4. I have been searching for something lately. I pause every now and then, wrapping myself up in the words, the poetry, the melody of anyone who seems to be searching for the same thing and stumbled upon a moment of clarity I haven’t been able to touch yet, so I sit in their words, their poems, their paintings, their moves and allow their clarity to sprinkle over me like a clue on the map leading to the buried treasure.
1. I don’t even know what to call it
2. Its not love, I have plenty of that. Tons of it even, whether I acknowledge it or not, its there. So no, its not a quest for love that I am on
3. Its not peace. I have peace. I feel it every time I am walking through Oakland and I am looking up at the clouds and the sky and the breeze touches my face and runs its fingers through my hair and all I can possibly do is feel alive, yeah, I know what peace feels like and I have enough of it to hold it in my pocket and let my fingers play with it on a rainy day
5. I am not always content. I am not always settled and comfortable. I am very impulsive. Mentally packing as we speak…ready to pick up and leave, but my maturity and faith is telling me to be patient and wait. But why do I feel like I’m not living? Merely existing for the sake of stability.
6. My soul has always been free. Constantly wandering, wondering what I am missing outside when I am in, inside when I am out
7. I really can’t say that the grass is always greener cause I don’t even like grass, or the color green for that matter
8. What is this thing that make my mind dream and makes my pen stretch out for dear life
9. Right now I feel totally free. Laying on my living room floor, unaware of anything other than this moment
10. I adore being abstract
1. For so long I lived a ridiculously structured life
2. Planned, careful, steady
11. Joshua gave me a challenge tonight. Raw, naked, honesty, that pokes holes in these words I constantly try to hide behind
12. I accept
13. I never really understood that I was free to be honest and raw with my words because I am a Christian. I believe in God, I have a relationship with God. Its real and important to me and so are His Promises, but I was also told that because of this belief I have to behave a certain way, look a certain way and be a certain way, and only now am I discovering who I am, in God. Honestly and truly appreciating the woman He has called me to be with all of my big wild red hair, loud laugh, and bright colors. I am starting to break free from expectation and discover
14. I’m original. Fresh. Unique. AND I love Jesus. I think that’s awesome
15. I am content and creative with how I phrase things
16. I am a thinker who finds herself to be rather lovely in her authenticity. Anxious to get my thoughts out onto the page, even if my handwriting has to suffer for it. I can’t apologize
17. I feel new now
18. I miss conversations with people who knew that Hurston and Wright were literary enemies and the Harlem Renaissance consisted of so much more than the brilliance of Langston Hughes and that the Color Purple was a book before it was a movie
1. and that The Color Purple was not Alice Walker’s first book
2. The Third Life of Grange Copeland was her first novel and is absolutely my favorite book of all time.
3. That means something to me
4. Alice Walker Means something to me
5. I hope I get the change to tell her that
6. Wait…Alice Walker has a copy of my book… DANG.
7. I have a book, 3 actually, and Alice Walker owns a copy of it. *Pause
19. Pop Culture doesn’t interest me, but I am huge fan of Glee
20. I think about the end, instead of the present and the future. I think about my legacy. All the time
21. I miss running and trying to chase the sun in a field of grass as it floated above me playing hide and seek with the clouds
22. I am ashamed of my innocence. Ashamed of the version (virgin) I display now. Begging to be the bad girl that torments me in my dreams. She peeks and waves at me from behind smoky eyes, hair shaved, head cocked to the side. I look at here and see no boundaries and wonder what that feels like. To dance through life like a ballerina on point.
23. I dream of him almost every night now. Mostly because his evening ends with my voice on his phone and mine ends with a smile.
1. Poetry break: Loving you
   Is like taking a tight bra off
   At the end of a long day.
   I cant explain it
   But it feels good
2. Haiku#21
   Overacting
   Is simply part of my charm
   It makes me love hard
24. This is probably the most honest I’ve been with myself in a long time.
1. Evidence of my growth is the simple fact that I am even posting this
2. My journal doesn’t seem big enough to contain my dreams anymore
25. Why?
26. Me. I’m really starting to like her