The Night I Made Love to Toni Morrison

We laid in my queen-sized bed.  I looked at her and she absolutely seduced me.  It was her voice as she spoke those words to me: “Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself.”  She didn’t have to say that she loved me, I could feel her touch.  That very moment she came into my embrace and we made passionate love.

Her silvery locks tickled my soul.  Her fingers made my spine tingle.  It was beautiful, it was not sordid or perverse.  She didn’t judge my performance, at least not to my face, she accepted me.

Now let me clarify, this most intimate interaction between the two of us did not include sexual contact.  I’m old enough to be her son.  But we made love.  She never laid eyes on me, I’m impotent to her prowess.  My feelings of inadequacy are borne of my deep desires to have her approval.

So I was laying there in her presence naked, not because of clothes, but out of a lack of worthiness.  I did not feel worthy to be her contemporary.  Although she is several years younger than my,deceased grandmother, Iris; my feelings are not because of a generational gap.  It is because of her ability to string words, ideas, and themes together in a manner that could only be compared to the climatic arc of the most erotic experiences of a human being.  I want to write like that.

She was in my hands, black and white.  As I began to read the first words of Love: “The women’s legs are spread wide open, so I hum. Men grow irritable, but they know it’s all for them. They relax. Standing by, unable to do anything but watch, is a trial, but I don’t say a word.” I knew that I wanted to learn how to do that.  Write.  I can’t hold a candle to her so why would I even try.

“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.” – Chloe Wofford

Here I go.  I will write, for her, for me, for our love.

Thank you Toni, for the moment in my life that you encouraged me to be your contemporary.

Tribute to Black Women: The Daughters of Dark Sorrow

Today was a big day for me to reflect.  Seems I’ve done quite a bit of that lately. 25 years ago, March was officially recognized in the United States as Women’s History Month.  Now, mind you, prior to March 2, 1974, I never had any contact with a woman (if I was born 40 weeks after conception, March 2, 1974 is the magical day/night)… OK let me space out for a second, I’m a FREAK, and so I’m hoping Big Sam and my fast Mama (for a later post but not what you think) got busy in a car, the Superdome, or in either of their parents’ bed.  OK, where were we? Yeah, that’s right, this post will probably prevent me from ever running for office and winning (unless y’all like skeletons), but the demographic of Homo sapiens that I least trust is WHITE WOMEN – cue CAVE BITCH by Ice Cube f/ Khalid Muhammed.  No, I’m not racist, this is from experience. I do like some white women, and the reason I distrust white women is empirical, historical and ecumenical.  But more than anything, white women are the counterpart of my favorite demographic is that of Black Women. I’ve never met every white woman nor have I met every Black woman, but the truth of the matter is that Black women are the most forgiving, the strongest, and the, *sighs in ecstasy,* most inspirational race and gender combination ever CREATED.  And because of that axiom, I pay tribute to Black Women.

Now, let me confess, I have dated, been involved in a relationship, and fucked non-Black women… I spent time around Lake Minnetonka and I was in a full-blown relationship with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel.  She played golf, she BBQ’d for me every Sunday, and she was cool with me smoking cigars.  The problem with the relationship was that I couldn’t get over the fact that when she was riding me, reverse cow girl, there was a tan line where her thong was… I mean not just a tan line but it was the difference between 2% and Chocolate milk (unless you are in my brain, don’t try to understand).  I would hang out with the Lynx and Mercury and I was embarrassed to bring my girl around.  What was wrong with her, she wasn’t a sister.

I recall the poetry of the rhythmic American poet, AMG, who once stated in the song “Bitch Better Have My Money,” There ain’t nuttin’ like Black pussy on my dick, word to the muthafucka, DJ Quik…”  I know this song is steeped in misogyny, but there is a Black woman somewhere in the world that will forgive me for calling her a BITCH.  Man, hold up, I’m not calling my mother, daughter, sister a bitch, are you crazy?  But if I would have, she would forgive me.  Our mothers walk with grace, accept the bullshit that they endure from Niggas, Wiggas, and Bitches and cook us biscuits in the morning.  Prime example is the FLOTUS, Michelle Robinson Obama.  She was educated in the best schools, she learned game from her brother, she fucks a dude that could fuck YOU or your girl (OK), and is a mother to two beautiful Black daughters.  She loves your kids and she’s, oh yea, the most well-educated first lady in the history of the United States.  And she deals with people calling her a terrorist and anything that you can imagine that would disrespect a Black woman … And what does she do in response: (at least publicly)

C’mon Son… But really, I think of the women that I’ve done wrong and at the end of the day, that’s the reaction I got… I mean, I’ve done some fucked up stuff… I mean, what’s the worst you’ve done? I’ve done worse.  Black women endured the rape, pillage and plunder of their land (I’m talking slavery) and you’ve never seen an insurrection led by a Black woman. (LOOK UP THE WORD INSURRECTION).  But although FLOTUS is the most famous example, I want you to think of a Black woman you know, she will accept your friends and she will forgive your dog ass when neither are expected or necessary.  I’m working on a book that consists of letters to Black women I’ve done wrong, so you’ll over-stand this point when you buy the book… LOL (Shameless Plug).

My favorite erudite once said of Black women:  “but we have, too, a vast group of women of Negro blood who [have] strength of character, cleanness of soul, and unselfish devotion of purpose…”  This is a tribute to my mother.  Carolyn Sonnier raised 4 boys… Her second, the best looking… But seriously, my mom, fought puberty and beat cancer and remains classy.  My father was for all intents and purposes a deadbeat… (nah he wasn’t that bad) but nigga didn’t pay child support (I still love my late Father but this ain’t about him) and my mom worked her ass off to get us out the projects into a small ass house.  My younger brother’s dad (my former step dad)  beat the shit out of my mom… I remember well… I couldn’t be more than 7 or 8.  I never saw a beating that bad before or since. Fuck, the memories… But my mom, I can’t remember her missing a beat (we left).  My baby brother’s dad was a pure alcoholic… He wasn’t abusive but he was soon, gone (I’ve wondered if that was the catalyst of the aforementioned ass whoppin) – NO EXCUSE.  I know that now but that was the thought of a pre-teen thinker.  She remarried again and won the prize with a bona fide crack head.  I mean he’d come home late Friday night (every one) drinking all the milk in the house *Kanye shrug* with lips swollen and have the nerve to claim he got robbed or some other lame ass excuse.  What I remember is what I remember.  I remember my mom, teaching me how to play football.  I remember my mom getting off of work and going to a second job.  I remember my mom contemplating suicide while I feigned sleep on the sofa.  I remember her sacrificing simple pleasures for herself to send me to New Orleans to debate in high school.  So forgive me if I’m impressed by Black women, look at my example.  She is my rock and even today she’ll send me a text “Good Morning Handsome, just thinking about you…” just when it’s needed.

No I also mentioned the erotic excitement Black women.  No I’m not going Oedipus on you.  I’m talking about every other Black woman out there.  When I lived in DC, Craig (my big brotha from anotha) and I used to play this game, we’d walk down the street and one of us would yell out, “Say something nice about her!”  She was always Black but she didn’t always conform to the Cosmopolitan view of beauty.  However, it could be a smile, it could be how she walked, it could be how she just looked nurturing… all signs of beauty that I submit is a quality innate to Black females.

In this month of March that is dedicated to Women in general, let me give a SHOUT OUT to all my BEAUTIFUL BLACK WOMEN… I love you and I SALUTE YOU… The Sorrow that you have seen has done nothing to change your status with me.  The Darkness of your skin comforts me in my times of absence of light… this paradox is reconciled by the fact that I see your beauty from the inside out.  So as W.E.B. DuBois penned in the Damnation of Women:

“For this, their promise, and for their hard past, I honor the women of my race. Their beauty,—their dark and mysterious beauty of midnight eyes, crumpled hair, and soft, full-featured faces—is perhaps more to me than to you, because I was born to its warm and subtle spell; but their worth is yours as well as mine. No other women on earth could have emerged from the hell of force and temptation which once engulfed and still surrounds black women in America with half the modesty and womanliness that they retain… I have known and seen and lived beside them, but none have I known more sweetly feminine, more unswervingly loyal, more desperately earnest, and more instinctively pure in body and in soul than the daughters of my black mothers. This, then,—a little thing—to their memory and inspiration.”

This is my Tribute to the Black Woman.

Karma: The Gospel of a Sinner

Haven’t done this in a while but I won’t utter any apologias for grammar, spelling or otherwise abandoning the King’s Speech. I need this to be RAW and my flow needs to move down my aorta without stopping at my brachial, antecubital, or radial regions of my artial system. I need my Xi to squeeze this thru my little capillaries to this media unadulterated. Fuck!!! Let’s go.

I fucked up at the wrong time. I am a ten-year older that saw a shiny red bike that I just had to have. I’m impoveri… Fuck that, I’m emotionally bankrupt but I assure my mom that if I get the bike I’ll do right. I’ll do my homework, ride my bike, clean her after my ride, oil each link of the chain… I know I trampled on my toys from Christmases past but if you get this bike for me it will be different. So now the fucked thing is I got a scooter for my Birthday on October 2 and I ghost rode that bitch in traffic and right into an 18-wheeler. So, I understand that to ask my poor mom to go in debt for my ungrateful ass is a reach. My mom taught me a lesson and on Christmas day she got me what I deserved, a not so shiny lump of coal. WTF, mom. She sat me down and told me that if I wanted to get my shiny red bike, I’d have to work at it. So I got the message and applied millenniums worth of pressure to turn my heart into a diamond. And I found someone who was going to treasure my heart and I sold it. Like this musing, I passed every bank where I could invest the money to go straight to the tip of the store where the shiny red bike was located. What did I find? One shiny red bike left over from this years Christmas rush. To top it off, it was on sale. I couldn’t believe there were no buyers. She was more shiny than I could have hoped for; I pushed through lines at the store and went in line with a pocket full of money. The cashier told me some price and despite the cost I gave every cent I earned from my barter of my heart. Before the cashier could finish counting, I jumped on my treasure and rode out the store. I yelled back at the cashier in pursuit to give me change, “KEEP IT.” I felt in the depths of my soul that I made the deal of the era.

I remembered the lessons I learned and the promises made. I went to school and told all my friends about my new shiny bike, I told the principal, the janitor, teachers, I shouted to the top of the world, I got my bike. Listening to my excitement was, the local bully. I mean this was the meanest muthafucker the world has ever seen. After school I hit the corner and I was was awakened by the reality of a Louisville Slugger to my head. I flipped off my bike but landed on my feet with blood rushing from my mouth only being raced by my teeth. But fuck it, like I taught my first born, pain is temporary, glory is forever; so I threw my sets up ready to defend my bike against the bully. To my amazement he had friends who grabbed my arms and opened me up to the most violent punch I will ever feel. I folded over with tears of glory coming from my eyes. I was just gut punched.

When I looked up, I was even more surprised to see the bully was still there but his had was extended to shake my hand. He asked me my name. I straighten up and proudly answered, “Jonathan Brent Campbell” and I quickly asked him, where’s my shiny red bike.

He looked into my soul and responded, “JC took it”

Just then my shiny red bike vanished

Damn, Karma!!!

Please forgive me, Shiny Red Bike for my irresponsibility with you. I pray you return. Lesson learned