and now, the nighttime.

and now ladies and gentlemen, for your reading pleasure... a rant.

this is directed to all the guys that have misjudged and underestimated me to be typical, predictable, or naive. throughout my college career i have had many offers of courtship and beyond. most of which i have turned down with a certain amount of disappointment. no one comes correct any more! ive been told my standards are too high but i refuse to believe that. with fair amount of work and training and patience, almost any guy can become a guy worth fighting for. as of today, december 1, 2005, i have not found him.

at any rate, if i am not attracted to you now, i will not suddenly become so if you

~get letters and a really cool jacket and a call to shout out to let everybody kno who you are. i.e. if u cross. incidentally, beneath the brand new shiny exterior, you are the same guy that didnt particularly intrigue me in the first place and im pretty sure that several weeks of pain and torture didnt magically turn your personality pleasant. plus, most days i dont even like frat guys.

~have lots and lots of money(through your parents, of course) or drive a ridiculously expensive car. although ive been known to sell out for some things, wealth is not one of them. now, i like to be spoiled and caked as much as the next girl, but if every other sentence out your mouth is about the large, inordinate amount of cash that youre sitting on, then we've got a problem. i guess i just dont have that golddigger mentality that seems to come standardly equipped in most models my age. and hey, im not complaining about the loss. toss around money in front of me and i am not amused. in fact, i spit on you. call me crazy, but i was raised in a frugal (tho i use frugal rather loosely here) family and can appreciate the value of a dollar. but not so much so that i act like a hog at the feeding trough when a guy pulls out his money clip. just not me. its cool if we go to mickey d's every now and then and have stay at home dates instead of goin out every night. however, if it becomes a trend then your ass is noncreative and then i have a whole different set of problems with you.

~are the prince of an african nation. (yeh, its happened.) and again, no amount of princely robes will diminish the fact that you have the personality of a rock. or donkey.

~memorize everything about me/show up in my hangout spots/join the band/basically appear incessamment in my life. just not cool, man. i would go so far as to call this stalker tendencies. further, just because you're friends with or know all my friends does not grant carte blanche access to, well, anything. i will not be obligated to go out with you just because you and john were roommates freshman year. get your own creditentials and stop riding on the coattails of knowing who i kno.

(this one's a biggie, so pay up)
~HAVE THE ENDORSEMENT OF MY PARENTS. i dont trust my parents to pick out cds for me, much less a life partner. i dont care how close you and my dad are. dont care how often you volunteer at my mom's day care. hell, you can be invited to our house for dinner every night, babysit the munchkins and take my grandmother to the doctor. none of this will change the fact that your conversation skills are limited to small talk/your definition of creative is a hallmark card with a signature/good reading for you is the reader's digest. let me clarify that you will be dating me not my parents. if they love you so much, they should consider adoption. then we can have many fun days as siblings. but thats about all i foresee in your near future with me in it.

also, it seems to be the common misconception that just because i am a spelmanite that i am going through a rebellious phase and am automatically attracted to "nontraditional boyfriends" i.e. dropouts and street businessmen. no, no, no, and a thousand times NO! my days of obsession with the underdogs and ENDANGEREDBLACKMEN are over! i will not explain away a man's lack of productivity with sociological injustice, childhood trauma, or other basic hard-luck stories.

AND IF I HAVE THIS CONVO ONE MORE TIME, IM GONNA SCREAM:
boy: "well, what does your boyfriend do when you do that?" (or any other unwarranted comment about my boyfriend)
me: "uh, i dont have a boyfriend."
boy: "what?!?!! why not? pretty thing like you?"
me: "havent met the right one yet."
boy: "*steups* your standards are too high" or "i could be the right one baby, *wink*" or "thats what they all say"

in closing, let me say this: i love men. no, i love black men. with a passion. as the poem goes, "theres nothing like a black man." i just get tired of the merry-go-round that is courtship sometimes.

lagrimas

mira
a esas
lagrimas
que lloro
cuando te pienso
todos los dias
lloro un rio de agua
y sal y tristeza y amor
porque habia una vez
cuando me amabas y yo te
amaba tambien pero ahora
solamente tengo las lagrimas
que se caen en las mejillas
solamente puedo esperar que
vas a volver a me y entonces
talvez, no voy a llorar
nada mas
-- from "the earlies," 2001b.leigh

being here with you

i'm fading into the gray pinks
of dawn
i'm becoming a part of the
melting dew drops
vanishing with the Morning Star
i'm dissolving like warm sugar
in a cup of spiced tea

we were brought together by chance
love works in funny ways
unexpectedly falling
i was struck by your gray-green
eyes and long eyelashes and
pug nose and thick lips
and smooth chin and
rumbling voice that rolled
your R's and glided words off
your tongue like slik
from first glance i knew it and
i think you knew it too

i'm here with you and i can
finally breathe easy
with every inhale, i take in
some of you
and it warms me like swallowing
amber golden drops of sunshine
you are my sunshine
my only sunshing, you make me happy when skies are gray, you'll never know just how much i love you, oh pleas dont take my sunshine away


- the earlies, 2001

I am not afraid… to admit I was wrong too
I am not afraid… to blame you though
I am not afraid… to look you in the eye
I am not afraid… to ignore your desires
After all you’ve done to me
I’m unbending like a tree
Your actions could never be
The definition of me

But,

I am afraid of letting go again
I am afraid to make a choice
I am afraid of hurting someone in the process
I am afraid to show my weakness
So much for me to learn
The path I walk, I trudge alone
My mistakes I must own
Maybe one day I’ll be grown

See,

I must not be afraid to deserve good things
I must not be afraid to want more
I must not be afraid of forging into the unknown
I must not be afraid of loving again
Life is a bundle of trials
My strength must be inside and out
Each one makes me stronger
My experience becomes my armor

tuesday, november 15 1:19 p.m.

wandering soul

wandering soul
my feet take to the streets
as though distance traveled will solve my worries
youre gone
and i feel it more now than ever before
youre gone forever
the finality is what bites my heart
cuz i realize
that your goodbye means so long
and 'ill call you later' is an empty promise
that i will admittedly try to hold on to
you just dont realize that every word you say
impresses on my mind
they echo at random times
and therefore i carry you everywhere
youre gone
its like i wasnt good enough
like i couldnt smile enough
like my company wasnt intriguing enough
ive been constantly searching
trying to find someone like you
someone who makes me laugh like you did
who makes me write like you did
inspires me to new heights like you did
giving to you was a pleasure
thats why i dont regret a thing i did for you
only the aftermath and given the chance
i wouldnt think twice
before doing it all over
again

on #6

if a girl cries in the forest
and no one is around to hear it
is she any less unhappy?
time marches forward
like an overobsessed marine
and drags me along behind
if i had my way
id live forever in the moment
when u held me for no reason
and called it bliss
now we have fornever
u've moved on and so have i
our eyes meet briefly
across a crowded lunch table
u smile
i laugh
the players both wear masks
u pretended not to care
i pretended that i did
as a demure young lady i probably should
becoming numb and callused to such encounters
will only increase their frequency
but crying over spilt milk never resurrected the glass
and in a forest, no one can hear me anyway
so instead i shout out calls of nonesense
and dance among the fallen trees
confident to someday
run into a person that dances like me

5:52pm thursday august 11