2011

2011

This year has been the best year of my life thus far. I mean I started it with making the 2011 Slam team the last day of the Year in 2010. To me the best thing about the year is the growth. Between myself, my craft, and just becoming a more loving person. I always had direction of a false sense of what I needed, now I care more about people than material items and don't get me wrong I was never like money money money but I wanted to ball out and would do so at any means. I've also grown in the literal sense, I am now 5'11 and I've come a long way from that 4'11 short kid in the 9th grade. As an artist Im personally extremely proud of myself I've grinded hard and harder than a lot of my peers. New to the game and dropped a mix tape and an EP , even more amazing made some guap from it. If I look at the poems I wrote back in January, I'd cry because there horrible.
I have developed a lot of relationships this year. First and for most with jasmine we've grown extremely close and I'd take a bullet for her, it doesn't matter if she would for me or not but I will. Then there is the team, I don't think I would be who I am with out them, especially Brandon, Benaché, and Ephraim. Those are my brothers like we went on this journey together and created a bond that is strong and sure we've had disagreements, like it took a while for me and Ephraim to connect, to get Benaché to open up too me, and specially me and Brandon to get over the Bro Code thing, but we did and we all became better people because of each other, I'd take many of ass whoopings for these dudes. I will make sure there in my life forever, and if not I will remember them till my next life.
When I came back from BNV, I kinda became "cool" if there such a thing , but I got a lot of respect from my peers and socially made people accept who I am , and if they don't the hell with them, I may be "weird" or "awkward" , but it's who i am. This year has also been a great year with the ladies, I've never been use to having girls into me, I'd always been the small little black kid in the class who has the crushes and there called crushes because namesake I was always getting crushed. I dated girls that helped me discover a lot about myself. I've developed a taste on what I like and I use to have this criteria but now I just look for the genuine inside of a person. The looks have taking a backseat and I found out what beautiful really is. It's not soft curves, silky legs, powdered face, but the light that exudes from a person, the energy they possess and give to the universe. Ive become a little more emotionally open with females. I messed with some black girls that surprised me, and even connected with a girl who I spent little time with but was infatuated with every aspect of her, and still friends with her. I came back from the Bay and I started getting mad play from a lot of females, which is rare for me, specially with Robert being one of my best friend . Then there is one person in particular. I have built a relationship with her, that is very interesting. I don't really stay in relationships for long but it's been 3 months tomorrow and it's been wonderful and I know I don't speak often about my relationship with her but I wish I could explain how intricate and beautiful she is and I'm not even talking about her looks. She is a caring and endearing person, Intelligent, open, curious, radiant. The energy that you receive from her instantly makes you want to know more about her , what she's thinking, where she came from, she's intriguing. I don't think she will know how wonderful she is, but I can't thank her for all the passion that she has shown me, trusting me with her keepsake, secrets, and just being a gentle beautiful soul. She believes in me, in all of my endeavors even when she shouldn't. Like they say there is a first time for everything well she leaves me tongue tied and speechless all the time. There is starting to be a special place in my life for her.
On another note this has been a year for beginnings and endings , I have been ending relationships with people I will miss but have stopped me from growing. I've been ending the year with great things best thing I got into FAM. I hope this post doesn't come off arrogant or anything I just wanted to share what went on this year, so many great things and if anything I am just really proud of myself because I've taken a lot of wrong turns but it really seems like I'm on a path for something great and I will travel this road with hopes that I can make a difference.

Jonathan Brown

So this is jonathan brown and he has turned into my favorite poet... even over amir suilaiman. He is brilliant, and I am so glad I got to meet him and spend time with him. He came with us to BNV and now i just have all these poems in my head because thats what his poems do to me. Here is a list of quotes that just apply to my life right now.

“In my next life, hopefully I won’t remember this one, so I can avoid the noise that distract me from my passion, who am I kidding I spent half of yesterday wishing you called”- Jonathan brown

“I’m quick to beg ice cubes to burst into flames or other impossible shit like my life to get better while I stay the same”- Jonathan Brown

“You can usually tell my level of sanity by how mangled my fingernails are”-jonathan brown

” I called you on your birthday for the same reason people go to church on easter sunday,it is only a gesture, people who go to church on Easter sunday because they wish they had a relationship with God Like I wish I  had a relationship with you” -Jonathan Brown

“Maybe this is disaster tourism at it’s worse, because I don’t want you to love my words, I want you to rubberneck past the scene of the wreck and hope nobody is dead, expect nothing less than a five car pile up, 3 or 4 trucks, too many blue lights and the jaws of life slice through the crumpled up vista of who I use to be” - Jonathan Brown

“There is a fine line between living your dreams or sleepwalking through life”-Jonathan Brown

“I am 2 family traits away from making the same mistakes my dad did, distance is a trait i wish I could unlearn”-Jonathan Brown

“This is for the dyslexic kid who raises his middle finger to any motherfucker who think they are better just because the letters make sense on the page”-Jonathan brown

I'll let the poetry speak for itself

Going to Camp

THIS ALBUM .... BONKERS !!!!! 

So I listen to childish Gambino's Camp , amazing, wonderful, magnificent, I haven't liked an album this much since bastard. Which is saying a lot because Bastard was...well don't get me started. See Donald Glover is the adult version of me as I've been told but he goes through the same things I went through and stuff that I'm going through now. For instance, he talks about being to black to be white and to white to be black so where does one go. I remember being in elementary school in longmont, colorado and I was the only black kid. It wasn't hard to forget that I was the only black kid because everyone reminded me that I was the only black kid. When I move to Jacksonville I went to ghetto J.E.B stuart and I acted white, I wasn't black or a minority, I talked white, dressed white, and got mad fun off because I was smart. Another thing is he talks about his evolution and getting all this attention from girls. I feel him,  I'm still not use to it. I was talking to my ex girlfriend and she was just telling me all the things wrong with me. She said I run away every time someone likes me. I don't think so but she is one of the few people who know me better than I do. She also threw in that I'm arrogant and She just never saw me as a cool kid, but I digress.  This album does so many things to my soul its not even funny, its beautifully produced and I suggest you listen to it. Here are some of my favorite tracks.. Which is the whole album but these!                      

                           

L.E.S

Heartbeat

Letter Home

That Power

Lol evolutionist.

I think it's kinda futile to prove that evolution doesn't exist for the fact that we are constantly evolving. I am not the same person I was yesterday and I won't be the same person tomorrow. We are always evolving into a better form of our selves. I can't explain mine, but I can feel it happening I am getting wiser, older, and more aware of the things around me. I can't really describe it but I can show you, and hope that you understand.

The inner Monologue

So on Childish Gambino's album Camp, at the end he has a monologue. This is it above the words I am typing. It is so simple but it packs a punch. I've damn near memorized the thing and it just hit home for me. There are certain lines that just touch me in the heart like " Back in the real world we don't go to the same school, and unless one of our parents move to a dramatically different we won't go to the same high school, so this is kinda it for us, unless I say something and might exspecially be it for us if I do say something" and "I told you something and it was just for you, and you told everyone". AHHHH just gohshnfehng..... The ending line kills me. "I wish this is a story how I got on the bus a boy got off a man more cynical, harden and mature. But thats not true. I got on the bus a boy, and I never got off the bus. I still haven't". I don't really cry but man this gets to me.

         So like any artist I got super inspired and I started writing my own inner monologues, they are kinda directed at different people but  when I say them outloud I'm always talking to the same person. Here are some:

lately i’ve been trying to stay off your blog. not like i’m avoiding you or anything, i just want to think about you less. you know what the kicker of all this is? your not going to read this and i know were suppose to be all in each others heads and stuff, but… i’m trying to escape from mine. i saw you in the hall at school today in between 3rd and 4th lunch. you’ve been having an unusual amount of pep in your step and your hair bounces when you walk. i smell like sweat and cafeteria chocolate milk.. so i wasn’t about to run up to you and say “hey”…. the really annoying part is , i just saw you an hour ago and i just wanted to grab your hand, run out of school, go to jerusalem and sit by the crappy stream. you know the stream where everyone flicks there cigarette butts into and it smells like death by pollution. i’d sit there and read you love poems, which is mighty fucked up because i don’t believe in love, but i’d definitely read you these love poems. my grandma gave me my granddads old camera, its pretty nice. i like it, i think its better than buying one of those overly priced cannon like every d person on tumblr, just so they can take pictures of themselves and pieces of paper. their “photographers” and i get it everyone wants to be an artist, because it makes you feel good. soooo more power to them. but anyways i want to take the camera and take snapshots of you a three minutes when you aren’t looking. or maybe everyday. and by christmas i would have a photo album of candid shots to give you… . . but thats sorta creepy. i think your stretch marks are beautiful. no no, this isn’t like the foot fetish thing, they just remind me that you are human sometimes. i say sometimes because your more like an ecstasy… (haha) sorta like my high that won’t fade… i don’t think i’m in love with you, well i don’t think i’ll ever be in love with you, maybe for the fact that we live in a world where people get crushed by a 4 letter word like that and cause huge emotional , psychological damage and all most people say is “fuck em” or “there is more fish in the sea”. sounds like bullshit. i don’t know i feel like i’m just rambling now, and i don’t even know if i’m going to wake up tomorrow , so i don’t know why i’m doing so much life contemplating. i think its because the sad thing is, i know i have a 90% chance that i am and i’m not being reborn when i wake up, i continue doing the same pattern i’ve been doing. and maybe thats just what life is … a pattern. or maybe this is all a dream. well it sounds way more philosophical if is, so lets call life a dream. and one day i will wake up and start living.

Another

When I was younger, my favorite thing use to be to read my Calvin and Hobbes (fuck you spell check thats how you spell Hobbes) comic books. I had them all and I use to read them over and over and over.I could never decide what my favorite schtick was between calvin’s snarky ass comments to his mother about the dinner or his duplicator machine or how he hated girls even though he secretly loved Susie. I envied his vivid imgination, his innate ability to create. Then they stopped making them, and I got mad depressed. I felt like I lost a friend almost.


I got older and I started to get that feeling with other things like television shows. I would watch old series like Scrubs, Dragon Ball Z, X-Men Evolution, Good Times, Boondocks (even though there making another season !!!!!!). Well once the Series finale came along and the show ended I got so sad again, like I was missing a piece of me. So I learned to stop investing myself in things, and just have surface level emotions. and It works.


Ever since I joined Shattered Thought, I’ve gotten better with dealing with them, starting investing myself and emotions in poems, starting t become a piece of me. I don’t know why I’m writing this, it just every time I get some type of unwanted emotions, I think of that feeling of reading the last strip in the final book of Calvin and Hobbes. Brandon says the things you enjoy doing shouldn’t make you sad or mad. I wish I had something more philosophical or inspirational to say. . . but I just don’t know….

and another

Music is getting harder to listen too. I’m starting to feel myself through each note, each beat that I listen too. Its like as soon as the decibels hit my ear, it sends a signal to my brain to start bleeding feelings.


They say right before you die you can see your life flashing before your eyes. I wonder if its true. I feel like as humans we suppress so many things, and our brains are so interesting, like we can really convince ourselves of anything if we try hard enough. I was having a conversation with your mother about death. I don’t know how I could do it, telling someone that they are about to die. How do you grasp something like that? She said the 5 stages of grief are real. I’ve had people die in my life but I don’t think I’ve ever been angry about, I just always accepted it as part of life.


I’ve been becoming more disconnected from everything. Today I just sat outside in the rain and stared. I was like blurring everything together and just trying to listen. I was trying to pinpoint where every raindrop was hitting. Just the pitter patter soothes my insides. I’m always thinking about how I have to remember how there is something always bigger than me.I also have to remember sometimes how big I am….and I keep not doing shit to help others. Or at least not as much as I should.


I guess what ever helps people sleep at night. The big hearted are always the insomniacs. and the paradox about how dreamers are never sleep.


I have to do something risky. I don’t know what but just……. something

Let Me tell you bout my bestfriend !!!

Jasmine Nicole Dukes

Well.

She is the absolute most wonderful person i've ever met.

the list of people in my life

Nans

Jasmine

those are the most important.

I'd die for her

really I would.

I'll let you bask in her awesomness. 

The Internet

So another branch of OFWGKTA is the internet. I'm the only one of my friends who listen to them but they have an album coming out called Purple Naked Ladies.. I CANT WAIT.  Syd and Matt are so ill. Funny thing is we are facebook friends. Don't sleep on them.

The Internet- They Say

Purple Naked Ladies Promo