We all have different reasons for smiling at the sun

Exploration. Discovery. Gratitude. My explorations have led me to discover, with gratitude, Joshua Bennett. There is not really a great deal that I can say except that he gives me hope, a profound hope that I will share with  you in my long overdue post on Parenting 101: Part 2.

"10 Things I Want To Say To A Black Woman" - Joshua Bennett

‘I wish I could put your voice in a jar. Wait for those lonely winter nights when I forget what God sounds like, run to the nearest maximum security prison and open it. Watch the notes bounce off the walls like ricocheting bullets etching keyholes into the sternums of every brother in the room. Skeletons opening rose blossom, beautiful to remind you that the way to a black man’s heart is not through his stomach, it is through the heaven in your hello. The echo of unborn galaxies that pounces forth through you vocal chords, and melts ice grills into oceans, baptizing our lips, until harsh words fade from our memories, and we forget why we stopped calling you divine in the first place.’

"Women" - Joshua Bennett and Justin Reilly

We all have different reasons for smiling at the sun.

Mine just happens to be you. 

So let's pretend that gravity is an inside joke we have with the ground. 

Grab me like a drunken bouncer 

and hold on for dear life

I promise I won't let you fall.

Because I've been dropped before.

...

But love shouldn't feel like an accident,

Like two high speed hearts crashing,

Burning,

Mistaking the sparks for stars.

And I can no longer settle for love that won't last

Living life as a condor in a coffin, married to the mud,

When I was promised the clouds.

Joshua Bennett is an award winning performance poet with an outstanding academic background in English and Africana Studies. He was featured in the HBO series Brave New Voices and has performed at the Sundance Film Festival as well as at President Obama's Evening of Poetry and Music at the White House, where his piece entitled Tamara's Opus which was dedicated to his sister literally reduced me to tears. 

"Until you have seen a deaf girl dance you know nothing of passion."