Today I changed my agreement with the world
and I am willing to become what I want to see more of
I am willing to not just to fly low, but soar
I am noting afraid of not landing over land
I am strong enough to land
I am wise enough to know I am not the flying, the altitude or in any way extraordinary  
I know I am ordinary
and I know deep down who I really am
and so we begin arms open

You need to speak
you need to set boundaries or everyone you will ever meet
will cross your yard and stomp in the dark over the tulips

You cannot wait for someone to hit the fence
trample over what you planted and loved
you need to speak up
not run away or at some point in the dark of night
anyone who comes to greet you will step over your boundaries
over and over and over until you finally are so offended
that you can no longer take it

you need to speak, speak your boundaries or the same story will repeat

How did my father survive the streets of LA
a young dark skinned man
a mixed blood being in his prime

I flash back to the time he shouted at me while teaching how to drive
a  simple thing like me hanging  a small dream catcher from the rearview mirror
was enough

“They can stop you for any **** reason, Pita” he’d say.

what I didn’t know was that he was right
and what he did not account for was that I would not be seen as a dark skinned male the day I got pulled over in Davis, Ca by a cop and I stepped out of the car and walked straight up to him and he walked to meet me and asked me “Ma’am have you ever been pulled over ?” I replied “ no, this is my first time” and he smiled as if he’d popped my cherry. “I figured a small and smiling girl didn’t get of the car with the intention to start a fight” that is what my father did not understand
and I wish I could say I understood at that moment
and I wish that officer would of understood too that the only reason he did not pull a weapon on me was simply based on what I looked like

there was never a willingness to communicate always a distance always a trying to guess and understand

how can anything end up well when you do not communicate
when misunderstandings are what make up your whole story

how can you really know?
or why did you never want to know ?

were you looking for evidence
were you looking for reasons

Did you finally find them amongst all the actions you never asked about ?
Or Coiled around all the feelings you never voiced ? The anger, the sorrow, the missing,the failure,the hurt, the righteousness, the apathy and the lingering love

did you ever want them?
was ignoring a strategy ?


what was your intention ?

It almost felt like this season would not come
like I would be stuck in this perilous
winter but then the flowers showed me
with their colors that I could paint my world another hue
and the off shoots on the side of the branches that were trimmed showed me that a new branch can grow from something that has been severed
I smiled and I knew it was spring

I feel like thanking you and if you need to hate me to release and if you need to find me sinful or weird do so
every one has got to do what they think is best with the tools they have
including I
you
everyone

I could have never said or done the right things
and someone might say it was a bridge that lead to nowhere but it lead me to me
and compassion even when someone will show me less than respect because it is not in their best interest
sometimes people are just too hurt
and I know what that feels like

I learned what I am and what I am not