blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

He’s from Harlem , she’s from Brooklyn . He said he loved her and that he’d take her away, sometime, that summer. “I’m thinkin a house, beach. Jus’ you and me.” She can’t even respond. The magic he speaks lulls her to believe. He continues: Sometimes I feel you the only person I could talk to . She smiles a smile that contains within it all her heart. Many said that he didn’t do much, but they were wrong. Neighbors saw him, day after day comin and goin from his mama’s house. Handsome boy. But what does he do? Shame, he should be helping his mama . They said he didn’t do much, but they were wrong. He was a poet. He took words and hung them up in the air like multi-colored christmas lights. His words fell upon ears like candy-hued confetti. He was the poet of El Barrio & even if his neighbors didn’t understand that, he did. He was the poet of El Barrio. Inching close to thirty and still living at his mama’s h...

Untitled by Lesley-Ann Brown That my mother worked in a bank and we were poor did not make any sense to me. I asked her over and over again, “Well if you work in a bank, how come we don’t have any money?” Such a question often came after asking for a bike or new-fangeled Barbie doll. “Because it just doesn’t work that way.” My exasperated mother would reply. I was confused and took comfort in the fact that my mother was obviously, doing something wrong. Day after day I witness my mother fatigued from work. Snapshots of my childhood is filled with an exhausted mother coming through the front door as I was leaving for school. Only to see her again the following morning. My mother never complained about this lifestyle, although I know it was not necessarily what she wanted to do. “What did you want to be when you were a child?” I’d ask her. “I don’t know...I never gave it much thought.” That again baffled me. Then what was her job about, if it were not an actualizati...

There ain’t no place To get your hair done If you a Black girl in Copenhagen . There ain’t no real Place to buy make-up too… They ain’t no hues as Amber, chestnut or butterscotch. (White girls don’t need that shit). And don't forget that sign which reads, "No. I am not a Prostitute!" All you really need tho’ Is a little shampoo Conditioner, burnt brown powder And carnelian colored lipstick. If it glitters it gold And if it hard to get your hair done, Then try to find a brother! But all you need girl, In your refrigerator Is a bag of weed, A bottle of champagne, That cooling eye thing And some nail polish— And that’s the Black girl's Survival kit For Life In Copenhagen .

Snow is Nature's reminder that we all need to take a chill pill and just relax--after all, at the end of the day, Nature is still an awesome mystery of which we fumbling humans simply cannot grasp. I realize this when it snows and my bus never shows up and I'm all stressed out and rushing to catch the train so that I can drop Kai off to school and then rush to work so I won't be late. As I turn around to urge my lagging son, I just see him there, knee deep in the snow, caught up in the magic of it all and then it hits me! What the hell am I rushing for? To get rid of my son? To go to work? Come on! The truth of the matter is, there is no other place I would rather be, then right there, right then, in the snow with Kai Kai.

When you was a child, your father hated for people to say that you pretty. He think you would grow up and feel you too nice. Rose Singh rolled long partitions of beauty salon red hair into large, hard pink rollers. She kept her bobby pins between her teeth while Trinity, her eight year old daughter, handed her the curlers. Rose stood before the bathroom mirror, clad in her torn, baby blue nylon nightgown although it was noon. Trinity sat on the sink, her feet resting on the pink porcelain of the tub. So am I pretty Mummy? The child wanted to know. She thought her mother pretty and wanted to be like her. Her mother wore flowing dresses, high-healed shoes and always had her hair immaculately done. Her black roots never showed. Her mother shone with pride when people mistook her for Puerto Rican. It meant that she was not black. Her mother shrugged her shoulders. Well, you are not as pretty as I was when I was your age. My head wasn’t as hard as yours—you get your father's hard ...

You are not alone. Think of all the others who have come before you, who have faced themselves and loved and cherished the spirits/ characters which have come to them. Writers are conjurers. Don't be fooled. cervantes, baldwin, naipaul, morrison, kinkaid, douglass, langston, Rosa Guy, lorde, C.L.R. James, Alice Walker, Zora, Maxine Hong Kingston,Wolfram von Eschenbach, Thelonious, Faulkner, black stalin, nina, marx, baraka, marley, Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ralph Ellison . The power of the ancestors beckon you. Writing is the expression of the unity of the universe if you are true to yourself and true to your calling. Writing is the ghost that haunts you until you bow down to the Almighty and say, "I accept," and then that ghost transforms to an Angel that guides you and protects you. It is a duty and it is a way to make that difference you long to make. Say yes to your destiny.

I have had this weird feeling in my body all day--an anxiety that usually comes about from too much caffeine. But I have only had one cup of coffee today and I try to breathe all the way down to the bottom of my lungs to settle the fluttering of my heart. Ben and I took a lovely walk along the harbor and managed not to piss each other off. We enjoyed each other's company, and I managed to realize that when I gave him a jovial shove, it was really because I wanted to kiss him. I didn't kiss him though and wondered when I would stop being a coward when it came to love. I did order herbal tea instead of coffee and felt proud that I made a constructive decision for myself. The tea however, did not settle my anxiety. As we parted (we kissed this time) and I continued my walk, I realized what the root of my anxiety was. It was because I am in a space in my life I have specifically avoided for most of my adult life--a stability and quiet necessary to completing my novel. It is beca...

When was the last time You saw a Dandalion Squeezing between The cracks of a sidewalk Pick it from the piss Smelling ground Brought it to your nose And blow at it? When was the last time You took your shoes off Your socks off And enjoyed the coolness of the grass Between your brown toes? Or sucked in All the way down to your Navel Un-polluted air, Or your let your hair Get wet?

You are the color of the earth That beckons me To the bush Brown and black limbs From Africa From India Walk silently Among paths Never penetrated before. Gently we move the Large blades Of leaves Aside Gently we move them Aside Using no force One with Nature, The wetness of The earth Cools the sweat Of my toil, The orchestra of Frogs The backdrop to This scene, Green so high It tickles the Underbelly of the Sky, until Gently a drizzle passes I am cooled, I stop to rest, Only to see you There Brown and wet and Relaxed Waiting for me Because years ago we could not meet but now right now we can.