During my senior year in college i went back to my roots and tried out for a part in the play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf". Although i wanted the part of the "Lady in Red" i got the part of the "Lady in Orange". I couldn't really remember her role, nor did i know what she was about, but after reading this poem i was convinced that this role was made for me. See it practically coincided with my life and how i was feeling. After breaking up with my abusive boyfriend of 3 years, i started dating a new guy, a younger guy, someone who at the time made me feel alive again...for awhile. Abuse and the experience doesn't just go away, even if the abuser does, you live and eat and breathe that shit for years. This new fellow was kind enough but when he decided to play around with me, well i had very little patience for his shit, or anyone elses. I remember my director telling me she needed more emotion from me, more sexiness, more rawness and though i tried i couldn't evoke those emotions because i had a wall built up where emotions were not allowed to escape...until that night. The night i walked to his apartment and cooked him a meal, only to catch him on the phone with another women...the night after i made a trip to Indianapolis, IN to give him a gift for Christmas, only to find he was out of town with another woman, the night after i was so glad that he was visiting my hometown, only to find him flirting and directly engaging with a friend of mine. After that, and the night of our opening performance i had all i needed, but didn't want to perform that piece with the raw emotion that my director wanted because i finally felt it...the breakdown, the sorrow, the repeated failures of trying to get it right and then the redemption. I found God inside of me!
lady in Orange
ever since i realized there waz someone callt
a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag
i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness
in somebody else's cup/ come to somebody to love me
without deep & nasty smellin scald from lye or bein
left screamin in a street fulla lunatics/ whisperin
slut bitch bitch niggah/ get outta here wit alla that/
i didnt have any of that for you/ i brought you what joy
i found & i found joy/ honest fingers round my face/ with
dead musicians on 78's from cuba/ or live musicians of five
dollar lp's from chicago/ where i have never been/ & i love
willie colon & arsenio rodriquez/ especially cuz i can make
the music loud enuf/ so there is no me but dance/ & when
i can dance like that/ there's nothin cd hurt me/ but
i get tired & i haveta come offa the floor & then there's
that womna who hurt you/ who you left/ three of four times/
& just went back/ after you put my heart in the bottom of
yr shoe/ you just walked back to where you hurt/ & i didnt
have nothin/ so i went to where somebody had somethin for me/
but he waznt you/ & i waz on the way back from her house
in the bottom of yr shoe/ so this is not a love poem/ cuz there
are only memorial albums available/ & even charlie mingus
wanted desperately to be a pimp/ & i wont be able to see eddie
palmieri for months/ so this is a requium for myself/ cuz i
have died in a real way/ not wid aqua coffins & du-wop cadillacs/
i used to joke abt when i was messin round/ but a real dead
lovin is here for you now/ cuz i dont know anymore/ how
to avoid my own face wet wit tears/ cuz i had convinced
myself colored girls had no right to sorrow/ & i lived
& loved that way & kept sorrow on the curb/ allegedly
for you/ but i know i did it for myself/
i cdnt stand it
i cdnt stand bein sorry & colored at the same time
it's so redundant in the modern world
Monday, November 8, 2010
For Colored Girls Poems
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