I prefer a broken neck than a broken heart

She said that she would prefer a broken neck to another broken heart.
I said "Remember, even the beauty of birth leaves its own scars
And know that you will find your home right where you are."

She said, "I know it sounds cliche, but I really am just waiting to exhale."
She's not looking for a perfect man, she ain't holding out for Denzel
She's just looking for a real man,
But she said "Most of the realest were in graves or in jail"
Just an upright brother, but she's left with low down brothers, homo thugs, and downlow brothers.

And it took her some time with herself to discover
That having love is even more important than having a lover
But what am I supposed to tell her?
That it's going to be okay? But it may not be.
It may be hard and ugly,
Difficult, complicated, rough and bloody
And I said, "So many women are struggling"

She said, "Yeah, I'd like a man to kiss me, I'd like a man to hug me
But he's gotta truly love love before he can truly love me"
I said, "I feel you." She said, "No, you're not feeling me.
We are women bringing up seeds,
Our own sons grow up thinking love is a disease
Ducking and dodging real relationships, and just gonna take what they please
And they treat pregnancy like it's an STD
If the test comes back positive, it's a negative
And they are ghost in the streets,
Drunk in the wind, only a moment is spent and those moments are brief
Our sons' role models are rolling stones unknown or deceased
They figure we can't teach them manhood, so they'll get grown in the streets
So in the cold world they find warmth with the men holding the heat."

I said "There's gotta be a change."
She said, "Yeah, it's gotta be more than poems on TV"
I said, "I feel you." She asked me how I survive.
I said, "By Allah, it was my mother otherwise
I would have been dead, crazy, institutionalized."

"She kept us in the good neighborhoods, even though she couldn't keep on the lights
So we could go to the best schools learning to read and to write.
Sometimes we'd be so broke, in the store, she'd have to pick between the beans and the rice.
Sometimes she'd put ketchup on a navy bean so it wouldn't seem like we're eating the same thing every night.
Two jobs during the day, and one at night.
And the stuff I saw her endure, I never wanna see my wife [endure]
So I know being a man is more than being male, and I'm focused on doing it right."

"But when I think about my childhood, I don't think about poverty
I remember how she hugged me, kissed me, taught me, loved me.
And I know you prefer a broken neck to another broken heart
Broken parts that litter the night sky like stars.
But remember, even the beauty of birth leaves its own scars
And know that you will find your home, right where you are
We will find our homes right where we are."

-Amir Sulaiman

Discrimination in societies

Today I was talking to a friend about societies when the subject of discrimination. She had tried to enter the Islamic society and was criticized for not being Muslim "enough",  later on she was rejected from the Somalian society from not being "enough" Somalian.

I remenber when I mentioned I had european blood to some guys in the Afro Caribbean society, I could read in their eyes : you ain't black enough to be here.

Hum...I lived fourteen years in Africa,
 And four in which I was constantly reminded I was black,
Called a "nigga", got punched by  discrimination
Speak two african dialects,
Visited the basilic in Ivory Coast,
Saw the statue of the African Renaissance,
Have been in three conflicts in Africa and still love the motherland
And know by heart the story of the no return door for slaves


yet you with your british accent, lived all your life in london, doesn't even consider black girl as an option for girlfriend, ignorant of your ancestor's past....

You look down on me because my skin is a shade lighter than you

What it is it not to be african enough or black enough?
Do i need to be a loud sista with a afro?
Do i need to be cussing people out?
Do i need to be hatin on white people?
Do i need to be a baby mama with always drama?
Do i need to be uneducated black girl with four children?
Do i need to be THIS stereotype? To be called African or just black?

I am sorry I don't fit the definition, I am just trying to create a new definition in which black or african women are seen as a lady, educated with a master's degree and a job, beautiful and proud of whatever they are.

So I am now officially in a relationship

with myself :)

To all the boys I ever loved

After listening to Mayda del Valle I wonder what I would say if I was writing this poem, so here it goes ( obviously don't expect me to be like her, i don't have her talent)

They were five of them, five that I loved inconditionally, five that I lost myself in, five that I experience the sweetness and freedom but also the pain

The first was the the puppy love,
where you're never sure of how things ought to be but you know you just love him.
It was innocent and deliciously comforting. I
thought we were meant to be together forever and ever,
See we had the same values, the same complicated surnames,
the same motherland, the same experience of hurt.
But as months passed by I got arrogant and wanted more, and that's where I found the second.


Always there for me, always soothing, words sweet as honey but his problem was he was a rotten fruit. He loved me until madness
Sweared he would kill himself, sweared he would kill meme if I left him and he nearly did
I was too young to understand at the time, but I was broken down until I finished on my knees
I stayed and fought, stayed and fought and stayed and fought sum more
Until my pride, my confidence, my everything laid down in the earth
until I understood he was gonna take my soul and that appetite, that appetite for life

The third was a pearl, I dived into him trying to find solace
I dived and lay down all of myself 
He was caring and gentle, nothing to complain about
I took his first and showed the path
But something in me started to change, I became unhappy with life and I had to say sayonara
 He did remain as a friend and I still apologize for being deceitful as I was

Fourth was summer love, he had the swagg and the confidence
I thought we were perfect and was ready for a long distance
We spent the summer in the beaches and under the covers
We were into each other and closed out from the world until summer ended
I wrote him but he never did, I still have no regrets as I recall our sweet summer loving

Fifth thought he was the shit, and he kind was
Five years older and with crazy dance moves
We matched up perfectly as if we were true soulmates
I loved him until I could not bear
He was there for me and loved me for who I was
Yet I let him go because he was too simple, not enough dreams and lack of ambition



From all I learn something, they helped me see clearly and finally they all changed me. I am who am because of them and I don;t have no regrets. Who will be the sixth?

Feelin the Def jam poetry

to all the boys I’ve loved before by Mayda del Valle

part 1:
we are not your mothers
and are not meant to be
it is not our responsibility to raise you into respectful beings
you have been weaned from the breast of a woman for years
yet you come to us
wounded and half filled with promises you can only keep half the time
trying to suckle our sense of self dry
we’ve become much to accustomed to sleepless nights and damp pillows
have become accustomed to waiting for our empty beds
to be weighed down with the bodies of men heavy with the scent
and the hands of other women
mornings with swollen puffy eyes are becoming routine
and we simply wanting to be loved
simply wanting to be able to love ourselves unconditionally
simply wanting to be held and feel safe
simply wanting the truth of whether you can really love us or not
play Hester Prynn
wear scarlet letters on our chests
become adulteresses
cheating ourselves out of what we truly deserve
willing to settle for less
willing to act like a little less than a goddesses
willing to sleep with the enemy
men too scared to stop acting like boys
thinking we can love away their scars
so we take the lashes of the insecurities they pour on us
and lick our wounds in quiet mourning for the little girls we lose by the minute
fast fading memories of playing hopscotch
and skippin’ rope
we now play freeze tag with each other’s hearts
play hide and seek with our love
if we just don’t breathe maybe we won’t get caught
up in the spider’s web we weave while waiting for what we give away to be returned
part 2:
you said you had a photographic memory
but apparently you forgot that honesty
begins by being real with yourself
and the ones you claim you love
should have never wasted my time
and just acted like the man you claimed and told the world you were
made a production of setting my folks at ease with tales of how you’d do all it ever took to never break my heart
I guess you thought you were talking to a roomful of the deaf and blind
figured they didn’t hear you
coz I never saw it coming
but the truth cannot be hidden
what’s clouded in darkness will always come to light my love
you shoulda known that
claiming you saw my light so clearly and brightly
so I left
chasing paper trails of promises you’d already set on fire
left with nothing but the ashes of who you’d written that you were
and singed fingers from trying to grasp the impossible
and the only thing I’ve really lost
are lukewarm kisses
that for too long I kept trying to tune the beat of my heart, a few lies, and stories
about honesty and truth
I guess shit happens
I just wish it wasn’t me
and I guess
it’s so much better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all
I know that’s some easy shit to say
but I’m still gonna try to live by it
I’m still gonna try to put my faith to rest in it
I will sleep on dry pillows now in a bed big enough to love myself in
I will awake these coming mornings with my eyes dry and shining
full of the knowledge I am priceless and worth nothing but honesty
I will remove the scarlet letter from my chest and hold the hand of the little girl I used to be
and say I’m sorry to her
I’m sorry for cheating you out of the joy you have always deserved
and I will wait
for a man
to come along
that can give me the truth of how much he can really love me
©2005 Mayda del Valle

On being mixed....or should I say multicultural third world kid

I was never confused when it came to answer the question "what am i?",  I never really gave it a thought  to be honest. I was born into a rainbow family where everyone was different, from a different place with a different skin shade. We had whites, mulatos, cocoa, chocolate, ebony, cafe au lait, porcelain, everything.  Most were black while me and my sister were light skinned, but no one was resentful or made us feel this difference. Until 6 colors only existed when painting.

After the civil war I was forced to attend a all white school in which for the first time I was confronted with discrimination and racism. I could not be European because my skin was too dark. I always ended with the villain roles when playing because I was the darkie. My teacher threw away the flowers I had given her on Teacher's day because I was dark and nasty to her.



Fast forwarded to high school where I was surrounded by mixed people and finally understood that I was different from their kind of mixed. My mom was not white or black nor was my father. I did not have a white and black side in my family. We were all black.
I did not struggle in adapting into two families, juggling traditions of different cultures. I was a mixed kid in another way.  My great grandfather who was white never raised my grandma and his sons with his wife, rejected my grandma because she was black. On my dad's side, it was a mix of capeverdians and Portuguese, who somewhere along the line had disappeared in the memories. Both sides  married africans and gave birth to rainbow children of all shades.

I am mixed but in a different way, I struggled also to find my place in this world. I was brought by lusophones, studied in french and lived in french west Africa most of my life. I define myself as a black woman from french west Africa with originis in lusophone Africa, and i am proud of what I have become. Even more proud of a family that made it through everything and is multiculutural

Are you sure it's in west africa?

I come from a tiny country in West Africa that no one seems to know the existence of it. However the next person who will ask me: "Are you sure it's in west Africa" I will cuss them out. Seriously! Like I would not know where I am from!

And I hate when people ask me, where are you from originally? Which just means how come your light skinned? Where s the black or white in you from? I always felt like it was the most impolite thing to ask, people should have the freedom of telling you whatever nationality they prefer or feel attached to. Now I don't deny my European or African side, the question always bothered me for some reason