This story, my 25th, is part creation narrative, part examination of the human condition. Heaven or hell, knowing and not knowing; the ability to see and be everything God wants us to see or be; this is the struggle I examine here within these pages. I hope that by writing, reading and eventualy publishing this story in its entirty, it will do for others what it did for me.

The After
by M. James Cooper

The after comes when the years go by and the days turn into days after the coming of new eyes, new skin, reborn souls and new hopes. This world has been in existence for quite some time. The mistakes, dissolving of truths and violence that feed and assault its nature give no ease to the burden of beings. Living is made hard, happiness avoided, and suffering at our fingertips. Ground tumbles, fires burn, reason speaks and seas part daily but consciousness is disregarded, no pair of eyes notice, and permissiveness is praised. Branches give their leaves away like unwanted offspring and mothers cry despite the pain they knew it would bring. A sort of rebirth, everyday a newness, the sun delivers his light and we beg for more. More blessing, more please; wanting for everlasting life because we cannot wait for it to be earned. Rains fall like men do from mountains and give seed to a new thing, sinking beneath the ground, eventually, becoming food for the trees that will give us more leaves. But only after, they know what sacrifice is for, only after, and revelation gives warning of the beast can we know what the days were for....

Split/Personality 

by M. James Cooper 

My two-ness is confusing.

It is sustaining, possibility bringing and terrifying. 

It is terrible, abandoning and sacrificial. 

One of me wants to run too and the other wants go back there and stay. My two-ness is misery and beauty, is guiding hand and ballast. 

Yes it is shared love and loyalties. Somebody, help me find my way home.

Truth-Telling

by M. James Cooper 

So what if I told you I had one secret that I could not tell.

It does not affect you.

This secret is about a lie I tell myself, to stop me from knowing, to stop me from believing the truth.

What if I told you I had another, a half truth, an omission? 

So yeah, four.

Of Course

by M. James Cooper

Carry because I can, carry because I am willed. 

Bear because I must, becasue I have faith I trust and do continue to bear it all.

Birthed because I was meant, then give birth, not becasue I can or desire to, it is natures will; nature caries, bears and gives birth all the time, why cant I...

Ugly

by M. James Cooper

I am spirit first then born.

Into a boy I grow until I become man.

The possibilities are many and then I decide to fight, I become warrior,

Bucking, kicking, loving, procreating.

Am I too loud for you? Is my power too much for your head that it worries you so?

Please forgive me for I was blessed and I am Purpose and Strength and Vulnerable.

Then subjugated, and moved and positioned and told to stand where you say stand.

Only then am I ugly, because you say so, because you want me to be. 

How empty of me to be so full of your Ugly.

ADORE

by M.James Cooper 

Adore the complicatedness, I do.

The messy afterness of living through pain, the laughter that falls from within like hurt turned to gold.

Adore the forces of will and the intent of forgiveness. I want your everthings and your anythings. As long as I have you I will never wither, I will never wane, and it seems I could live forever.

My Black is Ordinary
by M. James Cooper
Our reaction to any chaos,
Any attack,
Any dis-order is not unique to us and us alone.
In fact, violence, self-hate due to dissent and frustration is a natural response to the stripping away of freedoms, the tying of the hands, the hardening of the heart, the abandoning of the soul. And we respond in kind and sometimes with kindness; despite it, we are human.

What Can I Say? 

by M. James Cooper  

Sometimes words are useless and just a look will do. 

Sometimes a photograph captures the moment better than a mind can. 

All I need is my reflection to tell me otherwise.

My Imagined Past-Self

by M. James Cooper 

I would have jumped ship. 

I would have run to somewhere and away from here. 

I would have fought for the freeing of my physical and spiritual self. 

I would have planned the escape, chopped and burned and shown them a teaching so brutal and so raw; a terror so oppressed it had to show its teeth in time.

Truth is I am not sure what I would have done because that past is not fully my own. 

#poet #writer #storyteller / #black #history

Spirit

by M. James Cooper 

We are before we are.

Before out mothers and fathers meet,

Before we are named, baptized and overcome with living.

We are, even when we are gone from this place.

& the Lord said

by M. James Cooper 

Levitate.

Like Jack Rabbit moving through the air, like

Langston Hugh's words long after he has left us, like

Love on the edge of doom, float as if 

Liquid in space, no gravity, no oxygen,

Limitless.

Some Sort of Bloom

by M. James Cooper 

Cultivate me and I grow like a weed

Untended 

Full of Gods love and natures will.

Cultivate me and I cannot be tamed,

At home in the wilderness, at odds with the shade; I grow despite the lack of rain.

Pour

Your goodness allover me

Nourish,

Spread

& Pollinate

I am blessed thing that dies and returns for more air...