Tatted Sutra

I've been pondering for a long while now, if you're African American and male, how it is that, you could be dumb as a box of rocks. In fact, if you're a Black man with a working penis, someone could put a flashlight to the back of your head and blue light can shine out your eyes. And as long as they dress you in trendy stylish apparel and you don't say too much, you're going to be able have sex with a woman with a degree and walk away just as dumb as when you arrived. 

  
At any given time there may be ink, paint, oil, dirt and a whole lot of things on my skin. But! 
There is no ink in my skin, because I choose to be a unique expression of intent not, someone else's canvas. And no one has stepped to the palette that I really what to be that intimate with. I don't need other's expression of anything painfully embedded into my skin. Life has tatted and picot my flesh enough to make me gossamer. 

Knot

I put ink on paper, because it's information, propaganda or instruction.

Knot 

But this not about body art, but a body of art. That does not yet exist in your reality.

This is the explanation to the statement "If you follow a stupid kid home, somebody stupid is going to answer the door". 

Not!


This is about how a series of relationships that never made sense to me, are finally starting to make sense. And how the sense it makes is a lot like the B&D in BDSM, when the relationships themselves seemed very S&M. Because I always asked the question in this form, "What the fuck are you doing with me? When you could have so much, more and better?" When the truth is, I was the best they could do at the time. I was in their lives for purpose and until that purpose is fulfilled, there will be others just like me. To help them repeat the same cycle. That's called practice and practice leads to discipline and discipline will carry one longer than raw talent. 

Picot. 

With this gesture, I find myself finally able to move in the direction I choose, a diametrically opposed tangent to the Consensus Reality. I simply say to my city and all those I've projected my pain onto by commission or omission, "Thank you. I love you. Please be...(insert appropriate suggestion for their most passionate and consistent activity.) There are a lot of people I owe apologies to. I'll do that individually. They don't want you to know what happened. 

Knot 

There is no sense in being angry with anyone or thing for electing to have almost no influence on my future, if, their perpetual state of being is in the reactionary now and their perpetual state of desire wavers between conspicuous consumption, the ability to be offensively self expression, seeking oblivion and opening statements with "I don't...". I live in the now, but I do not have to dwell in the present state. I have been gifted the ability to project a desired state into my future and therefore into consensus awareness. See, the anger stems from my desire to be a woman's intentionally crafted work of art. Better yet, a different collaboration of women's crafted work of art. Here's what I mean: If you were to ask any woman in my life what aspect of my being or personality is the direct result of her knowing me the answer would be a resounding question mark. With the exception of one, maybe two, the women who could and would point out those things are very dead. And someone will say "Well! You grown! Shouldn't nobody be trying to change you." 

Knot

People don't change, we grown, we age, we evolve, we decay but we don't change. We change environments. We change tactics, we change locations, we change processes, we change expectations, we change perspectives, perceptions and relationships sort of), but not people. I live in a culture with low standards, high expectations and very little intimate capital. We tend not to care enough about anyone else's passionate focuses to be of any beneficial influence to the method or reasons they do what they do. Being someone that writes, crafts, fabricates, paints, draws and studies the arts and humanities. One would imagine that the women that would choose to have an intimate relationship with me would a) choose to learn about the processes enough to be a beneficial influence or keep that part of my life completely separate from our shared life. 

Knot

Now what makes Detroit unique in a regard is the areas of town where one might witness this philosophy in action. During the most recent major turn in the economics of the nation, the property values didn't alter with the rest of the city or the nation. Why? Because, people wanted and still want to live in those places and the price and therefore value is not based in fluctuating resale projections.What you will not see in those communities, are masses of young African American men and boys. Because, the type of Black men that American women and men collectively, demonstratively passionately express attraction to (and consequentially are emulated by the weakest portion of our population, are not desirable in flower box communities. I mean Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, John Nash and Stephen Hawking are seen in some circles as sex symbols, (were I a woman, I'd want their children), but chances are if you're a Black women in or from Detroit, Michigan, unless you've had my cock in your mouth or you're Googling their names right now, I'd be willing to wager a thousand to one that you don't know who Will Allen and Mark Dean are and why they might be two of the most important living men in the world. And I'd be willing to bet ten to one that you don't know what Neil deGrasse Tyson did. And don't go getting self righteous and feminist on me now, because I'm willing to bet money that you don't know who Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was or who Mae Jemison is either. Now we can talk Elizabeth Catlett Mora, her son and granddaughters, we can talk about the first Black woman in the Cass Avenue Artists, We can talk Naomi Long Magett, Don and Hilda Vest, Percy Julian, Tia Norfleet, Thomas Day or C. R. Patterson of Greenfield Ohio. But what we can't talk about are the Black women that informed me of these people or their accomplishments, because there are none. However, I must credit my Gramma Grace for sending me to be baby sat at Mister Wright's museum, in the duplex, across the blvd. from Stinson's funeral home. I must credit Joann, my mom's co-worker and my first Silver Fox with teaching me about Siddhartha and Siddhartha. I thank Esperanza for teaching me to break my lines at the breath and that personal feelings will make people invisible. I am a Broadside Poet. Twice. There are a lot of people to thank and more that might believe they having been thanked enough, you have and that stuff is intimate and has no bearing on the broad scope of things I want to be made general knowledge in the hood. 

Knot

It is the realm of White men to extract, distill and refine things, because they understand a simple logic that it seems most of us are not getting. "Hard lessons are best learned early." Cause once you've got it down to muscle memory, you got it for life. Consistent repetition only allows for innovations and efficiency.  

Picot

Black men are most commonly recognized for our ability to sweat. You can wrap it up in whatever flowery language you want, but it's that simple.

Black women are most commonly recognized for their ability to endure suffering. Which in hide sight explains why Black women have become openly masochistic. They went to college and learned that wealthy men will afford them shit in exchange for doing what they were bred to do. 

It's okay, White women get burdened with being perceived as being the ultimate product of refinement. 

And everybody else gets stuck in the spectrum based on how demonstratively passionately expressive they are as a group.

Now the one thing I can say about Black folks, if it doesn't have a price tag and celebrity endorsement, we really don't care about it and that makes it safe to enjoy.

I finally have come to a clear and concise conclusion:
There is a comfort in the bondage of helotry.