A Conversation With God:

By: Chanel Marie Givens

I’m on my knees begging you please Heavenly Father, to come to me. I have so many questions I need to ask you. The light then appeared, and he said “Here I am my child, but know that I can only stay for a little while”, so I looked into his eyes and asked him why, why does Granney have to go through this? He looked at me with no reply and all I could do was cry.

He said, “Understand, that I am not trying to punish you or her, but I have plans for her to get better, you must keep faith in me and you will see a change, dry your eyes my child, things like this are temporary and they only last a while”. I said, “God there are so many things I need to talk to her about, like what was it like in the 60’s, were you always this nice, I’ve never  seen a woman go through life and overcome so much strife. I need you to show me the way, I need you to tell me that everything will be okay, then my conscience kicked in, and I dried my eyes and looked in the mirror, and at that moment things seemed to get a little bit clearer and God said. I’m glad you can see that I am not a selfish God. I’m not doing this for me.

Believe me my child, that she will pull through, look closer at yourself, Alice Jane lives in YOU!” God disappeared into the clouds, and I began to walk with my head up, never looking and never looking down.

Thoughts on Death:

Death has taken another life
Birth has born another live one.
I've never been good with letting go
It's the hood in me
That feeling like you gotta hold on to every good thing in your life
And hold on STRONG
because tomorrow isn't promised
though today the gun-shot missed us
on the way home.
Just as she is on her way home
Back to days when she was a live one
Back to hearts of those her blood thrives from
Back to the light from which she was bathed
Back to the light
energy absorbed
her physical form no more
her spirit reborn from born.

I've never been good at saying good-bye
I don't know the meaning of the word
But I do know peace
it's what I crave in these streets
it's what I pray for her body
because her pain was like the niggahs that get shot everyday
her eyes, faint like the sun on a winter day
Like my great-grandaddy used to say
"Don't let that sun fool you nah!"
And that is exactly what I do,
You do,
We do
We let the suns fool us
Fool us into thinking they're gone for good
when really it is you who died
It is them who've been freed
and she was trapped
held captive by her oppressor
CANCER
worst than war from the alien lands of white man
Europ-E-And
Damn!
She sacrificed her life to free us all
By freeing herself.
That is an inheritance that extends beyond the boundaries of wealth
Beyond the limitations of human health
BEcause the day she died
we were fooled into thinking we had lost
Lost her
But with IN-sight
I found her in my heart.
And since I can't live without my heart
We'll never be apart.
~Bajá Marie
never premeditated, just felt, recorded and dated.

This poem is dedicated to the ladies that live in my heart and nurture my growing mind beyond the laws of life yet intune with the universal law of Myoho-Renge-Kyo.

Alice Coutee
Kimberly Strong-Fuller
Nevada Lumpkin
                     you can't miss what you never lost. we haven't lost them, we've only found ourselves.

To Be Thank-FULL:

I wanted to right (yes I do mean write with that spelling) a piece about how thank-FULL I am on Thanksgiving Day but I'm a rebel with a cause and that cause is love and peace on Earth to all. And with that, I can't fake the funk. I can't bring myself to do such a thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm thank-FULL everyday, how else could be so thickly!

I woke up this morning with the usual "Happy Thanksgiving", "Happy Turkey Day" and the more conscious greeting "Give Thanks Today". And being the polite person I am I responded to each of them. It wasn't sincere though. Then I got a text from one of my best friends saying: "Happy murder and rape of Native Americans day!" and I thought YYYYAAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!!! Because I love the truth more than anything and at the core that's what this day really hallmarks. Do you really wanna give thanks on such a dreadful day in history? I kinda don't. But I'ma continue to respond to text messages and call my Auntie's crib around the time everybody gets there and let them pass the phone around. Because if celebrating such a day is the only way I can get that good family time in then I'm willing to compromise as I have all my life.

But being true to myself I couldn't bring myself to right a poem about giving thanks on this day because I LIVE IT EVERYDAY!!!!! You should too!

*drops the mic
~Bajá Marie

Awake Again:

Man I promise I love Chicago, IL and all it's inhabitants: native born and migrants. Every phone call and text message I receive from the area saves my life!!! I'm soo appreciative that such great people love me. I'm soo fortunate to be thought of and loved by you.

To be or not to be in the place to be
is it truth
or is it deceit
see
I was blind but now I see
blinded by the color lines
the black belt pavement,
the white lines which divide them
and the blizzards
when all you can see
all you can see is grey
then white
be it sugar, semen or snow
and when the sun shines your blind
til it thaws
by the time you thaw your freezing again
wondering
when it will ever end
before you've even begin...

(PAUSE)

That was me. Angry and unappreciative and deemed a "fortune baby". All I saw was what I did not have, instead seeing all the persons, places and feelings I did have. The moments, the little things, all that which now defines is behind me so that I may claim the bright future I dream of. My true inheritance lies in the people. The people who stand by me as I strive in this life to stand for others. I'm all thawed out in these sunny streets of Inglewood, California. And here I may not ever freeze again, cuz the lowest it gets here is what 40 degrees. PLEASE?!?! The only folks who can tell me about cold is Alaskans, but that's a side note.

(PLAY)

Begin:
Begin at the scene of the crime
where July 20, 1988
led to the birth of April 21, 1989
and my crime was not being born
but having chosen to
in a time
 and a place beyond my own
paving a way of forgotten truths
and I felt alone...
Always alone,
my mother alone,
my grandmother alone,
my father gone
not lost
always found
ten years later turned the playing field all around
and I'm here now
as I was then
born of his determination
and unto him I am born again
and this time I see.
I see everything...
and I'm happy because not only do I have me
but I have everybody

(PAUSE)

And I hear Shari's voice from the other end of the phone echoing Chicago in her Seattle style saying "You're Bajá, Everybody loves you, be you!" And she saves my life for the millionth time. And the phone rings with another fulfilled promise of a good friend at the other end and he speaks of me as GOLD. He told me I was GOLD!!! So what the fuck do I see. I know I don't have 20/20 vision but my perception continues to deceive me. All these long distance phone calls I receive with tones that echo my hometown - Chi-town and I get rave reviews on how I'm viewed. And I gotta say at 4'9.5", I'm low to the ground to show everyday how much I appreciate each and everyone of you who love me! Lil ole me?! Friends and family. You give me peace. You give inspiration. But most importantly, you give me...me! And for that I'm forever indebted to you and I will strive to make me happy because in my heart me is we, I is us and happiness in this life and the next for all people in my mind, body and soul is a must.

(PLAY)

So I gotta be happy,
I must be happy
because in each individual spirit
I love and adore
I strive more and more
and more and more
and more and more
til there is no end of light in store.
-Bajá Marie

Love's Renditions

I miss him
I can't love him
I miss him
I can't love him
I miss him
I do love him
I miss him
So what is love then?

He was the one I gave the twinkle in my eyes to.
He was the one I gave the cherry in my fruit cocktail to.
He was the one I gave all the money from my refund check from school to.
the rest,
I gave the rest.
my energy,
my pride,
my respect,
my dignity
 gave him all my masculinity
so he'd feel more like a man
because a man can't stand bedding another man.
And I am a sun
dimmed my light for his ego
when I say he
I do mean him or plural
But also
I mean me
see
it wasn't any man
that did me dirty it was me
I let go of me
so I repeat.

I miss him
I can't love him
I miss him
I don't love him
I miss him
I want love again
I miss him
So what is love then?

Love is within.
The him I miss is the he in me
and I keep
mistaking the he in she
for the he that is he
the physical man that stands before
promising and proposing
instead of discerning
that my lust for him
is not a burning
but a yearning
of my spirit for me to come back to me.
to stop dumping me out on the street like old clothes
when we both know that those are the best fit.
I've never been the material type
so why would base my life finding new
when my mission is to keep what is so easily lost
self.
wealth is self and I miss it.

See when I say I miss he
it's just Morse code for "I Miss Me!"
I want to be with her
to give her everything that she has given
 to all of the blessed men
that spent her for a new ride, a good time or a fly by night
because she deserves more
shit, she deserves it all.
  She's not tall,
she not thin
but dammit to me
this woman is beyond the shallow scale of one to ten
she is the divine spirit within
and I want to love her
I can love her
I want to love her
I can have her
I am her lover
I do love her
I am a lover
a true lover
because I love me.

Love comes in all styles, tiles, colors and forms.
But true love goes against the norm
because true love is an inner door.
Walk through it as I do
because my ability to love me
allows me to love you.

My Mission
is to love within
My Mission
to love him
My mission
to love them
My mission
is true love's renditions.
- Bajá Marie

"The Elements"

In the SGI-USA Lay Buddhist Organization, if you were born into the practice they call you a "Fortune Baby". I can say that I am that because at 24 years old my mother chanted all while I was in the womb worried about what she was gonna do with me! lol

Her daimoku wasn't in vain. (daimoku is plural for chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo). I turned out to be a damn good woman and truly fortunate indeed.

I was the daddy's girl to a man that wanted a sun (or to you folks SON). My daddy taught me to box, wrestle, play basketball and drink beer at a young age. LOL! It wasn't until he left in '99' that my mother reminded me of my duties as a lady. She was too late though, they were already alien to me.

I was the daughter to a woman that walked the fine line between mother and father roles as a single parent. She focused more in being the father because she knew I was a daddy's girl and wanted me to love her the same. Little did she know, I loved her for Renée, but she'll see that one day.

I was the "baby daddy" to this same woman. At age 12, she finally got the child she wanted as well - A Sun. Cus of the whole mam's boy thing, you know boys are closer to their mothers blah, blah. (rolling my eyes cuz ya'll just DON'T KNOW how much I love the mother I chose) Little did she know she had already raised one. And since my brother's biological father was an escapist it was only right that I take his place and be the father.

I share all this with you to show that I am no ordinary woman. There is alot of masculine energy within me. And that doesn't make me a lesbian by any means. But it does make me a sun. They say women are moons, but I am not. I am a sun, which makes me free.

Because of this I struggled with having girlfriends because truly I wasn't girly! So all the girl-friends I have matched my masculinity in their own styles and forms. My most recent discovery are my 3 friends: Shari, Angela and Lisa. We call ourselves the Four Elements, Shari is Earth, Angela is Fire, Lisa is Water and I am Air. These women are my mirrors. They help me embrace the masculine woman that is me. The woman that intimidates, challenges and progresses; instead of this makeshift woman I have recently become: submissive, passive-aggressive, destructive, more flesh and less spirit. I want to get back to me. To fall deeply in love with me. But in order to do that, I must first see, And my sisterhood with these 3 women helps me.

In high school I dreamed of being in a sisterhood. My freshman year of college I attended a Delta Sigma Theta Rush hopeful to fulfill this dream. But as a college student with 2 jobs paying rent, phone bill, gas bill, light bill, car insurance, gas, plus whatever financial support my mother, brother and grandmother could use I could not afford the $875 initation fee that they asked for. So I walked away from that dream. And in that same year I attended the Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre Summer Intensive where my friendship with Shari and Angie were sealed. Lisa was an added bonus. A theatre major I didn't run into her on campus as I had Shari and Angie (whom are both dopalicious dancers). NOOO Lisa was Shari's roommate all 4 years of college and Shari wasn't leaving home without her and I see why. She's madd fly! Lisa became my first shakabuku this year (shakabuku is the term we use for someone we introduce to the Buddhist fatih) and since then she has helped me stay inspired to continue my Buddhist practice and keep faith.

I'm truly fortunate because these women made my dreams come true. I have many other sisters, whom have contributed their reflections to my life as well. But I give it up to these three because unlike the rest they stuck to me. Everybody else I tend to stick to. My philosophy: "You stick to me, I stick to you. That's a bond more powerful than super glue. But if I'm the only one stuck to you then it's just glue." I know a weird saying but it makes sense in my free-flowing thought processing center, i.e. my brain. But blah blah blah anyways here's the piece I wrote for them entitled "The Elements"

My body is a divine temple
meant to cleanse sins
and bring wisdem
to dem
the tens,
the mill-yens
the hun-dreads
the thou-sins
of women,
children and
Men!

My body is a divine temple
My mind is the house of the soul
My heart is the dwelling place of the spiritual
My belly the processing center of energies
My hips are the ships
that pave the way to the middle passage
My thighs grips the waves of his rise
brings them down to a ripple
and instead holds him close
sending positive energy to ressurect his Most
High!
It's the fire in my eyes
The water in my hands
The earth in my feet
And you hold the key to my eternity
There is only one you for me
and that's You!, ME.
-Bajá Marie

Thank you for your eyes, your smile, your energy and your style. I appreciate you in all that you do. I love you, I really do. Peace and Fortune to you!