let me tell you something...

this is my second (not so successful) attempt at slam poetry. 

a little back story to accompany it. i was at a tv taping and won tickets to another taping. the tv taping i won tickets to was sold out so at the time myself and the other 2 girls that won tickets weren't sure if we had won a pair or just a single ticket. when we asked the person who was in charge of giving away the tickets if we could get a pair, he condescendingly asked why we needed  an extra ticket and why we girls just couldn't go alone. when one of the girl tried to explain, he said we should just be happy we got tickets. i didn’t appreciate his tone and wanted to slap him for being an idiot. but I couldn’t because I wanted tickets. so i apologize to my fellow women. and that's what inspired this it should be on tape cause tone and rhythm are important in slam poetry but i'm just not there yet.

let me tell you something.

to men.

let me rephrase that, to all the ‘smug, arrogant, male privileged’ men.

i got something to tell you,

so listen up.

don’t you dare ask me again why you women go the bathroom together,

why you women always travel in groups,

why you women can’t go alone anywhere?

because I’m going to tell you why.

we travel in packs because we live in fear.

we live in fear of being raped when we walk alone at night.

we live in fear of being attacked by men like you.

its how we women have been conditioned to think because of you men who then proceed to laugh at how we travel in pacts.

we women live our entire lives being told not to go anywhere alone because of what could happen.

we women are told from a young age not to draw too much attention to ourselves.

we women have been told to never be alone because there is power in numbers,

that just one of us isn’t strong enough to fend off one of you.

so you see, we never travel alone because of you;

because our mothers have warned us our whole lives about you;

because for some godforsaken reason we were taught to be inferior;

conditioned to think we aren't strong enough, well not anymore.

i could travel alone, but lonesome is such a bore.

i like the security that comes in numbers because i don’t fear in numbers

and until we as a society stop giving our daughters a reason to fear

i will travel however i want with whoever i want, whenever i want and you can’t do a damn thing about it. 

i used to love h.e.r too

as a kid i never really understood poetry. when we had to read and analyze it in school it always frustrated me because poets never just said what they wanted to say. it was full of innuendos and similes and so many other indirect ways of saying things. aint nobody got time for that. i didn't start appreciating poetry until i got older and realized that it was all around me. music is poetry, in particular rap and hip-hop. shout out to my brother and cousins for listening to rap when i was kid. but once i started looking at rap as poetry my whole perception of poetry changed. there was beauty in it. 

one of my favorite raps/poems is common's i used to love h.e.r, released in 1994. its about the change of hip hop during the late 80s and early 90s. if you haven't listened to the song or any of common's music you're missing out. it has to be one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time. its beautiful, its poetic. common is writing a love letter to hip-hop; about all the changes she's been through and despite all the changes at her purest forms she's beautiful. well at least that's my interpretation of it, you never really know with poetry. in 2010 murs and 9th wonder redid the song, i used to love h.e.r (again). again if you haven't listened to murs and 9th wonder you're missing out. their collaboration is one of my favorite things to have happened in hip-hop. grossly under-appreciated. they took the song and adapted it to the time and the changes that were going on in hip-hop 16 years after common wrote his song. like other forms of poetry rap and hip-hop are an ever changing landscape. each artist is experiencing something different and each generation has something different to say. and that’s what i used to love h.e.r represents; an ode to the changes hip-hop has gone through.

a couple of years ago, i too decided to dabble in the remixing of i used to love h.e.r. and here is my appropriation of the song. its titled i used to love h.e.r too and it was written years ago on 2/10/11.

i met this girl, when i was told 10 years old

And what i loved, she had so much soul

i’m sorry to say that i’m not that girl anymore.

i aint straight out of compton not even from 8 miles away

i don’t got 99 problems or a record

i’m just a kid from the burbs spitting my game

born in the concrete jungle where dreams are made of

headed towards the wild west with attitude and did it doggy style

rolled out to the atl where the playas play and parties don’t stop til 8 in the morning

and now I’m chillin in dorm rooms loving college

i aint dropping out of college like ‘nye

but don’t get me wrong, i still have no idea what i’m doing in college

that major i majored in don’t make money.

you say i lost my flow, the poetry

that i’ve lost my afrocentricty

but what’s with all the homies trying to get it just wright on the big screen

why we running on and lending our flava to vh1

you just have me asking are we done yet?

now i know this isn’t ghetto gospel

but you can still see me at the house parties.

you say it’s all party and bull shit

you can’t deny that this shit still hypnotizes you

and gets your money maker shaking like a polaroid picture.

they say i’m just not the same anymore

that you miss her, the creative chick

i miss her too

but don’t forget i’m still the best you’ll ever have.

thank you for reading; i’ve never really shared any of my poetry with anyone.