I love this song. The lyrics are beautiful. I love music. When I am music I am ocean. I am sea. I am one racing body of water. I am tucked between the words and feeling every psalm with my soul. This is that kind of song.
Tag: #ThankfulThursday
When the World Loves You
I hate to have to be the one to tell you this
after all, you woke up today optimistic
and here I am
feeding you words that I know you do not want to hear
but I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you the truth
about how the world loves you.
The world will love you
only after the soil hugs your flesh
when the breath leaves your body for that place it will now call home
the world will bring you home
on the backs of T-Shirts
and tattoos that kiss cuzo’s flesh
in a frame on grandmother’s wall
and in museums
popularize your name in a post
speak to you in a language that you will never understand
and in a voice that you will never hear
the world will love you
later
after the fact
like they did messiah
on their living room walls
force a crown of thorns around your head
sacrifice your body to social media
hang you
on their Facebook walls
hashtag your legacy
in cyberspace
they will celebrate you
like they never even did at birth
I warn you
they will throw you parties
bigger than anything your eyes could behold
hold you
in their memories like a nightmare
from which they cannot awake
you will haunt them
and they will love it
the world will love you in caskets
and in prayers
tell you secrets in the grave
they will confide in you
like a man to a woman’s hips
when the world loves you back
it is in flowers
and candlelight vigils
it is in marches, street corners, and pictures
the world will love you in laughter
and in memorials
in memory and regret
and I apologize that I have to be the one to tell you this
after all, you woke up today optimistic
but I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t tell you the truth
about how the world loves you
only in death.
This poem is inspired by “When the Hood Loves You Back” by Steven Willis. You can watch the video to my poem below. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel for notifications of more poems.
Exclusive Renaissance InstaGiveaway!
As you all know Book 2 of The Nora White Story is on its way out! (Pre-order it here). In honor of this, I am hosting a giveaway for Book 1! Visit the link below to snag your copy! Hurry. This exclusive offer won’t last long.
CLICK THE LINK and THANK YOU!!
https://claims.instafreebie.com/free/hCg2Pcj9
About.
When seventeen-year-old Nora White successfully graduates High School in 1922 Mississippi and is College-bound, everyone is overjoyed and excited. Everyone except Nora. She dreams of Harlem, Cotton Clubs, Fancy Dresses, and Langston Hughes. For years, she’s sat under Mr. Oak, the big oak tree on the plush green grass of her families five acres, and daydreamed of The Black Mecca.
The ambitious, young Nora is fascinated by the prospect of being a famous writer in The Harlem Renaissance and decides she doesn’t want to go to College. Despite her parent’s staunch protest, Nora finds herself in Jacobsville, New York, a small town forty-five minutes outside of Harlem.
Shocked by their daughter’s disappearance, Gideon and Molly White are plagued with visions of the deadly south, like the brutal lynching of Gideon’s sister years ago. As the couple embarks on a frightening and gut-wrenching search for Nora, they are each stalked by their own traumatic past. Meanwhile, Nora learns that the North is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Can Gideon and Molly overcome their disturbing past in time to find their daughter before it’s too late?
90s Throwback Thursday Jam – Xscape – The Arms of the One Who Loves You
This was the jam…correction, IS the jam…snap, snap snap.
YouTube: Subscribe for #Poetry #NationalPoetryMonth
Guess whose back on YouTube? Mee! Lol
It’s National Poetry Month and I am uploading audio videos of some of my poems to YouTube. I have taken them down from Soundcloud (as I am transitioning that page to an exclusive podcast page) and will be instead bringing them to YouTube. At this time I have five videos locked and loaded for you and will be adding more over time. So, if you would, please, welcome me back by subscribing to the channel and thanks so much for your support. (I’ve even done something I don’t usually do. I added hashtags to the headline. You see that? I’m being converted!)
Subscribe to Yecheilyah’s YouTube Page HERE.
I’ve also created a Facebook Group. Follow We Are Soul HERE (I am keeping this one)
Be sure to pick up your copy of I am Soul on Amazon here! A new review is in:
“The book is of discovery, healing and a slight political stance. It covers issues from simple being to issues of current affairs. It’s beautiful, soft and strong. From beginning to end the book is inspiring and reached into depths of my own inquisitive mind and soul.”
A. Renee Hunt
The PBS Blog Podcast Ep 10 – You Will Lose People
I’ve learned that caring about what other people think of me is an unnecessary burden that I do not have to carry. People will see you how they want to see you. If they think you are a bad person they will only see bad. If they think you are a good person, they will only see good (no matter how deep they have to search for the light.) You can let people walk all over you and there are still some who will say that you are not flat enough. So, you may as well be authentically and unapologetically you because, in the words of Najawa Zebian, “those mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.”
Listen to ‘You Will Lose People’ now on Soundcloud and be sure to subscribe for notification of new episodes.
Subscribe to Soundcloud Here.
Follow The PBS Blog Podcast on Twitter Here.
Follow The PBS Blog Podcast on IG Here.
90s Throwback Thursday Jams – Mary J Blige – Real Love
Heeyy. Yesss.
The PBS Blog 