Is One Woman's Revenge a Gift That Can Open A Door to Social Change?

Question I'm pondering today: If you want something done had you better send a woman to do it?

The conversation over Sterling's reprehensible humanity has been desperately wavering by certain hysterical folk over how he was "betrayed" and "lead on" by a "thirsty ho". Mind you, that evil bastard didn't begin breaking laws and committing civil rights violations when he met Stiviano or on the day they had their strange conversation which has brought ire from so many directions. But so far there has also been a roaring silence on Sterling's misogyny, a conversation just a difficult to enter in the mainstream as race if not more so. 

What I'm hearing across the board in newspapers on Twitter and other social media is that the NBA commissioner's decision is soft, ineffectual and does nothing to work toward the systemic racism , classism and misogyny of sports or American culture

So why this sleepy Xanax weakness and unwillingness to use this historic decision as a platform and watershed some for real change? Forget Sterling there's a whole country in which systemic racism and sexism has held back human progress in this country and not just in a moral and ethical sense. If we accept that all humans contribute to society then the fact that we treat women and non-whites as second class citizens also means we have willingly limited our progress in all areas in favor of trusting a bunch of white male oligarchs to give us all we need.

It has been done before you know? Slaves have been freed in vast numbers. But the example that comes to mind involves a woman  who got  the job done. Perhaps Stiviano in her own personal way regardless of her reasons has done us a favor if we'd only take up the challenge to do more far beyond revenge or the need to make a touchy subject disappear. 

Wake the fuck up people.

Blues for Mister Sterling (The Tarnished Remix), First Song Released by Sterling, Ted Nugent Responds to Scandal

MTV EXCLUSIVE NEWS BULLETIN: Late on Tuesday night after Basketball Commissioner Adam Silver presented the country with the NBA's sanctions against the notorious Don Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers, for inflammatory racial remarks made to his bi-racial mistress in private a phone call made public over the weekend.  

Mr. Sterling has so far refused to come forward to personally address the scandal and its unprecedented consequences. However, MTV has obtained 
a new single written and performed by Mr. Sterling himself and produced by Ted Nugent. 

According to Mr. Sterling's press secretary the song addresses all of the billionair owner's grief and distress over the firestorm. Though previously unknown as a musician his press secretary asserted that Mr. Sterling often expresses  himself musically and the single entitled  Blues for Mister Sterling (The Tarnished Remix) will address all concerns raised. There will be no other comment from Mr. Sterling or his spokespersons as we understand. 





 Blues for Mister Sterling (The Tarnished Remix)
*lyrics provided by RapGenius

I always knew from the first
That  only chocolate skin and greed
Could slake my hunger and my thirst
Profit from exploitation of bodies I don't mind
Making that cheddar
Make my loins just wanna grind

Saw you looking all tasty so much
Oh girl I knew I had to have your touch
You know how I love that game we play
Where I pretend that you be my slave
And I play the Massa who is for you straight thirsty

Now haters keep calling me up to say
That my nightmare has become reality
And now you wanna play me like
The Magic has gone away?

But girl I got to know?!
You ain't  faithful to our thang
For real, when you bring
The Blacks to my games??!  (background repeat x1)
You know my fantasy
To play plantation love games
Let me love you like the true me
Like the slave massa I am inside can't you see?

You sexy to me, girl
And you know you rock my world
I'm down with that sexy swirl
Til you disappointed me
By tryna post pictures to make you happy

Girl, you hurt me cuz yeah I ain't the one, 
You know all up on Instagram
Posing with all them ole black Sams (x2)

(Background harmony)
Why you associate with alla them??
Knowing how they attract vermin??
People callin me on the phone
Aw, damn girl you making my head explode

Why you had to hurt me girl?
You know you rock my world
Know I love that chocolate swirl
But you disrespecting me
And I got to make you see
I'm that Man got to have a woman's obedience
Not tryna talk no 21st year sense
With my fantasy swirling slave wench!
Slave wench (repeat x4)

(Background harmony x2)
Thirsty slave massa
Slave slave slave massa

Now you gone and hurt me so
I just can't even trust you no more
(No no no no more!)
Why you had to do me this way?
Girl I may not live another day

Help me! I have been straight  betrayed
By my fantasy swirling mistress' ways
And by my imitation ungrateful ass
Twenty-first century pseudo-slave plantation

Yes I heard you say:
"We all free now!It don't work that way!"
But you the one who's trippin
You must have disremembered
That I was born in the ante-bellum era
When both race and gender knew their place
Right beneath every white man's finger

Beneath the white man's finger
White man's finger, white man's finger
(background chant x2)

Girl you better go on and run away
Before them pattyrollers call me up to say
"We took your traitor swirling ho!"
Cuz you got to know I still be thirsting for you girl!
You used to really rock my world!

But why bitches always tryna hate?
Tryna to take away shit that I own?
That is my own property!
Hope you got your 30 Judas pennies
You'll never get another Bentley outta me!

Y'all have the need to hear my side, my plea??
Cuz I ain't ashamed, you gotta see
I'm full of that old-school racist ass bigotry
Oh I am straight up nasty!

(Background singers harmonize)
Nasty, nasty
Na-na-na-na-na-na
Nasty, nasty

Your chocolate had me fiending
Now I know chocolate is always best eaten
Secretly, like in my fantasies
Where I can stay in my pride to freely be
A nasty-ass cold racist old-school
Wicked massa wannabe
Who gotz that yen for the old ways
Aww baby I miss the good ole days

Oh I'm always thirsty
In my fantasies I am always
The one and  the only
(Aw sing my song if you feel me!!)
I'm white rich male oligarch
Full of hating and I'm free!!

(Background Chorus)Thirsty Slave Massa
Slave Massa
Thirs-thirsty Slave Massa
Slave Massa (fade out)

Because Cooning Is Hurtful to ALL People

There is no justification in moral or ethical terms that the NAACP can offer to explain, edify, rennder meaningful how the fuck it considered the reprehensible humanity of Donald Sterling worthy of not merely one Lifetime Achievement Award -- nay, nay this organization of Emperors sans Clothes chose to twice award his lack of effort to be human. In case you haven't kept up it's important to note that Sterling's history is so deeply sordid and unabashedly nasty that he has been twice sued successfully by the Justice Department for his illegal, immoral, utterly hateful and predatory business practices against minorities. TWICE. The judge in one of the cases cited that the award settlement amount was in fact one of the largest in history for a case of its nature. 

So. Let's get some things clear. 

Just to clarify the NAACP has not been an active relevant force in Black American politics for many, many decades. It was begun in (oohh dates!! Dates & historians ought to go together like cheez and crackers right?? (cheez...and crackas?! hmn *headshake*) Anyway yes it was founded in 1909 by historian/sociologist/philosopher/Super Brainiac WEB Dubois who was one the most extraordinary, brilliant minds of the 20th century. The organization grew to have an immense strength and ultimately enormous power by the collective solidarity becoming one of the premier forces of the Civil Rights movement (which it should be added did not begin only just when Dr MLK was born. The roots of the Civil Rights movement, direct and indirect protest stretch well before the 20th century down into the abolition movements of the 19th century etc)

However since the Civil Rights Era of the mid 20th century the inflluence and relevance of the NAACP as a tool and force of collective bargaining has waned consistently. While membership and activism in the NAACP was once thriving and healthy today it is by no means a reflection or voice for anyone other than the elite cadre of folk within its own ranks.

The NAACP does not represent the nation of Black Americans today in the way that it once did despite the fact that they are given a disproportionate amount of media attention. In truth and fact they are a group of elites who take care of themselves and who don't reach out beyond their protected group for any reason. The NAACP does not speak as the single mouth of our wide and diverse population.

At best it's an organization that functions to give status to the elites cadre who belong and thereby also functions as a social club that basically protects its own. 

The NAACP has a voice so muted in the black community that it could easily be forgotten about if not for the flashy televised NAACP Image Awards and other celebrity flavored candy on which it thrives. As for real nourishment of the activist spirit, or progressive race dialogue you'd best look elsewhere. 

In this it does great disservice not only to black folks as a nation but it has abandoned its role in multi-racial solidarity and leadership in order to support its own comfort. And so it is that their cooning hurts us all.

The NAACP's founding by WEB Dubois and its history are venerable, honorable and important to American history. It's simply tawdry, embarrassing, shameful that the institution has abandoned its purpose as envisioned  at its birth to free ALL people of ignorance, oppression, and discrimination thereby increasing humanity and mercy in the American experiment. Instead in the lure of money, fame, status and power it lies giant and grotesque to look at fat off of rich pickings, disinterested in real influential leadership, utterly  ineffectual.

Labor For No Love: Cotton Picking, "the Negro" and Old World Racism

My Dad was born in Milan Tennesse in 1946. In his first five years before the family moved to Chicago he picked enough cotton that he swore he would always wear a suit when he grew up and Im proud to say he made that happen for himself.


My grandmother was the Help, and Pawpaw was the driver to the rich folk on the North Shore which entitled my father to attend New Trier high school which is essentially the 90210 or Hollywood High of the Chicago suburbs.


I know for a fact that black folk wouldn't be better off picking cotton because my daddy told me so from experience. But no rational person would agree to that disturbed, deluded, unbalanced kind of syphilitic thought anyway. It's not a serious suggestion. But anyone who cares to submit themselves to the life of threatening danger that accompanies living as a black/brown/poor working class person may discover some insights into American culture that were not previously understood. Above all the inequality that we all tolerate -- all the races of America combined-- is shameful, disgusting and evil. Fine. We who are rational agree with this sentiment.


It is also spiritually and mentally destructive and debilitating. The fear and worry of how to survive on inadequate pay, to stay out of the eye of predatory trigger happy police officers, out of the prison industrial complex. To maintain one's self respect even with the necessary daily comprises to one's conscience that are required currency to be paid the devils of dark side of America. These are deeply powerful forces at work in the status quo of this culture and cannot be lightly dismissed or derided. I doubt that people with white skin could endure one week in such fear, oppression and uncertainty.






The question that has lead us into new territory with the same old status quo is how to deal with this? This is no longer 1950, 1968 and the protest approaches of the past are less than adequate.How do we change the culture?




Question is, who is willing to take the stand? Is there too much compromise and coercion inherent to the American trade off with the devil of racism and economic disparity to ever free us from the demon at all? Are we to continue sleeping in the bed we have made knowing that we can never sleep soundly with the demons who are quite equally visible in the dark and in the light.




I have had something of a revelation though today. The kids today are far more sophisticated with their technology and communication. It may be that society will change simply because new people are here who have had less inferiority training than the rest of us. Because I'm an old. I'm already too programmed perhaps. Maybe the kids don't believe in demons in the dark anymore. And what you don't fear, you can easily conquer.

Thirsty Slave Masters R Us Is Closed 4 Business! Your Hospitality Has NOT Been Appreciated

I admire Doc Rivers and his story is full of experiences about struggle, hard work, professionalism and success in a way, that perhaps will never be experienced by younger generations in quite the same. Doc Rivers comes from a generation where integration was not a starting point and Separate But Equal was just how things were, and it is that old time culture so comfortably accepted by blacks and whites that needs to be GONE. I'm not criticizing success and survival -- who would even see this essay if not for the often strong and sometimes silent leaders who have shepherded us through far larger storms of much greater danger. 

But the culture of racial awareness is full with the victim blaming sentiment of agonizing "I didn't do my job." as Doc Rivers says. Honorable to the last he heaps a huge burden upon himself requiring of himself a behavior type that our masters would never presume to attach to themselves. So often in black culture we're taught "No matter what They do, YOU have to be above all that. You have to ignore the hurdles and work out to succeed. Nobody wants to hear you complaining!" 

And god forbid you reserve your righteous anger to even one, meaningful time to point out a flagrant, habitual pattern of vitriol and you'll be told from peers, authorities and underlings alike  that YOU are the source of the problem not the outrages that are endured under some crazy narcissist.

Particularly for men and women of Doc Rivers generation and older the key to success has often been silence and unfortunate complicity to the social regime that was without doubt more powerful than they were individually. However mass protest through solidarity has brought sweeping changes before. Now we know. The culture of I Can Succeed Even In The House of Mine Enemy is disturbingly harmful and somewhat masochistic even. Why as black people do we still teach our sons and daughters - our peers of the same generation even -- "Don't let it bother you. You just do your job and right will turn out right" when it isn't always true? This headspace has forced good, sane, strong successful black men and women to stay in jobs under the command of morally reprehensible individuals for too long. 

Sometimes there's more at stake than a paycheck, title and social status. Sometimes you have to walk away. Because when management declares that the "beatings will continue until morale improves" you shouldn't really expect that your interests will be served by merely your maintainance of higher purpose. Tolerance of harmful behavior and the crazy cognitive dissonance of a delusional oligarch is capable of destroying individuals materially and spiritually and destroyed individuals become societies with grave wounds and handicaps. This kind of  harmful behavior that so many black people have taught and been taught to endure is, in its own way, as insidious as the strength in numbers  that remain among the old school, hardcore, name-calling, unrepentantly conscious slave master types who still rule America.

the culture of Don't Complain Just Succeed is some bullshit. It's because no one complained that Donald Sterling is still sitting up as the longest tenured owner. Complaining and forcing change won't win you love perhaps-- not even from you own (when was the last time you ever heard Michael Jordan EVER speak on this type subject?) But it can win progress. Complain about  intolerance until the subject is a dead horse. Dead horses don't ride no rodeos and racist old men are not running plantations no more regardless of how some folk continue to delude themselves.

Nobody's trying to shop at Thirsty Slave Masters R Us anymore, it  is not acceptable not even if you hear differently from someone of your own skin color or gender, from someone human at all. That old time religion is dead and the saints it worshipped gotta be shut down. 

Racism is kinda old, for real. Honestly I just feel sorry for him that he feels that way about African American people--- Matt Kemp 

Writing poetry is sometimes an exercise in allowing your brain and emotions to bleed freely while you observe the red pools at your feet...Don't stop the blood flow. Don't freak out if you become mesmerized by the process.

Just write.

Secrets of an Alpha Woman in Love With A Man

You want to know that he is distracted by thoughts of you during his day. He needs to be gone to work and engaged and busy but he also needs to take a few minutes and text you a few times. Those are the special keys of existing in a man's life, when he allows you to know how much he thinks of you. Not all men willingly go there to such emotional depths. Some do. Those are the ones that make a woman grabby. Addicted.

REVOLUTIONARY PIE: A Canadian pizza chain has created a “Pizza Cake” http://t.co/F2nHCYGBlt @ryanpbroderick pic.twitter.com/j5nreqkLNH
— NewsBreaker (@NewsBreaker) April 18, 2014

Just WRONG!! This....is just wrong.

@FeministaJones I'm a short woman been treated wack by one or two shorties. Damn I wish I had said "Fuck you, you wee bastard!"

— Political Mistress (@MadamPolitrixie) April 18, 2014

On Bitches & Bitchiness: An Editorial to the Politrixter Community

On Bitchiness

It seems to me that after a certain age there are things referenced  to the Bitchy Category of life that have no place being there. Words and actions that are, in fact, based upon being a Grown Ass Woman. Had a fight with your best girlfriend? She cries and says "Oh she's just a bitch anymore!" 

Well it's possible. It is also possible that you Ms Tearful need to step up your game and make your needs and thoughts known. You have to communicate in a friendship just as in any other relationship. If you are 30 years old and above it's Time the Fuck Out for that kind of quibbling. 

If you can't handle your own personal don't blame it on someone else's bitchiness. Take a moment. Take SEVERAL moments to look at your behavior and discover what there is within you that made you unable to communicate with name calling. Why in fact was there a disconnect in the first place? 

Because after you've been out of the sandbox for awhile then there's little reason that grown women who are close to one another shouldn't be able to work it out. Fussing and fighting. Sniping. Behind the back mouthiness. Taking as hostage one friend in the middle who desperately desires peace. And let's face it your best girlfriend is often more important that your man. 

Bottom Line: You may have outgrown one another. Accept that for what it is. Own it. Speak it. Make it live. And walk the fuck away like an adult who can handle her business. 

Making the Bitch or Bitchiness your scapegoat is some gross, childish, maladjusted, tacky, silly, behavior of ill-repute. Politrixters fond of these games get no love from me. Wait. My bad. Politrixters always know their game or they wouldn't be Politrixters. Politrixters don't play those baby games. 

Now I shan't tell a fib and say that Politrixters don't know how to rock their point to get across with style. However that, in and of itself, isn't bitchiness; that is Conscious Glamour a subject we shall talk more about soon.

Women who are called Bitches are oftentimes just women who live life

without regret for their actions because they calmly, carefully calculated before they acted, hence making regret unnecessary even in unsuccessful circumstances that did not produce a personal win. Calling another woman a bitch simply because you disapprove of her behavior is merely the most foolish of ways that you've outed yourself as a small girl overwhelmed by more confident woman's actions. It's the talk of losers and whiners. It's the last resort of the athlete who has been bested at the game.

If you do however choose to be a heartless, self-centered woman who cares little whether others are hurt, whether others suffer consequences that you are clever enough to evade then you don't exactly fit into the class of woman I am describing. "Is that woman then, a bitch, Politrixie?" you ask. I shan't say that just at this moment. Truly, there needs to a mountain of evidence to prove a woman worth the title. But if a woman should choose the route directly and irretrievably labelled BITCH (though we at Politrixie do dispute its use until there is more than circumstantial evidence) then she has no other choice than to flaunt her shamelessness such as the woman  described in The Outkast song "Roses"; she can only be, should only ever want to be the most deadly of all bitches, the rarest kind known in the jungle:  A Bitch's Bitch.

Like Kenny Rogers' classic song The Gambler - which is of course another image beloved, treasured and of special significance here -- a woman, however, must have many skills but in the language of the Wild West basically your character could be judged by how well you handle your liquor, your money, and your guns in order to live a respectable and self respecting life:  

Now Ev'ry gambler knows that the secret to survivinIs knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.'Cause ev'ry hand's a winner and ev'ry hand's a loser,And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,Know when to walk away and know when to run.You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Every woman who has ever been named a Bitch for knowing her own mind is a woman who knew what to throw away in life and what to keep. Don't ever allow anyone to shame you for knowing what is best for yourself, not even when it causes tears. 

Whoopi Goldberg: My Vape Pen and I: A Love Story

My Vape Pen and I: A Love Story
Read Whoopi on Weed at the Cannabist

Whoopi on Weed

The bond between black women and Whoopi Goldberg is undeniable. Today the Guardian announced that Whoopi (Just the single name is fine of course. We're all friends here) will be writing a column for the Denver Post. Colorado is still celebrating its weed freedom (which we at Politrixie applaud and support -- and envy). The Guardian's lede on its Facebook posting asked "What do you think of the hire? Will you be reading Whoopi's column?"

Clearly the intern who wrote the post didn't know who he was talking to. Such a question could only be directed toward the Guardian's white audience because Whoopi Goldberg's connection and meaning to black women of my age group the 30-something and 40-somethings who grew up watching The Color Purple is strong like a bloodtie.

Even as an adult I will stop doing whatever it is I am doing should The Color Purple come on tv. I will stop, watch the film in its entirety, and weep. I weep hard, my ugly cry pouring down as if I never heard the story of Miss Cielie before. I laugh and cringe and rock when Miss Sophia is cowed. I clutch my heart when Miss Sophia finds herself again, her strength, at the holiday dinner and crows "Ah yes Miss Sophia BACK!"

I don't watch The View but I can't say that I don't pay attention because the truth is that I pay attention to anything Whoopi says or does. She's just a kind of guru for black women of my generation. And there have been nutty, rude, strange things that she has done -- Blackface with her boyfriend of the time, Ted Danson, anyone? -- that caused me to give her a wide berth and some side-eye but we never, like, broke up over anything.

Watching her on Oprah finally get to the bottom of their feud? Only to discover that there had never been any feud!! Each woman had been duped by the tabloids to believe the other had lied on, talked behind the back of, and disrespected the other!! But sitting on the stage together Oprah and Whoopi both admitted that personally, privately neither had ever had any problem with the other! It was an emotional moment, y'all. I cried. Then the whole cast of The Color Purple came on stage to talk about their 25 anniversary and the memories. Oh it was wonderful. And it all began with Whoopi.


Maybe the Guardian doesn't know it but it's no surprise that Whoopi is devoted to weed. Formerly a heroin addict she had to clean up her druggle lifestyle in order to pursue her ambition for theatre which lead her far beyond into television, film, Broadway, host of the Oscars. Basically Whoopi has the kind of cultural pass that allows her to contribute creatively anywhere she has a mind to go. So now that she plans to write for the Denver Post's website thecannabist.com is simply one more notch on the belt of a woman who has become the embodiement of something almost inexpressibly powerful for some many black women. She says what she wants to say. (Her rebuttal to Elisabeth Hasselbeck's tearful diatribe against black people using the word nigga "We use it how we want to use it!"and "{America}It isn't balanced, and we would like it to be, but you have to understand, you have to listen to the fact that we're telling you there are issues, there are huge problems that still affect us," she said.

So now Whoopi has decided to discuss how her vape pen has changed her life. No longer a junkie, yet member of the rarified club of artists who possess the Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe and Emmy. Even when she hasn't performed in deep profundity ("Eddie") I've never been mad at her for getting that check. 

Whoopi on weed? Yes please!

Why We Need Womanism: It's Personal

There's still so much wrong in the Feminist world as white woman and black woman (try to) dialogue with one another. I'm in that space just now where I'm hormonal (the calendar is telling me to keep a lookout for sales on maxipads) and out of the blue, a white female acquaintance just came at me in a way that made me feel devalued in my right to think, to write and to believe as I wish -- it was a full on challenge complete with explanation of my wrongness, and utter misunderstanding my point (and then never once asking ME to elaborate, elucidate my point for her edification)merely presumption and the figurative finger shaking no-no.

So now I'm somewhere in space. Stratospherically speaking. Trying hard not to lose my shit but knowing that I've blown it (yes, the shit) all the way anyway.

Until we as women can look each other in the eye and honestly support one another's rights to speak, to live, to express then there will always be the gap that is FEMINISM and WOMANISM. And I was never anything but a Womanist. Every so often an innocent exchange with a sister of a different color reminds me why.

Most of all right now I'm left devastated from demeaning myself  in this non- dialogue as I desperately tried to PROVE my right to my opinion: citing my many years spent studying in the Ivy League to earn a doctorate;making reference to two other degrees;sourcing text upon text t(hat she's never heard of) in order to bolster my argument; modulating the tone of my statements and -- god forgive me but I saw the words black and white in front of me -- begging for fellowship.

 And all the while I feel attacked and angry and hurt and betrayed. Feeling weak. Tearful. Dismissed. Degraded.

Because in the end I am 98% sure this white woman will never understand my point but most importantly her initial comments proved that there was no respect for my point of view or my right to express in the first place.

It's difficult to hold on to shaky acquaintances as friends; a lot like the difficulties between Feminism and Womanism.

My Ass Is All That

Heard you mock my ass but I be watchin' you                                   

watching me rock that ass
and really...
you just wanna jock that ass freely
but first you gotta tell me why I oughta
let you talk to me
cuz I aint sure you can handle my sass
Betta raise your consciousness bout this Soul Mistress
before I let you sock it to me from the back
(Oh yeah baby I like it like that)
...and anyway you know I know you want it that bad


dedicated to my brown sister Kamni Indian goddess, Mistress of Beauty and London Fashionista 

I have a big ass.But always old ladies r the ones smacking my ass! They c me& I hear *KAPOW* then can't sit down 4hrs. Old Lady,dirty mind.

— Political Mistress (@MadamePoltrixie) April 15, 2014

The #Arty Scholar & Politrixter signing off & w/a #Goodnightkiss 2 #fabulous Politrixies everywhere! #Nightynight <3 pic.twitter.com/7kXcgiHseD

— Political Mistress (@MadamePoltrixie) April 14, 2014

Desert Heat & the Devil's Whip

Sometimes you have that melancholy feeling 

that you just can't shake no matter how hard you try

and you fight it and try to run it away 

You work your body hard fucking fighting then praying

"take this away, take it off of me Lord"

though you've never been observant of Him before

But the feeling has hold and won't be denied

it's the power that controls and you are merely

the animal it drives 

whence you  know not

Yet you find yourself hundreds of miles

galaxies and millennia so far from home

the devil is riding you backwards 

in speed and spite, no choice but to comply 

the self that was you is

submerged into desert windstorms

the devil's heat, perversity of the divine

and just enough stamina left physically 

for your soul to unwillingly survive

Grand Designs

I wandered away off the main road

into the meadows that turned into desert

but not so far that I couldn't hear voices call

my name in curiosity then in worry then with

frantic impatience and fear

I wasn't far but just distant enough to be alone

and then kept travelling til I was far far from home

I made a wrong turn despite better advice

despite knowing all too well that this

was dereliction and vice

but sometimes you have to journey

away beyond the rules and the familiar

voices you know

sometimes you have to chance that 

faith and foolishness are united in design

all their own

@FeministaJones Macklemore must stand up4 women's suffrage cuz ladies should get to vote 2. That's where the real battle be at aint u know?

— Political Mistress (@MadamePoltrixie) April 12, 2014

Meditations on Meditation

One of the most happy indications that I have discovered affirming my own self devotion to the science of yoga study - even its most basic, introductory stages (which is where most devotees are despite the pride one feels in being acquainted with the study at all :) - is the awe I feel when I encounter just *a single sentence* that exposes my utter ignorance. I have many opportunities to experience this awe because I rarely complete a single sentence without stopping to realize that I don't even know the true meaning of individual words, much less the grouping of these words into sentences.

I mean, I'm talking about when you're on *page one* of a book entitled something like, "Introductory Yoga" or some generic instructional text like that and realize *that you have no fucking concept of the statement, *nor have you ever thought such a thought*; and *furthermore now that this sentence has informed you of this new principle you are more than vaguely certain that you are a significant distance from coming to understand said thought with any sense of advanced wisdom or any claim of expertise*

There's a funny kind of JOY in those realizations. Whatever you know or thought you knew before encountering the study of yoga, there is proof in every sentence of study, in every moment of meditation and in every minute contact with pretense of devotion that you  are ignorant.

But the joy comes in the knowledge that there is a CURE for that ignorance even if the cure does take a million lifetimes ....or whatever the hell that means.

The Vanity: X Heart/X Mind (Crossing Heart and Mind)

The Vanity: X Heart/X Mind (Crossing Heart and Mind): Written by The Political Mistress XHeart/XMind You have moved on and now I can be free  so why should I miss you when you don&#39...

X Heart/X Mind [Redux X-Squared]

Artist Shane Turner

X Heart/X Mind 

I.

You have moved on

and now I can be free 

so why should I miss you

when you don't miss me

However, I am willing to bet

that you can block my letters

and you can turn your back

yet, for all that, you still can't forget

Enclosed by the fog of bitterness

 in clouds of pain and benumbed feeling

alone now, I am bedeviled by dreams 

wherein without ceasing I seek you in vain

through the mists

 entreating you to make peace between us, 

do you know it? can you hear me?

I desire to end this war

of betrayal that has flung us both

 into orbit solitary and reeling

and, finally, together we must assess 

the priceless cost of peace's reward

 see: the savage sacrifice present in this wreckage 

no wickedness, nor more wanton whore 

in its destruction, in its passion

than the cold-bloodedness of a lovers' war

yet forever seared upon my mind

is the pettiness of our slain hearts' worth

 now we dedicate a sacred vow sworn 

upon the field

belated promises betwixt you and I

 to wage battle in armor dressed and worn

 in anger  

in vengeance

in jealousy

for lost love

never no more

II.

each seeking deeply within for an ancient truth 

and trust once known

we depended upon these

(and upon one another) in days long ago

the joy of irrefutable evidence is

thus revealed through eyes' gaze

celebration erupts at unexpected proof through  

discovery of two spirits at long last becalmed

tranquil

placid

peace, be still

like a gentle breeze 

skimming upon the ocean's waves 

and, then, at last to intuit for now visitation to past holds no danger,

 nor threat of evil karma

having now become comrades unfazed too old, tired of armor 

the two former lovers luxuriate in old memories
amidst the dearth of old fears or new trauma

Because the day has come

 to sit and discuss

 why it all fell apart

when did the unquiet begin to make a hold

how "together" lost its meaning 

creating such suffering unlike any ever known

and neither of us could bear to stay

the truth was that in-love had gone

but still the chance existed for it become okay:

after all, friendship is forever

as long as it is respected and nurtured

and cherished that way

III.

We were so good together

and we were friends first

and we laughed a lot

before the time of the hurt

now we are old and I know a true fact

that love and memory and friendship

are like a fisherman's giant net

Stated with bare simplicity:

you cannot get free of what you cannot forget

Whether heartbreaker or heart-broken

there are lessons that no one escapes

And, it is impossible to continue 

hating a lover at all times because love is 

far stronger than pride

which is why it's so difficult

to resist turning and taking one last look back 

in the first doomed-to-failure attempts at leaving

 and saying goodbye

the need is so strong, so instinctive 

to try to tell your love just one more time

that it was nobody's fault

that the love was  always true

that this separation is killing me

 nor can I bear it 

How can you watch me go?

How can I ever leave you?

a merry-go-round of misery 

and heartbreak exquisite pain reinforced until 

despair becomes its own opiate 

defiant of ease or sedation

Tis true as well that when you've caused pain and hurt to a friend

the sense memories remain upon the flesh within

though you may wish to feign, to play make believe and pretend 

it still cannot make it true that

 turning your back walking away will mean The End

and yet who can explain why the mind

continues to look back  torturing itself with replays

as if hoping, daring to meet up with the past one more again 

IV.

So was it only a ruse designed to trick our hearts

that we finally said

''fuck you. forget you. you're not my problem'' 
To bring about the end?

You were never a problem;You were The One

You were the one to make me smilei again and again

The one who sheltered me from a cruel world of tears 

sorrow/defeat/disappointment

worry/trouble/distress/guile

you were The One who made Us 

full of joy, contentment, and cozy warm love

You were the only one who was ever worth the while

i tell you this now

in the dusk of our 

life love and wars

not for you to reply

only for you know that still

you cross my mind

i missed you, my friend and i wish you well

but I have had so many stories to tell you

moving on meant telling someone else

but it was never the same as telling you yourself

V.

be well, my dear

for i still (always) miss you sometimes

the lingering memory of you, like the scent of a shade of color

the taste of a melody, the feel of stardust in one's eyes

You were The One forever cross my heart

just as you now forever cross my mind

<3