My Escape by Danny K

Life, dreams, hopes, no way to cope,
Failures not an option I can ever take,
Ready to break, my escape, unknown,
22 so I should feel grown but at times I'm a child,
My mind's running wild,
I try not to let shit get to me, or lose sight of history, Let me see...
What more can I say that hasn't already been said,
How can I ever truly describe the thoughts that are going through my head,
Mourning the dead but still trying to understand it all,
Waiting for the answers but I think I'll never get the call,
I want to change the world just not sure if the worlds ready,
Feeling faint, tired, weak, trying to keep steady,
Because I can't fold under pressure,
And yet,
Wish I could say that I lived my life with no regrets,
So what is my escape through it all?
What keeps me striving to succeed when everyone else shouts "Fall!",
The answer was unclear at times but now there's no doubt,
Writing is my escape, My only way out,
My fate at times seems like a curse,
Bad relationships and phony friends only made things worse,
But as soon I put my thoughts into words, somehow all the pain ends,
And my problems seem too absurd...to ever worry about,
However when I stop writing, when the words don't come out,
I'm back to my life thirsty, stuck in a drought,
Trying to make a way, with all that I was given,
It's funny with my background it would have seemed more likely that I'd end up in prison,
Than to be here and now, writing poems to inspire,
The masses, my people, yet some would call me a liar,
Or try to stop my shine,
Don't they know once I get a hold of something it will always be mine,
Maybe in another time, things will be fine,
And I wouldn't be criticized or judged just for speaking my mind,
Though struggle builds character, which is what I'm after,
Anything less would surely be a disaster,
So as I strive to master this thing called life,
Know that my escape could be yours too if you're willing to pay the ultimate price...

I buried myself alive on the inside...

I never actually am alone, I just always feel alone...(Drake)


Life gives us many sorrows, regrets, empty promises, torments, obstacles, heartbreaks, losses, lies, uncertainties and yet we all seem to carry on each day, to me that is one of life's little miracles that we all need to appreciate more, there is some truth in only the strong survive, the weak minded fall easily under pressure, just some food for thought...

Never knowing if this moment will be are last, we must live everyday to the fullest with no regrets. I have had a lot of regrets in my life but I have learned that what has happened in my life has happened for a reason and certain people are out of my life for a good purpose, you shouldnt have to ask for love if people care they will show it. I have a few people in my life who I love and many who claim (and have claimed) to love me but really don't, and in the end all I have is those few and I wouldn't want it any other way...because I know I'm here to serve a purpose and all the ones that tried to keep me down or hurt me aren't even up to my level yet so keep climbing but you will never catch up because I'm a born fighter, I'm a King so how could I be anything else???

I have been having a wierd past few weeks so far. I finished up the Battle Royale manga series, long overdue, since I had the last few issues for months now but something that good you just want to prolong as long as possible. Also, I just finished up the manga, Lone Wolf and Cub another great series that I read this summer and I have to say it is really up there in caliber over many traditional novels I have read. If you haven't read either of these titles or just don't read manga you need to start, these two series are some of the most enlightening things you can ever read about human morality and values. To me these works have provided a certain social understanding of human values, beliefs, morals and and causes and reasons for human actions that no traditional novel has ever been able to relate. And finally, Old Boy which I am still currently reading but will be finishing up this week, along with these other mangas I mentioned deals with human resentment. I just feel that with all the emotions about life that I have been feeling lately, Mangas are the only outlet I have that I feel truly understands me.

Going for my masters...I just started a MA program in Urban Affairs. Maybe I'll have a future in policy making, who knows. I've just been wondering if law is the best fit for me anymore. There is so many things that I want to change about our legal system and I'm wondering if me just being the best lawyer I could be is enough to balance out all the bullshit going on. Sometimes I really feel like I'm going against my total moral ethics at times. I just want to change the world for the better and really make a difference that counts. Is that to much to ask for or want to achieve? Should I just continue to bury myself alive on the inside??? I don't know, but I love that song (The Used- Buried Myself Alive) and I'm going to go listen to it now and see if I get inspired...

Another Feloni response..

Last time I responded a response to lesbian rapper Feloni's blog, I posted it on here because I thought it was interesting stuff so here we go again, my response to Feloni's blog "IS THERE A "FEMME" SHORTAGE: PT 1. FEMME-TO-STUD CONVERTS... & PART 2: "IS THERE A 'FEMME' SHORTAGE? ARE 'FEMMES' GOING BACK TO MEN IS THAT A MYTH?", which you can read at:

http://theofficialfeloni.blogspot.com/

or

http://blogs.myspace.com/feloni



My Response to Part 1

After reading every comment on here, I feel like my views on this matter were way more limited before than what I thought. But I definately feel that there us a femme shortage, being from NYC where there are tons of lesbians you can still tell at pride and other big lgbt events that it is more AGs/Studs/Doms/Butches or whatever term you want to use to describe an agressive female. I cant say that this is directly linked to femme to stud converts or femme to ftm, but there is definately a shortage. I can say however that after reading peoples comments and through my own personal experiences and through things I have spoken with friends about, I do think AGs or Studs not treating their femmes right or as another person refered to as "Baby Butches/Studs" not knowing what being a Stud is all about can make matters worse and led to some women wanting to move from femme to stud. But just like I don't think no one decides to be gay over night I don't think femmes who turn studs decide this over night either, I think part of them has always wanted to be a stud or at least has always been curious about being a stud. If you are completely content with who you are it doesn't matter what has happened to you in life (terrible break-ups or just no luck with women in general), you would never want to change yourself, so I feel using that as an excuse is really a cop-out.

I am finding a hard time right now meeting people because most of the femmes my age (22) still have that high school mentality and I'm ready for a woman because I have accomplished to much in my life to move backwards in relationships. Also many of the so called Ags are not helping matters either, by using the femmes that are actually about something in life to better themselves then dumping them after they have been "upgraded" so to speak from the femme taking care of them, buying them clothes and generally helping them better their life. This is so lame to me because it is the exact same thing a lot of men do to good women and I would think that if anyone could understand how messed up that is to do to someone another girl would but instead they do the exact same thing as males or even worse. I feel that part of this is some studs feel like they have to overcompensate since they arent truly males and feel that to show that they can be just as masculine as men they adopt all of mens bad qualities instead of the good. I dont consider myself a femmely looking stud but I know I am a woman and I'm proud to be one so I don't feel any need to act overly mannish, I would consider myself inbetween on the femine to masculine spectra but it doesn't matter people should just be themselves plain and simple. Whether you are a femme who likes femmes, stud who likes studs or femme who likes studs, we are all woman at the end of the day and people should just do what makes them happy during this brief time we have on this earth. I don't know Feloni your blogs always open more questions for my about the LGBT community as a whole, but it's always interesting. Waiting to see what part 2 has in store...


My Response to Part 2

There are so many reasons why women go to men or back to men outside of "femme or stud messing up by being verbally abusive, physically abusive, cheating or being a non-contributor to the househould". Personally I feel that societal pressures, family pressures and issues with religion and faith are some of the biggest factors concerning why women bi or lesbian (femme/stud) or whatever go back to men. Especially if you came out at a younger age because when you were young. I came out at 15 and things seemed so much easier to me then. I always knew I liked girls and I finally got to act on my feelings though like everything in life it came with a price (gay bashing, family judgement, peer judgement, trying to hold on to your religion even when your feelings contradict what you have been taught or just plain getting hurt in female relationships), but either way it felt great to finally be me.

Now that I'm older though, not that much older, I feel like being openly lesbian is more harder than ever. How can I relate when people I was in college with get married and start settling down where in most of America gays can't legal get married? Not that I'm a huge gay marriage activist, but its hard relating when even if I wanted to experience that I can't in the state I reside in. I'm working a typical 40 hour a week job, though I dont have that typical 9-5 schedule, but I'm surrounded by women either married, have kids and have the typical American lifestyle and my life isn't and never will be that way. I'm start of thinking of the ramifications of being an out lesbian more than I ever did when I was young. When I was young it all seemed worth it now, I'm not so sure. Being true to yourself in what your sexuality is, is one of the best feelings in the world but when it affects ever other aspect of your life, you start to wonder if it's worth it especially when relationships with women aren't working out. I know so many girls who still to this day love women but it was just to hard so they went back to men, mostly because of their families or their religious beliefs (though it seems to me that in the gay community we don't discuss religion enough, most LGBT people I have meet are very spiritual). And in regards to family, is being in love with a woman worth losing your whole or at least most of your family over?

Now I don't want to say that it is easy for late in life lesbians to come out, but it just seems to me that people in general when they get older have less to lose in regards to maybe family members have moved of some passed away and when you get older family tends (though not always) to butt out of you life. With young people it seems like family always wants to tell you what to do and how you should live your life. So sometimes even though you won't be completely happy, you take the easy way out which in this case would be being with a man. Not to say men are trully an easy way out but most men seem to be primarily focused on one thing (we all know what that is, and don't get me wrong girls are too, we just hid it better, lol), and so even if it sucks women feel like at least we know what to expect from men most of the time. I mean I think it's crazy that when I look back on my past relationships I really can't say I truly understood the girl I was with, I tried but always seemed to fail even when I thought I had it down pat. Girls are such complex creatures and to me it's hard sometimes to be a woman and still feel liek I don't relate to any of the women I meet. I don't know at the end of the day whatever is causing women to return to men I definately see it, in that most of my ex's are with men now, a couple are pregnant at this very moment (yeah, kinda sucks). But I do know this whether its a femme/femme, stud/femme or even stud/stud relationship, when a woman is truly happy with her partner or dating women, all the obstacles I mentioned won't stop them from living their lives, but when that happiness fades, thats when women no matter what the label look for other alternatives...

Thinking about Michael and new things to come...

So what can I say that everyone hasn't already said about the death of Michael Jackson? I really don't know. But I know that my feelings on the matter has suprised me and let me thinking about Michael in a different light then I did before. All in all this past week has been a very confusing, fustrating and exciting time for me. As I have talked about in previous posts, I don't really know how to handle death, it's so hard for me to understand the mystery and complexity, I don't think I will ever come to terms with it. However there is no doubt that absence makes the heart grow fonder, though I wish Michael was still alive to see all this love poured out all over the world for him. But people forget sometimes how much someone can have an impact on their lives until they are gone and you never get a chance to experience their love and talent again. Music has always helped me through my sorrows and Michael's music was timeless. I just feel sorry that this generation of kids didn't get to experience him the way I did growing up and the way my parents did. But I guess even in the craziest of times, things have to make sense and everything happens for a reason.

My life has been its typical crazy self but lately and especially this past week things have been coming together. Last month I graduated college recieving my BA in English from Michigan State University and though I wish I can say I was off to law school in the fall which was my dream, that has been delayed for another year or so. I was upset but I think that I have something to offer law school that most candidates don't so if they are too distracted by LSAT scores and GPA to see that then that's their loss. I'll be starting work next week as a paralegal and I hope to get into a Master's program for the fall so all is not lost. Life is what you make it and not everything will turn out as planned you just have to be prepared to take the next step when your plans fall short.

I haven't wrote a blog in while so this was mainly to get my head together and pay Michael Jackson the tribute he truly desires and I wish he would have lived to see. This one is for you Michael...

















R.I.P Michael Jackson, you will be missed, Aug.29,1958-June 25,2009

The Future of Hip-Hop

Hip-Hop was slippin for while but these last couple of years things have been getting better. These dudes right here are the future of hip-hop. I picked my Top 4 out of the Top 10 Freshman and in case ya don't know much about these dudes I got a music sample for each of them. These dudes and others like Drake are bringing rap back to its roots. I miss old school rap where a song didn't need a 45 sec chorus or have to feature an R&B artist (though some Collabo's are cool), but it could just be about the Rhymes. At the end of the day it should be about the music so many rappers out now can't even spit (Soldier Boy, Juelz Santana and I could go on but why give them any kind of publicity, they damn sure don't deserve it) and it is all about having a gimmick and marketability rather than true talent. But these four dudes have got REAL talent and I can't wait until they truly get the respect they deserve.



Charles Hamilton- Brooklyn Girls




Wale- Nike Boots


Wale "Nike Boots" video (Directed by Chris Robinson) from Elitaste on Vimeo.


Cory Gunz- Freestyle




Asher Roth- As I Em

Stream of Consciousness/ My life by Danny K

Countdown 4,3,2,1
What is time really?
A relative concept,
A social construction,
Abstract actually,
So, what am I waiting for?
A miracle, a prayer to finally be answered..What am I talking about?
Why am I writing this?
A Stream of Consciousness bursting out onto the page like a broken ink pen.
I feel life, love, death all at once like a tsunami raining down onto a ship,
I don't even know what to think,
Is this painful existence even real or is it just some huge punchline that I will just wake up from one day,
Am I gonna be doomed to a life of conformity and unhappiness because it's easier?
That's what it feels like right now,
All hope is destroyed like Pandora's box never opened but instead smashed to pieces before hope could take its first breath,
There's so many things I want to say but everything is so hard,
Why is life so cruel?
Why is sadness and pain so immense and prolonging,
While love and happiness always seems to end so quickly,
Maybe I will have the courage to say what I need to say to you,
Or maybe this Stream of Consciousness was all just a waste time...


My life




My life like the sky without clouds is incomplete without you,
For seven and half years I have just been left to make due,
I don't even understand why I am here but you give me a reason to live, to fight, to strive for perfection,
With no other person in this world do I share this connection,
When everyone has left me you have always been there, will always be there,
And unlike so many people who come in and out of my life, you really mean it when you say you care,
They tried to take you away from me but the bond we share no amount of distance can separate,
A love so strong the word itself can't even begin to demonstrate,
For you I will do anything and no obstacle put in my way could ever stop me,
Because without you where would I be?

This is for you Lil Jerome, My Brother, My Friend, My Life

"I feel like I'm just waiting live so that I can die and that I'm waiting to die so that I can live!"

I don't know if I'm the first person to technically say the above quote/title of this blog, but I first wrote it down when I was 12 to describe my thoughts about life and it was the only thing that I could think of that fit. Still to this day at 21, I can't think of any quote that can describe the human condition better than this blog title. So many people spend every waking moment for that one thing that can make life worth living. Even if you haven't written it down, most people have at least a mental list of things to do before they die and when we think of people we know who die before they got to complete their life's goals, we feel sad for them and hope that the same thing won't happen to us. So in a way we are sort of "just waiting live so that we can die", because once we complete our life's goals we say well if I died today at least we got to do what we wanted, it's only natural.

When things get crazy in life you can't help to think that death is the only escape and even though to most people the thought of dying is scary, you can't deny their is also an idea of spiritual release (this doesn't have to tie in with religion necessarily) in death where all the problems of the world, all man's pain and strive can be removed. That's why people who get close to dying say after the immediate pain of what harmed you (bullet, car crash etc) they don't feel any pain after and there is sort of this comforting feeling. At times I find relief in this notion of death saving us from all life's ailments. So, with all the pain in life maybe death is the only time you get to truly live pain-free. But at other times the uncertainty of death is to hard for me to bear.

In my life I plan everything, I keep a calender record of what I need to get done on a daily basis that as time goes on my tasks just get greater so I don't find that death itself is scary to me but just the fact that I the planner, the person who always thinks before I act, haven't the slightest idea what death has in store for us and there is no one in the world who can give me this answer. That's what really scares me and so my notion of "I'm waiting to die so that I can live!", doesn't quite help in relieving me of these feelings.

Last night I was reminded of a conversation I had with Granny, my great grandmother who passed away in Sept. 2007 when I was in Junior high school about death. She never thought of dying as a scary concept, they she spoke of it seemed like she took comfort in the concept. She would talk about how most of her good friends have died and as time goes on more of them die. So, I wondered why Granny wasn't afraid of dying when she seemed so sad to think about almost all her lifelong friends being dead. Then, I remembered when her brother Uncle Charles in 1998. She was so sad when he was in the hospital from having a brain tumor and when she spoke to the doctors, to find out if there was anything that could be done and they said "No, that life support could keep him living a little longer but he would eventually die from it". The next thing Granny asked was that if he was going to be in any pain while on life support and the doctors said "Yes, he will be in a lot of pain". And Granny made a decision that I don't think I could ever do and hope I will never have to do and she told them to pull the plug on her brother. It wasn't because she had to pay doctor bills because my Grand Uncle being a veteran had all of that taken care of and burial taken of and plus Granny never thought like that she cared deeply for her brother and all her family. But when she thought of her only brother living only to be in pain everyday she couldn't stand it and felt that, that wasn't what he would have wanted. So Granny found comfort in death because when she thought about her mother, brother, daughter and all her close friends who passed away and the possibility of seeing them again, that brought her peace. She did what she wanted to in life and never had any regrets or at least she didn't express any to me and so she accepted death and all its uncertainties and had no fears. At the time and still till this day, I wonder if when I get to be her age would I feel the same way about death but I understood how Granny felt and it made sense to me why someone would feel that way.

All this stuff is just speculation of course or me theorizing on a concept I created, but isn't it interesting and doesn't it open a world of possibilities to what life is really about?

And I wanted to leave these last lines for my Granny, who I miss so much even though we had our bad times but no one is perfect so I hold no grudges or contempt. I never got to say goodbye to you Granny and the last time I saw you we argued and I'm so sorry it had to end like that. I never got to tell you that you taught me so much about life and my ancestry that I will never forget and I will pass on those lessons someday to my children and tell them about you so you will never be forgotten. I never imagined you dying while I was still so young and I wanted you to be alive to see me graduate from college and become a lawyer since you were so proud about me being in school and pursuing my goals. You will be with me in spirit though on graduation day and I will keep my promise I made to you when I was 13 and the first book I write will be about your mother, my great great grandmother and you. After moving about 10 times, I still have the book I wrote in that night when you gave me notes about your mother's history and I make sure that every time I move I still have that book with me. I love you Granny, goodbye and if it is ever possible I hope one day that I will get to see you again...

You're so gay...

Ok, so I just got back from the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Alliance College Conference(MBLGTACC) in Bloomington, Indiana and I have to say I left this afternoon from Indiana with so much on my mind when it comes to LGBT issues and how I feel about the community as a whole. To many this weekend was just an excuse to hook up with random strangers then never see them again, but to me it was more than just that(Though the idea of hooking up had occurred to me on more than one occasion during the course of the weekend, lol). But ok back to my point, I learned a lot this weekend about myself, things that I knew and things I didn't from this trip. Am I really a lesbian? What makes you gay? Does being a homosexual or queer mean that we all have to have the same ideologies, thoughts and beliefs? Do all LGBT members in the community or especially ones that are famous or hold a high status in society have to fight for the gay agenda? If you don't does that mean that you don't care about the gay community? These were all the things running through my mind after I left the conference earlier today.

Well, until I am reincarnated into a heterosexual woman's body who actually is heterosexual and not just suppressing her feelings for women, it's safe to say that I have and will always like girls. I tried to like boys when I was in junior high and even my freshman year of high school but it just didn't work. I was always a tomboy and hung out with nothing but guys. My best friends were guys and they made me feel comfortable as appose to girls at the time who always made me feel self-conscious and not girly enough. So because I wasn't fitting in with girls my age at the time I tried to tell myself that I liked my guy friends which of course wasn't the case since I was having crushes on girls in my school classes every year from the age of 5 yrs old.

When I first came out at age 15, I just wanted to surround myself with gay people because I thought that they would understand me and make me feel comfortable and accepted. But as I grow older I realize that just because I hang with gay people doesn't automatically mean that I will just be accepted for who I am more than I would with heterosexual people. I'm starting to realize the opposite actually. I know so many gay people especially gays in the Midwest who make me feel so uncomfortable and unaccepted for who I am and I know so many straight people who accept for who I am and love me more for it.

So lets relate all this back to the title of this blog, "You're so gay". What does this really mean? To me being gay isn't all I am. Actually it's number 10 on my list of things that make up who I am. I am black, I'm a woman, I'm mixed, I'm from NYC, My younger brother who is autistic is my life, I believe in God and I am very spiritual person and I could go on but I think you can get the point that being a lesbian isn't all that consumes my everyday life. I feel like I don't relate to the gay community especially in the Midwest, because I feel that a lot people in the LGBT community feel that being queer is the be all and end all and its all that consumes them on a day to day basis but its just not like that for me. So does this mean that I don't care about the gay community and its issues? No. It just means that, that's not all I care about. I care about Women's issues, Latino issues, Black issues and many others and I don't believe that just because a person identifies as LGBT that they have to constantly and always be doing things in the way of helping the community. I don't think anyone is obligated to have to represent the community they are a part of, whether it's racial, ethnic or sexual orientation. That's not to say that people should do nothing but sometimes you just have to live your life first and worry about all the other bullshit second.

For me I want to do what makes me happy and some of it is fighting for LGBT issues and making LGBT images in the media more positive and realistic but another part is fighting for all the other issues that I mentioned above and taking care of my brother and then spending whatever time I have left over (If I have any, lol), just living my life to the fullest. Because we only live once and tomorrow is promised to no one.