Valentine

Undone

I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair – it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair in a ponytail and hope that I look semi presentable…

*Throws book into fireplace and rubs bridge of nose with thumb and index finger*

Enjoy your day, ladies.

I’ve loved and I’ve loved being loved…

She has peeled back my layers of bravado and bluster to expose a fractured psyche. My wounds were made as visible as the vulnerability exhibited in allowing them to become tangible. She has allowed me to see the strength in my weakness. Intimate conversations are held without a sound seeping from either pair of lips; instead an extended gaze speaks words that touch the back of the mind and the center of the heart.

I have chipped away at the uncertainty that lies behind her mascara to find what lies underneath is a beauty that Clinique has not been able to bottle. I let her hazel eyes paint the pictures she has etched in her soul onto my tongue. I make love to her insecurity, give birth to trust, and raise her expectations of what the men in her life are supposed to look like. Her heart will never be stolen; I have no need to burgle what she is becoming increasingly comfortable to give to me.

I’ve loved and I’ve lost…

I have held and I have hurt. I have shivered in my sleep and lingered in my shower while scalding water assails my back as I lean against the tile. Each sleepless night leads me back to the same reality: I don’t want to be here. It all seems so mundane, this existence.

I have denied the existence of these feelings. I have refuted human nature so convincingly that I now seem impenetrable. But I am not whole.

You see, it is not her that is slowly killing me; it is this cycle and moments of weakness that allow me to believe that this is healthy. This is a drug. This is insanity. She is merely the vehicle that allows my dependence to progress into something so terr…

My Last Post About Women Ever, Part II: Questlove

questlove

I love making fun of women. I love them but I’ll be damned if I don’t get these jokes off. Y’all are so funny to me. Every duck-lipped selfie and inspirational Instagram post tickles me something fierce (that’s my new thing…saying something tickles me fierce. It sounds like something an old Black woman from Atlanta in 1968 would say. I love it) Light-skinned women make the jokes almost too easy. Self-important broads get that good HARSH sarcasm. All that’s cool but less than 24 hours away from my favorite holiday, I gotta send some love to my beautiful bitter broads.

“Quest…play the damn thing!”

Women, Valentine’s Day is YOUR holiday and when it doesn’t go exactly how you wish, emotions run high and it tickles me something fierce. The crazy thing is I have no idea if bitterness, anger, loneliness, regret, or pure, absolute, radiant craziness is the cause. It doesn’t even matter, truthfully. It’s funny as hell and tickles me something fierce. So I encourage all of you to remember that tomorrow is your day to publicly share all of those emotions with us. C’mon. Share. Shaaaaare! *Sigh*…okay, Lou. Open fire. Quest!

I laugh at your frustration. Good wholesome laughs that emanate from my gut and settle in my throat. Deep-throated laughs that make me clap my hands and collapse on the floor. Thank you, ladies. But when I finish, when I finish- if I ever finish- you can be my valentine. All of you disgruntled, fed-up women can be the objects of my affection tomorrow. I love you all and it sucks you don’t like your own holiday that one of your own people made up so that she can feel even more special than we already have to treat her because she was raised with some weird idea of a man completely pacifying her ideas of romance and she’s crazy as hell and none of you should even pay attention to this crazy broad because you deserve somebody that acts like they like you every day of the year and you should probably boycott this wack broad but I don’t blame you if you don’t because Valentine’s Day has been around so long, you have no idea how to adjust your life and that’s fine because a lot of us men just accept that this is your day and the fact that some of you don’t have that man to acknowledge that and suffer for your happiness makes me sad and I want to buy teddy bears that say ‘Bitch, You Fine’ on the stomach to make you happy and do cute stuff with you and act like nothing was the same and tickle you something fierce. *Takes breath*…Happy Valentine’s Day. Quest, please keep playing something nice for these bitter broads. And bitter broads, keep being bitter; I love you all for it.

A.J. Armstrong paid a lot of money to have ?uestlove play something nice for you bitter broads. He hopes you appreciate it. He is also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities