Beautiful Love

BEAUTIFUL LOVE

Have you ever been IN love? 
A true, ugly and imperfect love?
Not the love you read, hear or talk about.  Fairytale love. 
Not the love that makes you shout...
But the kind of love that makes you silent, 
Contemplative. 
The love that hmm makes you close your eyes, 
Fantasize. 
The smile that creeps and stretches your lips from cheek to cheek...
When you see that person...
When you smell their scent...
Feel their imperfect skin...
The kind of love that sees perfection in flaws.
The kind of love that is confident and defends against all. 
The kind of love that recongnizes God's grace.
The kind of love that doesn't allow or accept attacks of hate.
The kind of TRUE love that stares back at you in your eyes...
The kind of love that sees REAL and total beauty...
Have you ever been IN love? 
A true, ugly and imperfect love?
I have. I am. 
I love that person completely, imperfectly, beautifully. 
I'm in perfect true love with me.

** Happy Valentine's Day! **
By Phoebe M. 

His Sacrifice, My Freedom

Everyday I rise realizing I can sit, dine and be educated where I please.
I confidently walk the streets knowing blasts from hoses won't bring me to my knees.
While my parents were the first in their counties to integrate,
I've always simply been known as "Phoebe Kenney, classmate."
And King, if you refer to the Black women, the Queen as a ho, treat her with disrespect, judge her beauty on how light her skin or how straight her hair...
You're not building the Dream, you're contributing to the original nightmare.
And Queen, remember after hundreds of years of being beat down, depressed, told he was nothing,
That Black man is not a "nigga" but a King.
My parents, aunts and grandparents marched, fought and sacrificed.
My freedom is a child of their dream.
So I remain awake, eyes open, clear in the future vision.
Marching forward with grace and respect for Dr. King's Dream has been realized.
Everyday is a day to strengthen each other --
Sister, brother, regardless of color.
This one day is a simple reminder for every freedom for which Dr. King peacefully fought but violently lost his life.
A man and his Dream - to be celebrated not just 1 day but all 365.

Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968).  Amazingly it took 18 years for the federal holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr Day, to be observed.  The federal holiday was observed for the first time January 20, 1986. 

Happy Birthday Adam G Poole

In September 1990 I met Adam Poole.  Those who know me - who know us - you know the story.  Today Adam would have been 34 years old.  Today, if it was like any other birthday, we would have celebrated with good food, strong drinks and foolishness surrounded by friends and loved ones.  But those who know - you know today has not been like any other day for almost 9 years.  Today we celebrate what would have been - what could have been - been another year in the life of Adam Poole.

In cleaning out an old chest my mom found a poem that I wrote September 17 1990.  Title "Best Friends".  Funny how one forgets what they have written, thoughts they treasured so deeply they felt the need to write them down only to bury them in a chest - my chest / heart - for 23 years.  Funny how vulnerable and open we are in our youth -- how easily we feel and express love, without regret.  Sad how we lose this innocence as we age.  Today would have been the 34th year of my best friend.  I have not befriended anyone else as easy or loved a man so deeply as I loved Adam G. Poole.  And I know I won't.  Because the love you experience in your youth - pure, innocent, unassuming, expecting nothing ... the walls of age and heartache experienced block that kind of love from happening again.  When I met Adam I knew I had met my best friend.  And in such confidence I chose not to listen to the teacher but to write this in #2 pencil September 17, 1990:

My Best Friend
What are 'best friends'?
'Best friend' is a friendship that will never end.
You meet unexpectedly
Expecting nothing
Never knowing what will be
But positive that 'best friends' are you and me
Everyday something new to share
Confiding everything in each other as only best friends would dare
Today is my favorite day - a day I didn't want to end
Because today we decided that we were best friends.

Happy birthday Adam Grayson Poole.  Happy birthday to my best friend.
Always,
Phoebe

His Perfect Timing

Remember me, the Titaness – Phoebe

I am strong, bright, stubborn and marred.

So it required a blessed man to have the vision to see me.

A patient, strong-willed warrior

To rise above the inferior.

And blessed man, thank God ... you have found me.

In His perfect time,

In the Cradle of Mankind --

Where true love first begin

Your eyes met mine.

And all of this time,

Being reared 20 minutes apart,

It is for you, I now realize, He protected the secret place of my heart.

You did not know you were in search of me

And I did not know it was meant to be.

And a year later, the strangers who met, coincidentally, in Addis are now “we.”

Individually, my name is Phoebe – I am a Titaness

And you, William, are my Warrior.

And by Him we have been perfected to love one another.

Celebrating 1 year "anniversary" of meeting William Truss Jr.

Written March 11, 2012

 

Our first photo together, July 4, 2011

 

 

Me and my "Drummer Boy"

Precious

Perhaps its genetics and therefore I am physically unable to escape the inevitable and thus, continuous spreading of my booty and hips.  Or it could just be my love for eating and my pure hate for the gym.  Hmm something to think about.  Nevertheless I have come to the conclusion that it is this jiggling booty that has caused me so much trouble over the years.  Not in terms of health but in terms of my love life.  Ten years ago, when my booty had less jiggle men approached me as if they had some sense, "Hello.  May I talk to you for a second?"  or "Excuse me, miss..."  The focus was 90% of the time on my face and the biggest compliment I received was on my smile or my eyes.   

 

Fast forward ten years and ten times the booty jiggle - all of that has changed!  My favorite over the years: a 40 something year old man, dressed in a business suit, clean shaven with briefcase in tow, "Damn! Good God Jesus look at all that ass!  Excuse me, excuse me, may I talk to you for a second Thickness?"  I guess "Thickness" was my name?  It also dawned on me that I had not been good enough to include "Holy Spirit" in his lust filled exclamation.   

True story - I cannot make this stuff up.  How did I respond to this seemingly professional man taking the Lord's name in vain for the sake of my ass?  I laughed.  Why?  Because this is all hilarious.  I do not know when men transformed into Clowns and Court Jesters but all of a sudden everything they said or did was amusing as if they were hired to perform in a circus.  Now approaching the exciting age of 33, I thank God for the wisdom and friendly advice of a colleague to just give William a try ...  and special thanks to those clowns and jesters of the past whom have allowed me to realize how precious William is in my life ~ as man of God, a friend and as my boo:

Written October 19, 2011 in Cote d’Ivoire

(extra information found in parenthesis)

Precious is the time we spent at Palomar

(Our first date restaurant)

Precious is the gentleman you were as we walked to my car.

(He really was a gentleman ~ walking on the side of the sidewalk closest to the street, opening my door ... not kissing me!  I wore my favorite lip gloss and no kiss! LOL .. 7 dates later I got one ~ it was worth the wait) 

Precious is the moment our eyes really saw into each other.

(We were watching Martin and our eyes met on a commercial break.  Im pretty sure this is when he too realized he liked me cuz this is when I got my first kiss lol) 

Precious is the “test” you passed when you met my father and mother.

(Mom, Dad and the family cat LOVED him!) 

Precious are the moments you gracefully lose in spades.

(Boo is good at many things but Spades ain't one of them!) 

Precious are the memories that make me smile when I’m away.

Precious is when we fill a room with our laughter.

Precious are even the times we cannot stand each other.

(ALWAYS arguing! But that's my boo!  I didn't want a "yes man" anyway!)

Precious is the pride I feel when I watch you play.

(Boo is so so shy .. except when he is playing! On those drums his personality comes out in a huge way!  He's pretty amazing.  You should treat yourself and come see him play sometime lol) 

Precious is the peace I feel when it’s beside you I lay.

(Thanking God he doesn't snore so I can get a good night's rest LOL) 

Precious is our story.

(Once upon a time, in a smoky hotel bar/lounge in Ethiopia ...) 

Precious is our time.

(7 months!) 

Precious is us.

(William and Phoebe sittin' in a tree...) 

Spare Change

In my life I have met so many wonderful women!  They are beautiful, smart, funny, educated, fabulous, strong and SINGLE!  As I listen to their stories and remember so many of my experiences it saddens me how men treat such awesome women - as "spare change."  Something they could do without once the "dollar" has been broken. 

I wrote this poem a few years ago in a moment where I was apparently "disposable" - by an idiot who didn't see my worth (and who, of course, made an attempt to come back and re-open his account.  tisk tisk tisk). 

"Spare Change" is not a "happy" or "uplifting" poem.  I have put it in my personal category of a "reminder" poem.  I poem I read to remind me that I deserve better - I am more than "spare change" - I am what a man would "save" and value because he knows in doing so he is sure to be happy, loved and provided for in a way that only a woman can provide.  I hope it does the same for the ladies and for the men ... hopefully, it makes one man re-think how he treats the woman in his life or the next one to enter it.

Spare Change

By Phoebe Kenney

Spare change

Expendable

Like the pennies used to cover tax

Or the less than ten cent change you don't need back.

Spare change

The change you forget about in your jeans pocket

The two cents needed – you always got it

Spare change

It's happy to be useful I am sure

You store it in your dirty ashtray

Or find it on your car floor.

You forget it's there until you really need it.

Spare change – your comfort change

Your don't have to break a bill change

If Lincoln could speak

I wonder how spare change feels.

Perhaps it would ask to be more

More than company to the lint in your pocket

Or dirt on your floor.

Or maybe it would simply asked to be appreciated

Good thing spare change is different from me –

No feelings, no emotions, not human

Oh God I hate it.

To be spare change or perhaps

I already am.

Good for a moment

Constantly passed to another

Shit, spare change and I –

We could be sister and brother.

So much in common

So much alike

And yet why do I feel like so much less?

Spare change

You have it made.