Alone Featuring Company

11/20/2023

Go Away Scary Monsters Go Away; When The Chariot Comes

My kid’s father has taught her
When she is scared to sing a song
“Go away scary monsters go away “
To the tune of coming round the mountain
I believe there’s an irony to it
A negro spiritual
Turned feel good kid song
Returned to a hymn
She has only seen the fictional monsters
Ones who’s stories get twisted
To absolve them of their deeds
I wonder what the kids of GAZA, Sudan and Congo sing
When their monsters have names
Their monsters are of flesh and blood
Animated only in their chagrin
Who’s snarls and growls
Come from mouth and weapons
I wonder if they sing under the rubble
Hoping to calm their fast beating hearts
Hugged by dirt and gravel
That provide no warmth or comfort
Who’s monsters comes around mountains
Via planes and ships
To strip them
Of childhood’s gift
Of parents, siblings and homes
These days I find myself
Laying in my bed
Singing for them
Sobbing for them
Praying for them
Speaking for them
Hoping for them
To see night lights and stars
Versus fearing lights in the sky

And a song
begging for a savior
Will finally come true

“She’ll be huffin’ and a-puffin’…
Oh, we’ll all come out to meet her
When she comes”

“And we'll all read books together when she comes

“And she'll get to sleep with grandma when she comes”

“They wouldn’t have to mention
If they only paid attention”
…
When the Chariot Comes

09/29/2023

A spoken word piece about trans identity and re-Indigenization

09/29/2023

This is my new piece inspired by the Anime “One Piece”

07/16/2023

House Cleaning
Alone Featuring Company
7/16/23


CW: DV, Unaliving

05/02/2023

Featuring

My inner monologue has become static

A television that’s not quite on but not quite off…but reminds me of the bills to be paid

It reminds me of the countless times I once shot up from my horizontal position in my bed scrounging for pads and pens

In my closet there is a box of half soliloquy’s of the screenplay of my life

I once was desperate to share

But the funding was pulled before it could air

My notes app is paradise lost

And I have eaten the soiled fruits of a nation

Paid for the petrol it took to get to my grocer

Banishing me from my garden

Of peonies that have gone unwatered and jaded

Under pills and potions, 1st of the months, pandemics and broken hearts

I once said:

“I don't write poems for exposure
I do it to prove that I can't silence myself
That no matter how many times I try to swallow my tongue- I remain speaking”

And yet my subtitles have been turned off
And m movie has become unintelligible

Under the cacophony of mundane things

Taxes and all the s**t in the past few years I’ve had to see

That my tattoos of ‘alone’ and ‘company’

No longer represent me

But tell the world of all the things I’m resenting

04/10/2023

BODIED

I look at small women…
Bodies light
Legs thinned
Hoping that maybe
In the nightly feast
Of devouring skin
That some Kirbian aspect
May randomly occur
That I will absorbs them
Through mouths and hands
And my body
Through held breaths
Will feel more hollow
As this routine drags on
And maybe the cavity in my chest
Will help me to float
Down and out the river of denial
That circles my self esteem
Helping me to ignore the fatphobia
Leaving veiled Anti-Blackness at the altar
To remain unmarried and unclaimed

Because our bodies large
Shoulders wide
Legs stocky
Was never something I cared about
When attached to Grandmas hand’s
Saddened when old age
Showed how even she could wither

Away into light body
Thinned legs
Skeleton hands
Scarred from bacon grease
And dyed orange
From okeedoke popcorn
Kisses sweeter
Than the iced honeybuns we shared

the food apartheid
Is very real
There is no food desert to speak of
Because it wasn’t white sands of time or Earth
That withheld markets from our communities
Only whites of past and present times

I once heard how
Deserts are a very real place
Natural is every way it exists
But our Blue’s, Red and Purple foods
Are unnatural
Fruits and flavors
That never existed
And they laugh when we say “purple”
But when I tell you to say “grape”
Is paying into their mind game
There is no more laughter

They televise Naked and Afraid
But never the famine
Of Sheridan Road, Burton and Tremé
And those eating Hot Cheetos for breakfast
Because we never had Benedict’s and OJ
Waiting for us
That we took one bite of
Before rushing to the bus
Kissing mom on cheek
Like the children on TV sitcoms
Parents laughing exasperated about wasted time
But never food and it’s cost

And stress eating is in every white comedy
But the stress of existing while Black
Leaves little time
For nutritions meals
Only intermittent fasting
Snacking in intervals
Gourging only when life calls
For a cookout and libations
As if we’re training our bodies
In preparation for when we are captured
Starved and hoping that our body
Will have stored enough substance
So when they look at us though bars
Kicking plate of scrap toward us
We laugh full body shaking
Showing how our large bodies
Allow more gravity
To help us stay
Rooted in our stance
And how
We will never be once again
Transported and shipped easily

06/10/2021

Birth is hard enough and C Sections make recovery even more of a pain. I didn’t get to have the home birth I wanted, but I was blessed with a daughter who’s essence I didn’t realize I needed so desperately. She radiates light and screams potential toward a better world. My body has morphed, but so has my body chemistry and my being as a whole.

That’s the thing about growing quickly, you’ll always have reminders of how small and minimized you let yourself be before. So grow and let your body wrinkle like waves in the ocean and grow around it like you’re grieving the person you once were as you bury them in new memories.

- Alone Featuring Cowrie

Photo credit:

04/23/2021

This is one for my coming child and something I believe we all would’ve been blessed to hear growing up. Not as much of a poem as it is an open letter.

This is called “Hello, Little One”

Hello Little One,

I want to start this off by saying..you are here and that means something. Your presence on this plane shows that your spirit had the intention of arriving and purpose to enact here. May you never forget that- even in the darkest of times.

It was a shock and surprise to hear of your arrival, but it is not and never will be a regret for either myself or your father. I’m blessed to be sharing space and a body with you. You’re currently still doing flips and kicks in my stomach and luckily have been pleasant so far.

I can’t wait for you to experience your first; kiss of wind, lick of sun, cackle of laughter and rolling thunder of a scream. I can’t promise you that all parts of being a human are fun or easy, but they will get you closer and closer to understanding why so many spirits jumped the veil to arrive at this moment.

I hope that you always feel welcome to crawl into my arms, sob into my chest, bend my ear and grab my hand to dance. I hope you sit with your father and listen to the wisdom he holds. That you learn patience, stillness and compassion from the old man’s stories.

Balancing your personhood and your humanity will not be an easy feat. I implore you to do your best, but ultimately spare yourself and the collective from anguish. That you work to alleviate strife and anger from your vessel and instead transform it into conducive action.

We need you to know that there will be and always has been meaning to this life, the breaths you take and the spaces you inhabit. That there are no perfect people who exist and that none even ourselves are perfect. We must still strive for admirable intentions and honest fixes for transgressions that may occur. And that there may be times where we- your parents- are wrong. I will say it now and will strive to say it to you in times where you do feel wronged by us. I implore you to communicate with me in those times and never shut down or enact walls.

I love you and here are other ways you’ll hear me say it to you…

“You are worthy’
“I’m grateful for you”
“Thank you for sharing space with me”
“How can we fix this?”
“I’m sorry and I will work to be better”
“This is nice…”
“I just need to take space for myself for a moment”
“How’s your heart?”

I love you.

- Alone Featuring Company, 02.01.21

04/08/2021

💕💕

You'll have a chance to hear spoken word from Alone Featuring Company
on 4.24.21 at our April teach-in. Grab your ticket today.

Tiffany Townsend helps ease/erase the trauma of the medical apartheid brought upon Black and Brown birth givers.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/grandrapidsmidwife?fbclid=IwAR3UHUAodrmWByEqOghS5QdSn2QEf6R4jBYGq8qOvVCOLFMMn30JapppwkE

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https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-freed-peoples-april-teach-in-tickets-146953005395?aff=eemailordconf&utm_campaign=order_confirm&utm_medium=email&ref=eemailordconf&utm_source=eventbrite&utm_term=viewevent

04/01/2021

I’m beyond excited to be able to perform again. I thank FREED People’s for allowing me this opportunity!

You'll have a chance to hear spoken word from Alone Featuring Company
on 4.24.21 at our April teach-in. Grab your tickets today. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-freed-peoples-april-teach-in-tickets-146953005395