“Rappers die too much.”
Photo by Chuck Nunley
In a new song I written recently, I said, “have you ever seen a nigga die?/Not by the bullet, but from their own mind?”
In rap culture the state of being is dangerous. We talk about the streets, family, violence, love, taboo topics, abuse in all different forms. However, the abuse inflicted upon self continues to be neglected I feel, outside drug use. I seen it happen. I still continue to see it happen. People, my friends bury themselves in addictions (again aside from drugs) or hold themselves to an unrealistic standard that only causes them further spiral. Self-destruction can manifest in several ways. For myself, its been manifesting in a way of withholding my anger and my voice. When it comes to my voice in particular I don’t necessarily have the words to properly convey those emotions or how I feel on an interpersonal level. So I got rap. Poetry. Music production and other things.
A friend of mine made a post on social media saying, “Anger is the byproduct of fear or grief unheard.”
Both of which at this moment is true. I got great fears staring down my pupils. I haven’t even been able reach the surface of the grief I experienced the past 10 plus years.
What’s happening now is the well is running dry. Not that I have nothing to say, it’s actually because I got too much to say and not knowing how to process it.
In a 1994 interview 2Pac talked about how prison kills the spirit. People think and feel because you faced with heavy and challenging events you’ll emerge with better art or a better mindset. Not always the case. Events are designed to alter you, how it alters an individual is depending on that person’s response or lived experience. You can’t trust it’ll always be positive, but you can trust it’ll be a learning experience. Learning is painful. What’s even more excruciating is unlearning. Being forced to view parts of yourself that may make you cringe, and continue to feed the negative self-talk or self-destruction. Due to that, it’s disrespectful to tell someone how handle grief or pain as long as it doesn’t negatively impact others around.
@ 3:35 He speaks on how prison kills your spirit. Watch the full interview.
I went to a buddhist event where a friend of mine shared her experience as to how participating in the buddhist practice transformed her life in different ways. A man in attendance posed the question after I asked about staying in alignment, “Are you going to step into the light or sit in the chaos of that darkness?” To sit requires a level of patience and grace. Being in darkness and step into the light requires meditation and a sense of direction. I know how to sit down, but meditation is not my strong suit. I spoke several times on here about the conversation I held with my friend Nhi in regards to integrating monsters and demons inside. To banish is almost killing a side of yourself and prohibiting yourself from being human. Then comes to the question, do you even want to be human? Not wanting to be human doesn’t necessarily mean you want would to be something that looks down upon the next being exactly. It just hurts to be human. Yet it’s beautiful to be human. Duality. Balance. It’s just a wonder of if there is a life where you don’t have to constantly search for a balance every waking moment?
The darkness I bore the past several months is immense. To be quite honest I have no idea how I am even standing right now. How I am able to function and move. With my father gone, living on edge constantly with the people around me and recently I lost my cousin Symphony to sickle cell. My entire being hurts. Its angry. Its upset. It wants to rage and destroy. I screamed several times this past week. At an grieving event last Tuesday. Lost my voice before my los Globos performance Thursday. I screamed after and the day after that. The problem is channeling it in ways that don’t negatively impact others. If this was old Chris in the flesh now, I would be extremely violent and harmful. Nothing exactly changed I just redirected the energy towards myself. The harshness people typically see inflicted upon myself, image that on others. Thats my past.
March 2022. First day at Palms Up Academy.
The brute harshness signifies a lack of self-worth or a need of deserving better. I know I deserve to give myself better, and deserve better from those around me. Views on myself has not been the greatest contrary to what a lot of people may think. Its still a head scratcher when people think I have a lot of things based on how I look physically or how I may come off as if I have it all together because I’m careful in my diction in conversation. Communicating my needs is something I struggle with because I don’t like disappointing or hurting people.
I’m in a headspace galaxies apart of where I was just a few days ago.
I don’t even have fun with creating at the moment. I do it to keep from dying because I carry too much. It’s not the business end of things to be clear. Performing is a good form of release, however when that 30 minutes-an hour gone everything comes crashing down. I haven’t written a poem since November 2022.
This is what it came to.
My urges to distance myself from everyone is more present. My body is yearning for healing. I’m afraid this is the step I need to take. Within that, it’s hard to find the words I need to say. I get confused if its my intuition yelling for me to stop or I’m just extremely uncomfortable. I just acknowledge a lesson will present itself. Everything will become clear. A new day will come about. Good or bad, I’ll learn. I fear that when I step into that I won’t step back out. I want to bask in love. I can’t and will not deny that love has been present this entire time. I need to give myself a little extra, and that’s okay. It’s not anyone’s job, but my own. Unfortunately this is another point in my life where I have to walk away, walk alone and trust I won’t stray away too far to where I won’t return.
I saw this quote by Maya Angelou, “Every storm runs out of rain.” I’m a bit impatient waiting for this storm to run out of rain. It’s about 4 months at this point.
I’m ready to just fucking drown. It’s 4:44 in the morning as I type this. Can’t sleep.
Just goes to show I need to build a stronger boat with the materials I already have.
Comments