Marlene Bailey

Marlene Bailey Apr 2020

feel

i feel.

disconnected
helpless
tiny

in agony.

i feel like the world is ending
but I have no one to turn to.
i feel very happy for a moment
and very sad to the other.
i feel like i can't do anything right
as if it were mud, as if it didn't hurt,

as if i was worth nothing.

this is exactly how i feel right now, not my best work but i needed to vent

#agony #sadness #tiny #helpless #worth #nothing

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

The black women in I

There’s something about the black women in I that I can’t figure out.
I wake up in my bed every morning wishing I could go out and spend time with my friends
Without some disrespectful ***** yelling at me:
“Ay, yo ma!” or “What a *****, mama—let me taste you.”

I’m sure my name isn’t Ay, yo ma.
I’m sure I’m not your ma.

But I used to blame myself for that.
I used to tell myself that all those men were attracted to me because of my body.
I used to tell myself that, if I ever got *****, it would be my fault.

Every day, I’m inspired by all these Black queens out there
Trying to save themselves from men's speculation—
But I seemed to be more on the men's side than the women's.

That’s why I started to hate my body.
But deep down, I was sure my heart didn’t match what my brain said.
Didn’t match what I thought.

Because of men’s disparaging opinions of me,
I began to hate my body,
The way I dressed,
The way I spoke,
The way I expressed myself…
The way I wrote.

I used to open up to others so they could understand what was happening,
But the women I spoke with seemed to agree with the men just as much as I did.
Now it wasn’t just the men calling me “*****” because of how I dressed—
Now it was also the women making me feel ashamed.

I realized that women could also be sexist.

All this time,
I’ve been hating myself for the opinions of people
Who might be worse off than me—
Economically, socially, physically, or mentally.
And I knew it.

Still,
There was something about the black woman in I that I couldn’t figure out.

I’m not going to lie—
I started dressing again like I did before.
I talked about whatever I wanted without fear
Of being labeled a ***** or a *****
By the people I spoke to
Or the ones who overheard.

I was finally following the example of all those Black women who inspired me.
I felt free. Liberated.
I no longer feared the critical eyes of the men and women who once made me feel so small.

But we all have a weakness.
Mine was myself.

I no longer needed anyone to say those horrible things to me,
Because I said them to myself.
I woke up every day telling myself how disgusting I was,
How no one would ever love me—
Not with the way I am,
Not with the color of my skin,
Not with the way I think.
Not if I’m just… me.

My friends tried to help.
They gave me advice.
They told me things like:

“I hope you realize how valuable you are, so you don’t let anyone underestimate you.”

But the only one underestimating me…
Was me.

I always try to be strong for the people who love me.
I always pretend to love myself so they don’t worry.
I always keep in mind that I don’t want my daughters to go through what I’m going through.

It’s difficult—
I know.
But I have to do it.

Maybe that’s how I’ll learn to love myself the way my friends love me.
Maybe I can overcome all this and become the great woman I want to be.
Maybe I can teach my brain that what it says about me doesn’t define me.

I am sure that I’ll achieve it.

But even then—
There will be something about the black woman in I that I can’t figure out.

And I never will.

I wrote this in 2017 after a man told me I was cute for a black girl

#black #women #underestimate #gender

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

until now

To think that I wrote to you when you were never mine.

Until now, I thought we were meant for each other.
Until now, I believed it was real.
Until now, I see that you only used me.

I hope you had fun.

I always wondered why illusions get to me so fast.
Why I give love to anyone, why I fall in love without thinking.
Why, whenever I told you “I love you,”
I believed your “Me too.”

And until now, I realize I was an idiot.
That I am an idiot.
For the simple act of falling in love with you—
For the simple act of falling in love alone.

“All my friends tell me I should move on,
But I’m still sinking into you.”

Plunging into your thoughts,
Drowning in the insomnia you cause day by day.

Or maybe…
I just miss you.
Although I guess you already know that.

Either way,
It doesn’t do any good if you know—
Because you can’t do anything about it.

I was so in love with this guy...he ****** my bestfriend.

#disappointment #love #stay

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

art

Today the teacher asked me what art was, and I mentioned him.

For me, he was, is, and will always be art.

His hair, his eyes, his lips, and his cheeks.
His arms, his legs, his neck.

All of him is art.

The way his hair moves through the air,
Or the way complete idiocy makes him smile.

His seriousness and his bearing,
His body when he sweats,
The way he sings softly.

His voice.
His voice is so perfect to me.
Every word that comes out of his mouth
Is like thousands of babies laughing endlessly.

Even in his saddest moments,
He is art.

The way he prefers to cry in a place where no one sees him.
The way his words become deeper, with a darker sense.
The way his dark circles show from sleepless nights.

His arms.
The way his arms hug me constantly.
The way he moves them just to get my attention (and he really does).
The way they wrap around my waist and carry me like a baby.

His lips.
The way his lips brush mine,
Making me want to kiss him.
The way he presses them when he’s upset.
The way he kisses me again and again—
Even then, I never get tired of his kisses.

And his eyes.
His eyes are my favorite part.
Why?
Because they’re bad and good at the same time.
He can lie to me while looking at me with those brown eyes.
He can make me lose control just by looking at me,
But in the same way he makes me lose control,
He controls me.

He can make me cry just by looking at me.
He can make my life spin a thousand times with a glance.
He can make my heart stop.
And just by looking at me...
I fell in love with him.

Do you know what’s wrong?
I never knew him.
And I never will.

But that’s what art is about—
To love the unknown.

And for me,
He was art.
For me,
He was a stranger.

#he #love #art #unknow

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

I fell in love with a black gay man

I fell in love with a black gay man,
and I knew he was gay...
I didn’t know he was black.

You see, there are people who teach you how to think for yourself,
and there are people who teach you how to think like them.
That was my problem.

Those people taught me how to think like them,
so I went through high school thinking that white men were better than black men.

Every time a black guy approached me,
I made it clear from the beginning that I didn’t want anything beyond friendship.

And that’s how I met Reginald.

The first black man I fell in love with.
And I know I’m saying now that he is black,
but even so, I couldn’t see the blackness in him.

He was the white boy people talked so much about.
He was the dream boy of any living girl,
but he was locked in a black body that those same people didn’t understand.

The first time,
I saw a black man—
a man who wanted more than friendship with me,
but who wouldn’t.

In the end, we became friends—
and very good ones.

That issue of black men not being part of my heart went to hell
when I started getting to know Reginald better.

I started to love him.

For the love—
but above all, for how they had taught me to think—
I started to see him as a white man:
of high rank,
with a good family,
and a magnificent sense of humor.

But then, I found out that my beloved Reginald was gay.
Ironic, right?
The only black man I had ever fallen in love with—
and it turns out he is gay.

Still, I couldn’t keep myself away from him.
I started doing everything I could so that we were always together,
hoping that he would start to feel something for me...

He didn’t.

And I don’t blame him.
How was I able to notice his passion toward men
but not remember that he was a black man?
How couldn’t I notice that I fell in love with a black man?

Then I realized—
the same people who had put such an idea in my mind
were black people.
People who had decided to surrender to white people
and insisted on thinking like them.

But they decided that.
They inculcated that in me.

The day Reginald died at the hands of my brother,
I noticed his blackness again.

And no,
it wasn’t because I had lost the love I felt for him—
but because it was my brother who taught me to think like him...
who taught me to think like whites.

I lost the love of my life
because of my black brother’s decision
to think in the same way white people do.

Maybe I was the one who should have died
at the hands of Reginald’s sister,
because he saw me as a white man too
the night we,
thanks to a drunken stupor,
decided to be one—
consumed in mutual pleasure,
without taking into account the consequences.

How will I explain the death of his father
to my son who is coming?

Should I tell him his father died because he was a black man?
Or that his father died because I saw him as a white man?

Should I blame my parents
for teaching my brother to think like a white man?
Or should I blame myself for paying attention to him?

Now I don’t know who I fell in love with...
And I really think I never will.

#love #suffering #nothingelse

— The End —