Lately I've Been Falling In Love

When you die do you get to take your memories with you?

Who shot ya!? Hey, Pac, I’m still on the case because ever since they murdered you none of us have been safe. Was it the police? Was it your homeboys? Was is the KKK? On the Vegas Strip after a fight I’m surprised nobody got it on tape. I remember being nine on the cusp of defiance, rejecting all the heroes I was assigned in my sociology class. I told my teacher they were all murderers or murdered or make-believe, then I played her “Only God Can Judge Me” before she ran to the stereo and threw my cd in the trash. And that’s when I knew you were the hero I’d look up to, somebody not in the history books someone real I could grasp. And then I saw the news you had been shot you had been killed. Then I came back to school and my teacher just laughed. She said I should pick better heroes, somebody not as aggressive, someone on a much better path. Then I had to remind her of Malcolm of Martin of Huey of Fred of Medgar etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and told her it didn't matter, black heroes don't seem to last. Who shot ya! Hey, Pac, what are we gonna do? How are they gonna find who kills us if they can’t find who killed you? I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto, verse three you sounded something like a prophet. You predicted 20 years ago that police would be out here killing us and we couldn't do anything to stop it. You said, “cops give a damn about a negro, pull the trigger, kill a nigga he's a hero” and now, “the streets are death row.” The cops are judge, jury and executioner and apparently every bit of it’s legal. And I don't know if Heaven’s got a ghetto, but I know its got a long line and there’s some people waiting to get in that could use your comforting because we know Tupac cared when nobody else did. I’m sure we keep you busy up there, we’ll make sure you died for something. Who shot ya? Hey, Pac, your killer is still on the loose. I don’t know if you heard, but they got BIG too. They’re killing everybody that we looked up to. And I know there’s people who will hear this that won’t understand “He was a thug” “He got what he deserved” “His music should have been banned” And those are the same people who fear us when we band together in death. They mock us they incite us when we riot or protest. Who shot ya!? Hey, Pac, maybe it’s best we never know. Jokes on them because they will never be immortalized and you will forever be the hero.

I asked her who she voted for in 2004. We were discussing politics and religion and that was the first election I was old enough to participate in. I said, Gore she said that was the year she stopped believing in anything but she still went to church just in case. She still voted in every election after that just to be safe because she didn’t want to be blamed when things went wrong and things always went wrong. And knowing she wasn’t the reason why helped her sleep at night. I asked her how she’s been sleeping lately. She asked, “why do you put so much pressure on me to dream when I’m still stuck between feeling lost and feeling free? Forced to get along with those who arm themselves and dream of harming me. Sold me a house with a lawn and picket fence but made copies of the key so you can come and go as I sleep at night and my dreams can be policed. I worked my whole life for the American dream to find out it wasn’t for me. What do you do when your dreams come true and you don’t want them in the end? Or you’re so in debt you don’t know if you can afford to dream again? Do you work the rest of your life to pay them back or go on and pretend like you never gave a second thought to giving up or giving in? Happily ever afters make you think that your dreams come true in the end when they actually happen somewhere in the middle and the rest of the story is you figuring out what to do with them. Who is it you want to be? Did you ever consider maybe giving up is a way of getting free?” I told her she sounded like a politician campaigning for an election she knew she would never win. A disappointed victim of her own expectations. And there I was, trying to convince myself I didn’t want all the things I knew I did. Still holding on to dreams I was told to believe in ever since I was a kid. But it’s such a relief to wake up and no longer want the things you felt you could never have. I could free myself by letting go of all the dreams I’d been sold in the past but I didn’t. I still wanted it all even if she warned me it wouldn’t last. I wrote my vote on a post-it note and slipped it in her bag. She won the election, I lost my way. We were a new nation under old flags.

I want what I want as quickly as possible to make sure it's something I still want once I get it. If not, gives me enough time to want something else.

Pick up the new book (and the old one) at Studio Be in New Orleans or visit my website nikrichard.com

My brother, the brilliant @nikrichard dropped off some copies of his new book at @studio_be_ , pick up your copy while supplies last. #studioBE #ephemeraleternal #ADreamForSale (at Studio Be)

Freedom is a lie  If I ever wake up and feel free I’m going back to sleep and try again because I need to be for someone I have to belong to something

She was a half lit cigarette

  left smoking under the bed.

You had a chance to put her out,

  but you went to sleep instead.

As something slowly burned

  deep inside her core

You escaped into a dream

  as she set fire to the floor. 

I'm not afraid. All of this is new and uncertain. Fear comes from familiarity - the expectation of what you're about to lose, the anticipation that all those beast you tamed will one day turn on you. I used to be afraid that I would work my whole life for my dreams only to realize that I didn't really want them once they came true, but I don't have the privilege of fear anymore. I no longer use my superpowers to peer into the future because that tends to ruin things. Anything that happens from now is unplanned and off script.

Are You Happy?

I never fully understood this question. Happy with what? Happiness sounds like an ending to me, "and they lived happily ever after." How can somebody who has more life to look forward to than to look back on honestly comprehend that question? Ask me in 50 years and maybe I'll have an answer for you. 

We love the beauty of flowers so much that we rip them from the ground take them out the sun put them in a vase and then watch them die. Such an ostentatious display of decadence and decay for one to think they can plant a garden inside. But whatever it takes to reaffirm us that we possess just a little bit of light to make tulips bloom in a dimly lit living room for just long enough to give us a glimpse of all the wonder the world has to hide. For just a brief moment we kept something alive. Even if we knew that it would eventually fall apart, we tried and we held out hope because for that short amount of time it was beautiful and we thought we had something to do with it. We felt we were the reason why when those petals finally opened up despite all the darkness we provide.