On Second Thought…

What’s the best that can happen?

Self Portrait (2020) Image Description: Scan of a black and white film photograph. My back is toward the camera while wearing three, white, reconstructed button down shirts, Cryptorows and a hand bent aluminum coil hanging from my ear.

I had a date in the bush
With all the gods,
So I went.

I had a date in the bush
With all the trees,
So I went.
I had a date in the mountain
With the Kontomblé.
I went because I had to go.

I had to go away to learn 
How to know.
I had to go away to learn
How to grow.
I had to go away to learn
How to stay here.

So I went and knocked at doors
Locked in front of me.
I craved to enter.
Oh, little did I know 
The door did not lead outside.

It was all in me.
I was the room and the door.
It was all in me.
I just had to remember.

And I learned that I lived
Always and everywhere.
I learned that I knew everything,
Only I had forgotten.
I learned that I grew
Only I had overlooked things.
Now I am back, remembering.

I want to be what I know I am,
And take the r…