Monday, October 8, 2007

   Finding Forever
I've been listening to Common's new album religiously for the last week. I love the social consciousness of the album. Its really on some "uplift our people" stuff, which is really appealing to me...now.

The now in that last sentence is the key word. Why does this interest me now and not before?

Well, there is very obvious reason for that....my ego. That supreme pride and confidence I have in myself has caused me to overlook other people...

But it goes even farther than that...

The album has a bunch of religious references, which caused me to also notice why I have such a beef with religion...

My Ego...

I have come to the conclusion that the major reason why I am not very religious is that it is damn near impossible to accept that my life is in someone else's hands. That someone else has determined my place in life...and as such my place in forever...is hard for me to accept...

At times, I just flat out refuse that notion all-together.

So, why is it that I am slowly but surely becoming more concerned about the state of my people and more open to religion now, even with my amazing ego?

Well, that to, is a simple answer....

My unborn child...

Simply put...if I can't push aside Keon Reshad Davis Sr. for my people....if I can't push him back even for my creator.....

Then how the hell can I push aside myself for my baby?

All of this, has forced me to...not CHANGE my view of ego...but ADVANCE it...

The only analogy I can think of to explain what I mean is a reference to Naruto...and I don't wanna do that...

Basically, pride is something that is shunned...(hell, its one of the 7 deadly sins), however...if utilized properly...it can be an immensely valuable asset.

I, however, up to this point have not been using it properly. Not to say that I have been using it wrong; I could just use it better, more efficiently. And as such...GET BETTER.

I am a good person; I can be better. I am not a great Christian, I need to be better. I am not a good son, I need to be better. I am not a good sibling, I can be better. I am a good lover, I can be better. I am a good fiance', I can be better. I will be a good husband, I need to be better. I am a good friend, I can be better. I will be a good father...but I NEED to be better.

I NEED TO BE BETTER.

I have been focusing too much on how great I am, and not enough on how immaculate I can be.

My kinetic energy over my potential, if you will...

I'm no longer stuck on the fact that I am great...

I am focusing on the fact that I can be SIMPLY AMAZING!!!!

This, will cause me to grow, to mature, and to become better, because my brain is finally wrapping around the idea of being more than I am.

If I can do the, I will undoubtedly find forever...and my place in it. ^_^

-Dueces
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Monday, September 17, 2007

   If You Are What You Say You Are....
Man, the mp3 player is the bes invention ever. I swear GOD himself must've planted that idea into man's head...

Anyway, it's almost 8:30, and I'm in the HUC, eating breakfast (mmmmm) and preparing to finish this essay I have due today. I told myself this semester that I'd sop waiting to the last minute to do stuff, but hey. I'm only human.

As I'm doing all this, I'm listening to Lupe's new song, Superstar, off his upcoming album The Cool. (Man that dude is cool). I owe Lupe a lot for giving me my new philosophy about forming relationships with people (not just relationships, but friendships and any interaction between 2 or more people). The way I do things now, is to be myself. As true to myself as I possibly can. Doing so, will bring people to me, instead of me running to them. This not only confirms the trust of those people (since they worked to get to me) AND it ensures a high caliber of relationship, because if I don't think much of them, I can just not talk to them, contrary from the the people I sought after, because me seeking them is acknowledging that I want them there.

This strategy has given me a ton of new friends and a fiance', all of which are great people who I want around me for all eternity. People seem to have better judgment in me than I do in them, so I just let the good people come. And its a great weeding out tactic...because those people who I don't reach out to...cease to reach out to me. Which lets me know they are not worth the effort in the first place. (In yo' FACE, younger versions of me).

As such...my LIFE in general is better. I am happier. Than I have EVER been.

Anyway, that was rather long-winded and not what I wanted to spend so much time on. The thing I want to talk about is the new song by Lupe. The chorus goes like this:

"If you are what you say you are,
A superstar....Then have no fear
The crowd is here and the lights are on
And they want a show...."

I was like...damn. Because for one, the singer, Matthew Santos, is really good. 2: Like anything Lupe says, I try to apply it to my life, and as such I came up with a new reason for an ego:

To be what you know you are.

Not saying much, really. But it is really profound if you really think about it. If you KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, who you are...then you have no excuse to not be it.

Does a tree refuse to be a tree? Do birds refuse to fly? Fishes decide not to swim?

So why should a good person not be one? Why should a genius not excel? Why should a superstar not shine?

Exactly. There is nothing to be afraid of. If you are what you are, then everything you need to be that is there. So be it!

Be you, that incredibly intelligent, unbelievably creative, overly emotional, quite handsome, eremophobic dude. Its who you are, no reason to not be it.

I am who I am, and that entails me to do great things, because I am a great person. Call it egotism if you want, but at the end of the day, this is the reason I will do such great things.

It's in my nature. ^_^

-Deuces
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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Immortality...
Introspection is an amazing thing...

Through it...I was able to discover exactly why things happen to me and why i react to them the way I do... It simple...its just the story of my life...

As people close to me know...I'm a twin. I shared my mother's womb with my sister. We have been fighting since before we were even born. Oddly enough, though, for some odd reason...my sister received the majority of nutrient while we were in the womb. This explains why, even though we were born premature...

I was the only one who's weight barely totaled 5 pounds....if that...

As a result of that...I was a horribly sick baby. My stomach couldn't digest normal formula; I just ended up throwing it up. No one wanted to hold me because of it. My mother had to look everywhere to find a formula that I didn't throw up, and the one she found...significantly more expensive than normal. Hence the reason she says I've been a burden on her since the day I was born...

No one held me as a child. I used to cry...of course... I was a newborn. But eventually i stopped, because no matter how much crying I did, no one would pick me up. so I just sat there, looking at the raggedy ass mobile that hung it the crib. I couldn't do much else.

Then out of no where, people I didn't recognize...picked me up. They picked me up, and couldn't stop saying how cute I was. They played with me, blew on my half-nourished stomach, and made me laugh. I like that. I liked it a lot.

But eventually....those people stopped coming around. I wake up, everyday with a huge smile on my face, anticipating someone to pick me up and hold me...

They never showed up....So I cried. I cried alot. I cried till I was hit for crying. And I cried some more.

Eventually, I stopped crying. By this time I was around 4. I became horribly desensitized to loneliness. It's all I had to go on. The terrible stuff that happened to me from this point all the way up to when i was 6....didn't bother me.

The shotgun incident...

The 8 times my mother said she'd never come back...

The choke burns, cigarette burns, iron burns, curler burns, heater burns, stove burns...

None of it. I never once cried. Hell, that caused everything to intensify, and I still didn't cry. I got used to it. Pain was really all I'd come to expect.

Then, somehow out of the midst of the physical abuse, Keon Reshad Davis is pronounced gifted. I really didn't think I was "gifted', meaning I was given my intelligence. I think it came from those uncountable hours I spent in the library hiding from everyone. Nevertheless, I was incredibly smart for my age...

All I got was praise. From everywhere. From peers, family, teachers, strangers... I loved it. I was appreciated for something. People were drawn to me for something. People wanted me.

Then when I got into the 3rd grade...the reason I no longer had to be alone anymore....became the reason I was alone. I don't know what happens between 2nd grade and 3rd grade, but apparently being smart is cause for isolation. No, worse than that. This isn't isolation, as in people just leaving you alone. This is isolation as in people pushing you into a closet, locking you in there, and then laughing outside. This was torture....

"A child is the most innocent and cruel thing on the Earth..."

No one understood that more than I did...

This lasted....for a long time. Actually, it didn't stop until high school.

During this period of time, I did a lot of things, I didn't want to do. Just so I wouldn't be alone anymore.

This is when I lost my virginity.

This is when I smoked my first cigarette and drank my first beer.

This is when I tried everything I could to get rid of my intelligence, so I wouldn't be alone.

This was the second most horrible time in my life.

2nd because there were people who eased the pain (In the first, there were people there, lots actually. But now number of people could ease that pain...). One, the only person in my elementary school and middle school years who said being weird was cool. Believe me, I'd have been dead it that person wasn't there...

...That's really the only real one. Others I thought eased it...but in the end they only added on to it. Most of them joined in on the torture, others, who were supposed to be my friends, turned their heads and pretended not to see. And there were those who introduced a new form of torture...

Planting a seed, watering its sprout...and then chopping down the tree that grows from it...

But in high school...I just adapted. I mean REALLY adapted. After a HUGE misunderstanding about a somehow widely circulated poem, I, literally, became demonized.

I constantly had stones thrown at me. Even I, with my amazing threshold for emotional pain at the time, couldn't withstand it all. without some changes...

This is when i donned 9 bulletproof vests, 3 suits of armor, 732 condoms, projected 35 foot forcefield lined with 3 layers of 9 inch-thick bomb-proof glass, protected by a security system armed with 93 defense turrets, 13 pit bulls, and 4 lions.

Simply....no one got too close to me during this time.

This is also the time when I was the most vile thing walking the planet. I did so many people wrong during this time...had sex just because I could...

Or more accurately....because I couldn't feel any shame for it.

I really am sorry to anyone i hurt during this time.

Then, that started to get boring, so I indulged myself in alcohol, and all the activities that go with it.

Then that started to get boring too.

So I was basically in limbo, beginning my senior year. Not happy...not sad...

Slowly but surely though...things and people crept pass my security system..

And shut it down. All the gadgets, guns, armor, protection, gone. I was naked. Back to how i was when that first unnamed person held me as a baby...

I was played with the same way....

Held even closer, more tender, and tighter...

....And left...alone...all the same.

But in that new way I described...

A seed was planted...the sprout was nurtured very tenderly, it grew into a tall strong tree.

And it was chopped, hacked, burned, ground, and anything else that could possibly be done....

But it was still there. Sure it was bruised, burned, and slashed. But it still stood....unwavering...

Eventually though...these same things crept up again...made the tree shed its leaves, bark, and whatever else that protects it.

The chopped, hacked, burned, ground, etc....

And it still stood. The process continued. And it still stood.

It didn't want to stand anymore...but it was afraid of heights...so falling was out of the question.

Today I realized...that this is exactly what's been happening to me since I was born...

From the people who blew on my stomach as a baby...

The people who praised my intelligence...

The people who claimed they loved me...

It always the same.

Someone saves me from my isolation...

They get me to let my guard down...always saying, "I don't want you to fight anymore..." *scoffs*

I grow closer and closer to them, to the point that I depend on them more than air, which is what they said they wanted me to do.

And then they leave...and I suffocate...

Sometimes, they don't leave. Instead they take the rope and strangle me themselves...

And even after all this....I'm still standing....and every thing I felt for them is still intact, albeit a horrible horrible hole in my self-esteem...since I am, for some reason, not good enough for them to stay around...

In this sense...Keon Davis is immortal.....

I've always said...being immortal would be terrible...
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Saturday, February 17, 2007

"Top Floor"


"Top Floor"

It feels so far away....
The sensation of altitude makes me shudder.
The air is thin, so I struggle for breath
As I gaze down at the 7 stories below me.

One would think I'd be nauseous...
Suspended so high above the surface.
I've been repeatedly warned about
The consequences of soaring too high...
Like Babel, my tower will fall;
Like Icarus, my wings would melt.
It is dangerous to seek that which is most desired.

Foolishly, and seek it anyway,
Ignoring the words of those who
Had years and years of experience
Climbing stairs and scaling mountains.
I ascended to the heavens with no fear of falling,
Only expectations of ecstasy...

Then my ears pop...
All I hear is a loud whistling sound,
Almost as outrageous as the one in cartoons,
When anvils fall from the sky...
It was inevitable; no reason to be depressed.
I was on the 13 floor
With no parachute or harness.
I guess I underestimated the gravity...

When you're up that high...
People look like ants,
Indistinguishable from one another.
Maybe when I fall from the sky
Due to faulty wings and shoddy cement work,
I'll blend in like the ants...
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Tuesday, February 6, 2007

"Rose in Weeds"
Poetic inspiration coming out of nowhere...as usual.

Rose In Weeds

By: Keon Davis

Wasn’t raised in any special way…
Tilled in the same soil…
Starved of fertilizer, water, and sunlight
Just like the rest…
Yet, the rose grew regardless.
Strong, tall, and proud,
The only one in a sea of weeds.
No matter how bright the petals, however,
Its crimsom glory went unnoticed.
The gardeners gave more care to the weeds;
Put them in beautiful bouquets,
And showcased them proudly….
While the rose remained in the dirt,
Its scarlet beauty passed over.
It wondered why.
Why did every one say it was beautiful,
Marveled at its velvet petals…
Yet no one wanted it….
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You are a PHOENIX in your soul and your wings make a statement. Huge and born of flame, they burn with light and power and rebirth. Ashes fall from your wingtips. You are an amazingly strong person. You survive, even flourish in adversity and hardship. A firm believer in the phrase, 'Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger,' you rarely fear failure. You know that any mistake you make will teach you more about yourself and allow you to 'rise from the ashes' as a still greater being. Because of this, you rarely make the same mistake twice, and are not among the most forgiving people. You're extremely powerful and wise, and are capable of fierce pride, passion, and anger. Perhaps you're this way because you were forced to survive a rough childhood. Or maybe you just have a strong grasp on reality and know that life is tough and the world is cruel, and it takes strength and independence to survive it. And independence is your strongest point - you may care for others, and even depend on them...but when it comes right down to it, the only one you need is yourself. Thus you trust your own intuition, and rely on a mind almost as brilliant as the fire of your wings to guide you.You are eternal and because you have a strong sense of who and what you are, no one can control your heart or mind, or even really influence your thinking. A symbol of rebirth and renewal, you tend to be a very spiritual person with a serious mind - never acting immature and harboring a superior disgust of those who do. Likewise, humanity's stupidity and tendency to want others to solve their problems for them frustrates you endlessly. Though you can be stubborn, outspoken, and haughty, I admire you greatly. Image Source: stp.ling.uu.se/ ~klasp/Boris.html *~*~*Claim Your Wings - Pics and Long Answers*~*~* brought to you by Quizilla