He calls me Poet

I have an incurable condition: I see the world in poems.

[tinashalaraye]

the way I ache to see a nation healed from the cancer of racism 
the way I ache! 
the way I weep to see it metastasize from the silent neglect 
the way I weep! 
My Lord come wipe these tears 
My Lord come wake this land 
My Lord come blot these fears 
My Lord come anoint these hands There are giants in our Promised Land! 
There are giants in our Promised Land! #tinashalarayepoetry https://www.instagram.com/p/CIhzB_eHbf9/?igshid=153898elc8hpc

[tinashalaraye]

Love the you that you are today. Waiting to become the idea you have in your head before you can fully love yourself is cultivating neglect in the name of achievement. Neglect is abuse. This abuse is admitted through the gates of the imagination that falsely fantasize and romanticize a version of yourself you may never even become. __ With true love, contentment, compassion, and acceptance...we are undergirded to become even greater than imagined. For love is the fuel for identity. It is the framework for our existence. It is the rhythm within our resonance. __ True self-love is to love yourself with the same agape package of love God gifts to you daily. It is sacrificial. It is true. It is covenantal. It is enrapturing. It is non-negotiable. It is wondrous. It is consistent and persistent. It is full. It is sacred. It is choice. __ Your current-self needs that type of epic love. Your future-self desires not to live in a deficit. Your becoming-self is growing, expanding in reach, developing in love...and self-love is a breakfast of champions, a feast for flourishing souls. #randomthoughts https://www.instagram.com/p/B9BhM8UneOU/?igshid=1wk7wgr8ssi0i

[tinashalaraye]

👀👀👀 Loving how the new Rev Tees are coming out! Available 2.8 #mvmntcollab #racialunity #revolution #mvmnt #broadeningthenarrative #bethebridge #seekjustice #racialhealing #lovemercy #honorthestory #endracism #starttheredemption #loveyourneighbor #restorativejustice #walkhumbly #beavoice #wearetherevolution #MLK https://www.instagram.com/p/B8KwIEkn3t9/?igshid=wqvi3oy431kx

[tinashalaraye]

Something’s cooking in the kitchen... 2.8.20 #revtee #mvmntcollab #racialunity #revolution #mvmnt #broadeningthenarrative #bethebridge #seekjustice #racialhealing #lovemercy #honorthestory #endracism #starttheredemption #loveyourneighbor #restorativejustice #walkhumbly #beavoice #wearetherevolution https://www.instagram.com/p/B7-MBPSnQ1w/?igshid=12o1tfuzpx0yy

[tinashalaraye]

About worship last night. Click play. Wait for it... My absolute favorite moment last night. The freedom. The expression. The diversity. The family. The praise to a God we so profoundly adore. The undignified boldness. Jesus. I will keep radically praising you! “No matter what it looks like.” @morganfaleolo 🔥🔥🔥♥️♥️♥️ #revival #worship #family https://www.instagram.com/p/B7ktAawHr6N/?igshid=5alwdjlbrslo

[tinashalaraye]

Today started off with a buzz. I jumped from ministry to work to cooking to connecting with friends...and then this: a group of our BEING family decided to go see Just Mercy, the film about Bryan Stevenson and the @eji_org I was deeply moved. Tears flowed. My heart leapt numerous times. And I left filled with hope and with a renewed sense of purpose as a filmmaker. These are precisely the types of films I want to make, the types of stories I want to tell. @michaelbjordan and @iamjamiefoxx did an incredible job carrying the weight of their characters. Michael B. has found himself in an interesting spot - to be afforded so many monumental roles, and it’s a joy to watch him grow in his greatness. Jamie has always been a fave of mine. His biopic work in Ray still leaves me breathless. I’m so glad I got to see this with the fam. Even our time processing afterward was so fulfilling and charging. You can’t walk away from a film like that and not want to talk and move your emotions around in you and through you so you can make sense of life and calling and responsibility as humans. Bryan Stevenson will truly go down as one of the greatest heroes of our day. Let us send him his roses while he breathes on this side of heaven! I am forever grateful for his sacrifice, grit, and courage. He is what so many of us dream to be...a man of virtue and justice and truth. My hat is off to you. May we all find our deepest convictions and pursue them at the level of being willing to die for them. The world will have no other choice but to change for the better. #justmercy #eji #bryanstevenson #racism #hope #justice #deathrow #redemption https://www.instagram.com/p/B7NoqGunQjL/?igshid=1gncavzphi6r0

[tinashalaraye]

lovers || a poem seashores are the lucky lovers
they are blessed to kiss the sweet sea daily
this nautical beau
this riptide romance
this seasoned love affair 
that splashes salt remnants on tips of shores
like the lips of those warmed by love day dreams take place here…
the love child of the beach and her waves
the shore and the gaze of her all pursuing paramour
who finds her rhythm
who meets her where she begins and again where she ends
then makes a bed for her children to dance upon 
and dream these seashores
are way more than locations
they are incubators
for memories
fantasies
realities
endless
like true love
boundless
like the sea —
Painting: Precious jewels by the sea, Amy Sherald, 2019 #AmySherald #lovers #truelove #beaches #sea #romance #poemsofinstagram #tinashalarayepoetry 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7INg2Mnbuy/?igshid=zge7tkn7ammi

[tinashalaraye]

the pain
showing up
in the small frame 
of your face
cannot be coddled 
covered 
or cured 
with a smile one must 
walk the mile
within the valleys 
of the heart
into even the darkest parts 
for there lies the puncture
the poison 
the pain 
no other way to joy
but through the canyon
of the ache Painting: Souvenir I | Kerry James Marshall | 1997 #pain #mourning #healing #grief #process #heart #KerryJamesMarshall #blackartists #poemsofinstagram #tinashalarayepoetry 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7F6sgeHXiR/?igshid=fml2t8jquo11

[tinashalaraye]

imagine || a poem imagine us
imagining
Lennon imaginings
no countries to target
no war to trumpet
only brothers on the other side of the pond
looking on
dreaming on dream of us
dreaming
King dreams
no “other” to exclude
no hatred to subdue
only love billowing up from the neighbor
reaching out
singing out envision us 
envisioning 
Apostle John vision prophecies
no tribe absent
no tongue silent
only sounds of a unified humanity 
offered up
soaring up can we who dream of peace
also claim sanity,
or must we die as fools?
if that be so, then Fool be my name
war never gave me ingredients for a peaceful pot of gumbo
only hunger
only pain
only stains still soaked in flags folded in eulogy if there be any death we see
let it be death to the ego
and vengeance
and poverty of thought
for there are a wealth of solutions in a field of possibility 
still, we routinely choose the cheapest crop #Iran #USA #war #peace #JohnLennon #MLK #John #Kingdom #love #unity #poemsofinstagram #tinashalarayepoetry Painting: There Must Be a Heaven, Benny Andrews, 1966
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6-YLvRnyjd/?igshid=19yvpjkvjzpxv

[tinashalaraye]

the hood || a poem bus stops and pot holes
drug dealers and broken swings
empty swimming pools
and misspelled sayings on baptist church marquees 
saving souls
save your souls mary jane and missing belts
boarded windows and 
busted traffic lights
no-collar-having pit bulls
and chuck taylor’s dangling from power lines 
saving souls
save your souls the hood has its ornaments
no matter what city
no matter what state
the current state is always somewhere between broken and beautiful
off the corner of Martin Luther King ave 
dreams somehow didn’t make it to the ghetto
they got caught in the rib cage of a martyr
and bled out on the operating table of an unrepentant nation self taught
self caught
saving souls
save your souls if you can 
—
Painting: Officer of the Hussars, Kehinde Wiley, 2007 #thehood #theghetto #onmyblock #pain #triumph #MLK #kehindewiley #tinashalarayepoetry 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B66fIi_HhZJ/?igshid=1qstns2btoqwc

[tinashalaraye]

they don’t wear glasses in heaven || a poem They don’t wear glasses in heaven…
there’s no need
To be in the presence of the King 
is to eternally see
Revelation is the illumination
every cornea dreams
every iris receives
every pupil needs…truth Corny as it may seem
the cornea feeds on Light 
chews on it with optic nerve ivories
then digests it in the intellectual belly that births dreams To be without Light is to not eat
and without Light no one can see
So, here we are hungry and blind and confused in identity
Standing in line to get fitted for glasses
as if the cure is in the good we heap
See, they don’t wear glasses in heaven…
there’s no need
20/20 world vision is inferior
to divine revelation for eternity step into Light 
and see — Painting: Norman Lewis, Self-Portrait, 1939 #vision #revelation #perspective #heaven #normanlewis #tinashalarayepoetry 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B64rb_InY5t/?igshid=1sn5xg97strew

[tinashalaraye]

they don’t wear glasses in heaven || a poem They don’t wear glasses in heaven…
there’s no need
To be in the presence of the King 
is to eternally see
Revelation is the illumination
every cornea dreams
every iris receives
every pupil needs…truth
Corny as it may seem
the cornea feeds on Light 
chews on it with optic nerve ivories
then digests it in the intellectual belly that births dreams To be without Light is to not eat
and without Light no one can see
So, here we are hungry and blind and confused in identity
Standing in line to get fitted for glasses
as if the cure is in the good we heap
See, they don’t wear glasses in heaven…
there’s no need
20/20 world vision is inferior
to divine revelation for eternity step into Light 
and see —
Painting: Self Portrait by Norman Lewis #vision #newyear #heaven #revelation #tinashalarayepoetry #normanlewis 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B64qxzxHhkd/?igshid=1ex5wmshinfkk

[tinashalaraye]

On the left is how I started the decade. On the right is how I finished the decade. Cheers to a new era. 2020 will be one for the books! #HappyNewYear https://www.instagram.com/p/B6wdlt0Hy96/?igshid=guu9dukj0b2n

[tinashalaraye]

2019, such a strange year that felt like a constant contradiction. An internal storm while in an external reality of favor, plenty, and blessing.
—
Looking at these pictures (and thinking of the many I deleted), I see the wrestle - the questioning - the celebration - the alignment - the blessing - the weight - the invitation - the family - the longing - the faith - the doubt - the numbness - the goosebumps - the glory - the stirring wind that erupted a fire I thought had gone out.
—
I cried a lot this year…not because there was excruciating pain, but because I actually allowed myself to feel this year. My heart saw sorrow in color, felt dreams in djembe rhythms, tasted pain like metal on the top of my tongue, but began to reap a joy I’m looking forward to holding more and being held by. This year, I stopped fighting God with my calling to people in and through ministry. I preached, I prayed, I praised…I didn’t know how much the sound of gospel ebbed and flowed through my veins and the message of the gospel is sealed into my core.
—
I’ve learned a lot of lessons this year. To be patient. To see family in everything. To keep my mindset on offense and not defense. To find compassion through stories. To place my Kingdom citizenship above all other identifiers. To praise God even when numb, for the fire of His Presence will awaken what has fallen asleep, if I let it. To not run from pain, but to run to it and let the Father process me through it, as even Jesus ran to the pain of the cross and was raised in victory by the Father on the third day.
—
And what of 2020? I believe it will be a year of Rest. I don’t know what that even looks like, I just know Rest is the person of Jesus and also a state of being. Rest is the place where God has always wanted His people to enter into and to have oneness with Him. Rest is the reset that will yield every positive outcome I so desire to see, but it will also deeply anchor my roots in a day of great storms and passing winds of doctrine and disappointment. Rest is my heart’s pursuit.
—
((Continued in comments below))
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6t9DcWnqzQ/?igshid=1umns3t4hcauw

[tinashalaraye]

I don’t remember when I grew up
When Peter panned me into a corner 
and tinkered wrinkles into the lines around my eyes
like a warning bell
that youth is soon to end
and maturity is not just a mindset
but a state of being
these wrinkles will very soon be the amen to
——
I am here
in my aging skin
wondering
where does time go when it dies?
It has no grave for me to visit 
No place for me to pay my respects 
No gravestone for me to kick
No decaying bones to pick when I’m angry at what they have left me
Time was once on my side…
maybe they still are
Hard to tell when they are here and gone
And who can blame them?
No mother to even teach them manners
wow.
Is time an orphan?
——
I like my smile
After all this…time
My smile reflects the sun
And the many revolutions we have made together
I don’t know the exact moment
I can’t remember when it happened
When I left Neverland
and found out Paradise is really lost
But I somehow found my way
out of fantasy
and into my skin 
with my imagination 
still in tact
——
Smiles
are reflecting pools
light beams
burning stars
…they are worth dying for 
I still believe in being a kid
I will just be one with wrinkles 
in the lines around my eyes 
and the cracks around the creases of my smile
Time is nowhere to be found
yet, everywhere to be felt
pressing in on us
expanding
setting the stage for our denouement 
where there’s no such thing as happy endings
only happy creases in the corners of choosing lips
Cheers to the inner child 
who never gave up on me
she always knew
the wonder resting just beneath
waiting to be released
in time
——
selah #tinashalarayepoetry https://www.instagram.com/p/B6iIVLvH1-y/?igshid=1t6j27r7o30g4

[tinashalaraye]

a #poem for Olive 
“Bold faith stands on the shoulders of quiet trust.” - Papa Bill #JesusisKing #wakeupOlive #tinashalarayepoetry 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6ST2R0HbGg/?igshid=1od34yxe2tmfh

[tinashalaraye]

This year marked the 400 year anniversary since the first documented African slave was brought to the US. There so much to say about a history like this at a moment like this when the evidence of the trauma is still so boldly glaring at us in the face.
.
I wrote a piece called A 400 Year Old Hope Song. I believe there is a song my ancestors never got to sing, but the rhythm of their resiliency is in my blood and has become the underscore of my sound today. It is a lullaby for healing, it is a battle cry for justice, it is a hope song for unity.
.
Fred Sprinkles of @thewindvaneproject approached me and asked to create a short film of my work. I felt this was the piece to broadcast, for this is what we need most…the story and the hope. What he has made of this is beyond what I ever dreamed. His level of skill and care and emphasis blew me away. I invite each of you to watch this and to breathe it in. 2020 will be a year of hope tangible, of dreams unimaginable, of breakthrough and glow ups.
.
I believe in redemption for my country. I want to see it in my lifetime. Check out Hope Song - link in bio. 
#racialjustice #racialhealing #racialunity #hope #redemption #repentance #tinashalarayepoetry 
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6LolzlH2SR/?igshid=v56gkkkvnr9j