Oh Lord – deliver me from myself
Hardliner fervently prays
Eh – and Father – could you deliver me
From this particular situation – right here
She plays peek a boo with one eye
Glancing momentarily at the fierce looking Hatshepsut
Very much assuming the energy of the Warrior Goddess Sekhmet
Oh yeh – the lion gon roar today
And Lord could you like hurry this deliverance up
No disrespect – but sista gurl don’t feel like dealing
With her inner child today

Yeh – she is on her knees and all – in a woeful state
And yeh – at the time they hit the floor
She may have consented to that growing up
Her inner child babble Hatshepsut was pushing
But at that time sista gurl was crazy – near broken
And certainly supernaturally influenced
Now – in the cold light of reality
The overbearing need to face Sweet Chile has dissipated

So like can we seriously take a rain check sister
She glances at Hatshepsut who by the looks of it
Aint gon be on Hardliner’s bullshit today
If ever there was a Grand Dame Queen Beast moment
It would be this one right here
With Hatshepsut embodying the Ultimate
Which reminds Hardliner of the promise she made
To herself to never step up to that kind of badass
But alas – she backslid – the story of her life
And now here she is with nowhere to run
Feeling cornered like a lab rat as she faces
That Sith Lord stare down from the Hatshepsut
And so the two queens face off each other for a while
The air in the Valley of the Kings seemingly lifeless
As if time itself is waiting for Hardliner to acquiesce
To the flow of the Universe
Finally Hardliner breaks her defiant stare – in defeat

No – Hatshepsut offers her counsel
Submission to the truth
And that itself is a victory

The first awareness of Hardliner’s inner child – Sweet Chile
Did not feel anything like a victory
Hardliner felt her presence in the throes of deep meditation
Sweet Chile exuded a fragile and wary energy
Heyul – the chile was downright pitiful
And made Hardliner cringe to the core
So in response – symbolic of the rising Sphinx
Ms. Ego rolled up on Hardliner’s meditation and shut it down
You could say that the first meeting between
Hardliner and her inner child was stained with rejection
With Sweetz being so pathetically week and all
That was just too much truth for Ms. Ego to bare
So she had to handle things – keep Sweet Chile in exile
And take charge of Hardliner’s throne
Cause nobody want to see vulnerability in a queen
And Hardliner aint no punkass!

Now this arrangement suited Hardliner just fine
Until the Great I Am handed sista gurl her Budda Seer mandate
Which is to flow like Budda and roll with the unseen
Now the Budda part and all it entails –
Meditation and prayer is cool
Seeing dead folk – aint her thang – but that is another story
But Hardliner has discovered – rather painfully
That flowing like Budda is not a surface procedure
Like rambling a few prayers in church
Or quickie sessions with God in the morning
The call to a spiritual life involves deep exploration of the inner self
And in Hardliner’s case an exploration of her bottomless black
At times her spiritual guides seem to hail from
The other side of hell –
She casts a wary eye at Hatshepsut
How do we do this sista?
Sweet Chile is a mess –

You go straight to the core sister
The root of your pain – your most ancient of hurts

Lawd – deliver me from myself

No sister – seek deliverance from your pain
Avoiding its presence in your soul
Does not extinguish it
In dealing with your pain Hardliner – you must feel it
In feeling you will finding healing
But you already know that

Hardliner takes a deep breath
Yet waits to free it from her lungs
Finding a little vestige of resistance to facing Sweet Chile
But courage is born out of pushing forward in the face of fear
And so sista-gurl exhales her pent up emotions
The thing that drives Sweet Chile the most
Is her need to know if she is truly loved

By who
Hatshepsut presses against Hardliner’s reluctance
To open up to this raw experience

The persons closest to her

You are running sister

Unmph!

Sweet Chile feels abandoned by her mother
She feels the pain of rejection
As an adult Hardliner understands why
Her mama handed her over to her Grandmother to raise
And as a woman Hardliner has found compassion
And understanding for what her mama went through with her father
She has come to a place of forgiveness on the mama issue
At least she thought she had
But Sweet Chile’s pain is as raw as a fresh wound

And the truth of the matter is
Hatshepsut supports her in finally voicing her truth

She feels like a motherless child

Personalise it – Hatshepsut is relentless

I feel like a motherless child
Lawd-have-mercy
The thing is – it is not like she did not have a mother
Her grandmother was her mama
Her Aunts were like mothers

Yes – but your mother did not show up
In your life the way they showed up for their children
The way you are present in your daughter’s life
Hardliner is fighting a fugly cry
As the Grand High Queen digs into her rawness

Yeh – she will own the truth that she has separation
Anxiety issues with her little girl
She does not really like to be apart from her daughter
Cause aint nobody can keep her safe like she can

No sister – you fear letting her go
Even for half a day
You view it as abandonment
And you want your daughter to know
That you will never leave her
She will never feel alone
She will always be wanted
She is loved
So you are up in her grill 24 /7

The fugly cry is about to bulldoze her dam
As Hatshepsut unleashes her barrage of truths
Oh how you be sister

Let your dams break Hardliner
Even warrior queens cry
Hatshepsut is oddly gentle
Through adult reasoning you found compassion
And forgiveness for your mama
But your original pain is carried by your inner child
And her pain must be forgiven from the heart
Give her back her voice sister

Hardliner experiences her dams sundering
Her body racked by mindless sobbing
She gave me up and that made me feel unsafe in this world
Like nothing good ever comes easy
I don’t trust a good thing when it comes along
That is why I need to feel in control
To feel safe in knowing that the bottom will
Not fall out from under me
Cause I am always looking for the bottom to fall out under me
To be drowned in a more believable reality

And that is?

The flipside of good luck
Man this thing is so twisted
Yeh and maybe Sweetz is a bit pissed off too
The grown folks around her taught her
That it was not right to be angry with her mother
Cause her mother loved her
But she was not there
She did not know her friends
She did not comfort her when she was sick
She did not snuggle with her at night
There were no I love yous
She just was not there – being thousands of miles away
So what is a little girl to do?
Make an endearing bond between daughter and mother
Out of thin air?

Hardliner pauses – seemingly breathless
Totally surprised that Sweetz has been carrying all this junk
Then the epiphany comes like a sucker punch
That she – Hardliner – abandoned her inner child
She left Sweet Chile’s wounds unattended
What’s Worse – she invalidated Sweet Chile’s pain
The enormity of this break-through overwhelms her
What next?

Acknowledge your inner child’s pain – her anger
Most of all her need to be validated
She was someone’s niece – grand-daughter – cousin
But she really wanted to feel like someone’s daughter

What – she wanted to come home to a June Cleaver mommy
Who churned out freshly baked cookies and shit?

You are in a vulnerable space – own it sister
Do not invalidate Sweetz’s experience
She felt that she was not enough
That is why your Ego exiled her
Make your peace with your inner child Hardliner
I forgive myself for…
The Ancient Queen prompts

I forgive myself for ignoring and denying my inner child
I forgive myself for ignoring and invalidating her pain
I forgive myself for devaluing her experience

Hardliner bends over with her arms across her gut
Trying to contain all her shit – trying hold herself together
Cause she is just too afraid to stand squarely in this space
She feels so damn open – wide open
Open enough to contain constellations
And it feels scary as heyul
So now what does she do with this?
Inhabiting this open – vulnerable space
What the heyul does she do with it?

Breathe – the answer is truly a breath away
You have only begun to walk in your authenticity

Hardliner innately knows that sometime soon
She and her mama gon have to deal with their situation together
There is no more denying – as her Irates told her one time

“Denial has never brought you anything good
In facing the reality of a situation – you are taking off
The shackles that have bound you to anger and fear”

So be it
But for now she gon rest from this breakthrough
Hatshepsut ran her ragged
Eh – by the way – all up in your grill 24/7?

I did not know Ancient Pharaohs got down like dat

I getz down
High Queen’s her eyes aglow with that deadpan hunour
Can you keep up sister?
I dare you

Uh – I’ll pass