With The Perrys - Once Upon A Time, We Were Poets

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Before penning books, the Perrys penned poems. In this episode, Preston and Jackie give us a behind-the-scenes look inside a few of their favorite pieces. From Jackie’s testimony poem to Preston’s proposal poem, prepare to be immersed in a world of imagery, word play, alliteration, and so much more. Watch the poems: My Life as a Stud Covenant One Flesh   Take our brief listener survey.  Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the saints and the aes. It's the saints in the eight. It's the saints and the end. I'm so grateful that you got a clean neck. I just looked at your neck and was like, his neck is so clean. What? Because I know you've seen some necks that look.

When you say clean, do you mean like dirt or? Like, you know when necks like. Or hairy necks? Like the Anthony Hill was. Hamilton neck. What is that? You know, he got like, patches of hair everywhere.

It just looked like you took a bath. And you didn't miss the neck. Oh, got you. You included that in the process. Right. So when you look at me, that's what you appreciate. I just looked at your neck.

It was like, man, that's a clean neck. Wow. That's important. You know what I mean? People I didn't met in the neck same right? No. I don't know. I don't know.

I never paid. attention to people next. You should start. You'll learn a lot about the birds about looking at their necks. Okay. You know. I like your makeup.

You know, you announced that you're doing a little eyelashes thing now. I don't have eye lashes on. I'm saying, but you were on for one of your glory events. I did. What is this? And it was like,

because I feel like the eyelashes, they look like hands. Okay. Phrasing the Lord. Every time you blink. You didn't even acknowledge them when you saw them. So I don't think it actually mattered to you. I didn't see them in person to my defense.

I saw them online like everybody else. because I was in one city and you was at glory and you posted it but like from a faraway shot you didn't even do a close up so I'm like So did you like them or no

I like them You know I think your eyes are beautiful With the world without them Okay But I felt like if I would I saw them in person Yeah

I felt like I would have Had more of appreciation for him maybe Yeah You know Okay A little Anyway They were very natural

You know A little irritating, mildly. But, you know, because I just, I was terrified of the eyelash. I think the experiences that I have with people who are my friends and seeing that they look like a different person when they remove the eyelashes. I don't want to create that type of, you know, thing. And you got a couple friends when they used to come over, they just always would just leave them hanging around.

No, it looks like little roaches. I'm like, why is an eyelash stuck to my couch pillow? Little spiders. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, what we're doing today? So I don't even know what you would call this, but we used to do poetry.

Yeah, you know what's crazy? Mm-hmm. Is this was so much our world at one point. So let me re-interest, because I said we used to do poetry and then you transitioned real quick. Okay, yeah, I just, I don't, okay, go, I'm sorry. Surprise.

We used to do poetry. And we used to, you know, do the metaphors and the puns and the double entendres and all the things. And that, to Preston's point, was our world. Our whole ministry life was writing poems, doing poems, performing poems, flying out to communicate poems, poems, poems, poems, poems, writing poems, touring, doing poetry. You know how I started doing poetry? How? I know, but they don't know.

Yeah, they don't. So I was a new Christian. I had probably been a Christian for maybe three months. I was going to this community college called a Forest Park Community College. If you live in St. Louis, you already know. And I was in this English class that was just viscerally boring. And I was like, man, I really want to write something deep. I had this compulsion to be deep.

I just, I didn't understand. But so I was like, I feel like deep people write poems. That was, that was because I thought about Erica Badu. And like, you know, I didn't know she was a witch yet. but I was just thinking about people like that and how deep people do that type of stuff. And so I was like, man, let me write a poem. And I wrote the poem and I put it on Facebook

because this was when Facebook notes was a thing. Do you remember that? I know. That was where we all ministered to people. And that's why you used to rebuke people when you was a young Christian. You stayed rebuking people. So I put the poem up. I got the affirmation that I needed.

And then my pastor found out that I had wrote a poem. And he was like, Jackie, can you do a poem for Easter Sunday? And I don't think he sounded that way. But I was like, oh, sure, I'll write about the poem. the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even though I know nothing about it. And so I wrote a resurrection poem. And then, like, my church was,

I was one of them churches that, like, it don't matter how bad you are. They going to make you feel like you are, like, the prophet of prophetesses. And so that's how I got started. That's crazy. Yeah. What about you?

So, I mean, how I got started doing Christian poetry is completely different than how I started writing poetry. I started writing poetry when I was a young little sinner. I didn't tell Vaseline on my feet. Yeah, I'll do that later. Now it would be ideal. You want to put Vaseline on your feet right now? We can wait.

You can tell your story and then we could do it. Are you really going to make me put Vaseline on your feet in the middle of a podcast? Go ahead. I don't know what a Vaseline net. I'll find it. You tell, okay, you can find it and I'll put it on. But I was in sixth grade and I kept getting into fights. And so my school, they assigned all the bad kids a mentor.

My mentee, her name was Ms. Magnus. I've been trying to find her for years. Maybe there should be another podcast about finding Ms. Magnus. We should pray about it. Because I kept getting into fights. They assigned me Ms. Magnus to be my mentor. And she was like, why are you so angry? And I was like, I don't know.

I didn't know that I was angry because my uncle's, my uncle Stan who raised me, I got murdered. And I've seen my friend get killed and all that stuff like that. Real hard life. And she began to mentor me. And she was like, I want you to write, you know, your feelings. And she was just like, try to write a poem. And so I tried to write a poem about what I felt.

And she started crying at the desk. And I'm like, why is this lady crying? She's like, you write so beautifully. You're a poet. And that was the first time anybody ever, like, affirmed me in a way. But it was also her kind of like identifying a gift in me that I didn't have. And so she started buying poetry books. And so I stopped writing poetry in a six-ter-right.

That's good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So what we're going to do today is a bit different than I think our typical podcast structure, which is that we're going to watch. a couple of our old poems and comment about it. I don't even know what this would be called.

Commentary? Yes. Throwback poetry review. I guess. I don't know. So we're going to start with the poem that actually began my public ministry. Context. Context.

So I had got connected to this ministry in L.A. And the pastor reached out to me and said, hey, can you give us an ex-stud poem? Because people love commissioning artists to do things. And I was like, no, I don't really want to be the token ex-gay girl. I'll pass. And so I prayed and the Lord was like, you're going to write it. And so I wrote it and it was a bit direct and all the things.

But it was this poem that started my ministry. And also little context. This is the poem to introduce Shacky, I guess, to the world, as you can say. but it was also the first time I ever saw her. So I was in the audience in the second row watching her. So the first time I saw you was actually you doing this poem. How sweet. Which was crazy.

And, yeah. Let me stop giving free cursors. And you had a slick purrne. Look at this. It's the bangs for me. Wow. As my heart began to flip all, more convictions beginning to rip, I grab the hips and hips the bottom lips because I always wanted to try it.

You was transparent from the beginning. It's the gay. Many years the enemy infiltrated my thoughts with homosexual merchandise, and that day I decided to buy it, but he tricked me. He tricked you. He had me thinking I could just try one time. He'd tricked me. And I can move on, but it didn't work like that.

One year into me, him, hers relationship. My gender did a flip like that. Oh, my gosh. Sports. Brawls over breastwife, beer over chest white, tea over rest, now the organs that qualify me as a woman, flat as my back was turned to the king. I'm wearing boxes as if I got something

dangling in between, but nope, I'm still a queen. It seems to the outward exterior is often shaped by the end with Rickville of the skill of my self-esteem and minds was low. First of all, completely out of breath. Oh, my goodness. I was like, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. But it actually helped.

And minds was low. This is the thing. I came to L.A. and I had a ponytail, but I had just got my ends clip. And the pastor, I was like, yeah, I'm going to just slick down the pony. detail to get up there. He was like, yeah, how about no? I'm going to connect you to somebody named Nyasha.

She's going to flat iron your head. So Nyasha flat ironed my hair and it was really cute. Yeah, he was fine. I guess. And then I got the outfit from Heritage 21. I don't know if you remember that story. It looked like Heritage. Press play. It was nice. Man, what a time. I didn't know where to go with these perverted thoughts of mine.

I remember they started with some genitals was stuffed into my mouth at the age of five. I'm growing up on women or I'm crushing on girls When I know it's natural like God Died on me You're up and died on me So a lot of A lot of our poetry

That's what I'm saying A lot of our poetry back in the day Was us sounding like slaves Up and died on me I got one foot now, Massa I don't even know where I got that from I don't know But you know what it is

We could get to the theology in a second I think new poets or spoken word artists, I think they try to sound dramatic instead of being. Right? What do you mean? Break that now. So you want to, you want there to be some depth or some weight or some gravitas to what you're trying to communicate.

And so you do it in your voice rather than just being it. Right? And so I think when if I was to, if I was to do this poem now, I wouldn't even put all the drama on it. I think just having a sense of, I don't know, like. Yeah, I get exactly what you're saying. It's, it's one, me getting inside of the scene, like my dad just walked out on me. I think there's a sense in which me actually living inside of that moment and then communicating it from a real place has the same amount of drama and weight rather than any walk down on me. Like, you just don't have to do that.

That's one of the first things I learned after becoming a poet and then changing that. And one of the things that I say in poetry workshops, when I used to do poetry workshops a lot, it's forced art will always sound like forced art. And so, like, I think that as we grew, you know, because this night was our first kind of like public poems. But as we grew, we just kind of learned how to naturally. This is the third poem I ever wrote in my life. Yeah, we just learned how to naturally, you know, communicate and speak from a real place when we wrote the poem. What do you think about the content so far?

This is a bit spicy. No, it is. I've started by saying like, you know. His genitals were stuffed into my mouth at the age of five. That's a lot. I remember the strap-thone that I strapped on. I didn't get there yet. Oh, you didn't get that part yet.

I know this whole poem by heart, by the way. I know. I'm a fan. The chin thing. I'm a fan. Bobbitt's so bad. But no, it's really in your face. And I think at this time, you know,

especially for the people who were following us back then, I don't think the world, especially the Christian community, experience rawness in their way. Yeah. Which was like groundbreaking it for a lot of people. When I wrote it, I was thinking about who I was,

what I would have wanted to hear. And I was thinking, because again, I'm not, at this point, I'm 20, maybe. I became a believer at 19. So this is maybe six or seven months of me being out of the world. I was fresh about the world, right? Which means there are still relationships I kind of have. There are still feelings I still have.

Like all of that is still on my radar, right? And so I'm even thinking about the people that I used to go to gay clubs with who are going to see this. Yeah. Because we still friends on Facebook. You still got my number in your phone. And so in my mind, I'm like, what would they want to hear? What they don't want to hear is some, some. kind of a sanitized version of our reality.

Yeah. You know what's crazy, though. The reason why I feel like this poem was so powerful, and we'll continue to watch it, this is probably going to sound like an after what we watched the whole poem comment. But I feel like this poem was so powerful because it was a great testimony, and I think what great testimony does, it encourages the people that are in the body, right,

and gives them, like, more faith. but it also is very much evangelistic. Like it is like you were able to minister to so many people who were in the homosexual lifestyle. And like they saw hope through you. You know, and not a fluffy testimony, but a real raw in your face testimony. I will say this, though.

I think this, the content and the approach of the poem is very indicative of where I was in life, but also the arenas that God had me go in, right? And so beginning the poem by, I remember when I used to kiss her lips, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I think now I wouldn't be as explicit in my communication of my story or even truth. Yeah. But do you don't think God used it? I do think because I think he used it, like he used me where I was.

I think now I feel more responsible as a leader for the way I communicate ideas. Wow. And so I wouldn't be as casual or as, I think, crass, dare I say, and how I talk about my story. Just because we even see that on social media where people, there is a kind of liberalness to even how we communicate authentically. I don't think you have to be loose to be authentic. Because I got to admit, I was in the second row.

And when you said, I remember the first time I kissed her lips, I said, you know, that's how you start a poem. No, that was a great line. You know, and then when you said, I grabbed the hips to kiss the bottom lips because I always wanted to try it I said oh

I said okay okay yeah I wouldn't do that wow I wouldn't do that okay imagine imagine imagine me doing that with our kids

in the audience oh my gosh Mommy what's their bottom lips huh do people have lips on their bottom the last time I stepped foot into a church I refused to deal

with the eyes looking down on this deep voice masculine girl yet couldn't see past my face to my waist past the fitting caps and the braids past the one that was a hug that's it emotional fuck me was someone to tell me of god's love and the delivering power of his blood shed for the loss i had to realize how first peter two 24 lets me know how he became me on that cross a stud so that i would be able to die to this sin and live for righteousness and then again this flesh of men was enjoying itself. Even though the laws of truth were written on my heart, I still chose to choose. The girl was in her word.

I still chose to choose to deny him. And if I didn't repent of my sin and trusting him and this heart inside my chest stopped beating, 20 billion years would have went by and I still would have been frying. Yikes. I got a skin strap on. Girl. I paid a $135 because it was made to feel real. What?

Even though I couldn't feel that thrill, it was a mental thing. I became a touch-me-knocked. Because I knew that if the big clothes I was hide behind me, Touch that spot My basketball and voice would drop And the femininity naturally placed inside of me Would be easy to spot So I had to keep it covered

Okay Whoa Wait Wait I be forgetting Sabus skin strap on Because it was made to feel real Even though I can feel that thrill

I became a touch me not Because I knew what First of all I want to just say Your cadence was amazing That was good If you didn't any I was like okay I was acting like I was on

Bone Thugs that was intentional because I wanted to like basically signal to anybody who was a stud that I was actually about that life. You know what I'm saying? Like so to say the strap on,

to say the type, to say touch me not, which was language for, those are the kind of studs that don't receive any pleasure from their partner. You know what I'm saying? Because my argument was like

if I'm trying to keep this kind of masculine facade, then if you pleasure me, that's going to come down. Like, I'm not feeling to groan like a gorilla. Wow. Because I'm not, right? And so I have to continue to keep up this, like, boy thing. Wow. Can you speak to that, though?

Because, like, I can imagine for people who are still in a lifestyle when they heard this, how they felt. Right? And so, like, one, my question for you is, what you were, how were you? 20. At 20 years old, what gave you the courage and the boldness to be as blunt as you are? Because I feel like a lot of it is your personality, but was it merely because you just had a heart for this community and you wanted to reach them really? Like, what was it?

When God saved me, he saved me for real. And when he saved me, he gave me a burden. for the lost, no matter who it was, but particularly the loss that were just as lost as I was. Like I, he snatched me out, you know what I'm saying? And so to me, it was like who, like, why wouldn't I try to go back and try to take some of y'all with me? You know what I'm saying?

And so the courage came out of love. That's good. The courage came out of a conviction that who the sun sets free is free and D. That's good. It was, it was that energy that I was, I was giving off. But again, I didn't even want to write it. The pastor told me to write it and then God. No, the pastor asked me to write it and then God told me to.

So now it's something that I've been commanded to do. Yeah, yeah, which is crazy. I'm not trying to plug my book, but I wrote about this in my book. But you are. What's the name of it? I'm not even going to take the name. Okay. If you want to beg me, it's called how to tell the truth.

Okay. But I talk about boldness in the book because I think a lot of times people be trying to muster up bonus. Boness is really rooted in love. if you love people you will think about them more do you think about your comfort yeah you know and so I think this is just a great testament

of that That's true So He said she will be the death of you Okay you got a pause Facts I don't want to lay down tomorrow Your arms is longer to me

I remember when I was done using a restroom I still had to sit down to pee No I was done using that strap on that I shraped on It was time for me to use a restroom I still had to sit down to pee but a reality check. Wow. That's a reality check. Because you got to understand

when you have an intercourse with a strap on, right? You got to put it on. You have to put on a penis. And then you engage in an activity where there is no, there's not the same mutual physical affection. Like, I'm pleasing a person with a device that is not attached to my actual body. And so I'm not even able to experience the same pleasure as you do, right?

And so I remember I told you that's one of the, that's one of the gifts of our marriage is that I'm able to participate in intercourse and be pleased to. Wow. I don't have to put on anything. I can just, I just show up. Wow. Wow. I only had nothing to say. Just press play.

moment the scripture for the wages of sin equal death finally clicked as much as I thought that I loved him my eternity wasn't worth that shit my eternity wasn't worth

that hit my eternity was only worth having faith in what Christ did alone as my wooden nose of sin grew long because of me lying to myself

instead of me dying to myself I was willing to die for myself there was no blue fairy whispering in my ear only the devil and me telling me I'm gonna hear. There was no

Jepel pulling on my strings. I attached myself to them things. Being pulled and manipulated by my flesh and them spiritual beings. The more my wood of sin would grow, I could see it in my face. I can see the wood in my face. I can see them stretched out

on the wood in my face being the stress for sufficient. This is the gospel. Which is crazy. I ain't even know the Bible like that. As much as I wish I could be a real boy. My name is not Pinocchio. I'm just me

and he's just he the real GOD The real GOD The gospel I had to pause To this at this point Because you said a whole bunch of stuff

Prior like you You were very revealing You kind of gave us a ground Like a framework For how you used to be in the lifestyle But like now You've kind of like When it's like a whole gospel presentation

Which is actually really shocking to me watching it. Well, what's shocking about it? Because I was so new to the Lord. And so I guess I'm like, I must have really been reading the Bible. But not only that, the Lord must have been giving me understanding. Because I'm talking about Eve and her motives and how we've inherited that sin and how it's showing up as temptations that we choose to engage with.

It's a lot. Because for you to be 20. It's God's grace. I'm thinking, because we haven't watched this woman a long time. I'm thinking about that like I'm watching as a new person. You know what I'm saying? Because that is the, you're 20 years old. And you have been saved for how many months?

A good six months. Good six months. And so for you to say, you were not born that way. You were born in sin and shaped an iniquity. When Eve ate that fruit, we were cursed to do anything. We were open for murder. We were destined to lose. We were given.

free will, you chose to choose. You chose to choose to defy God's rules because inside of you, you wanted to be like God and make them. Oh my gosh. What was going on? Who was the Holy Spirit was discipling me? Yes. Because I don't even remember my church teaching that.

What was I reading? I don't know. I think it's a testament. I think it's just a great testament to know that like when God saves us and we don't have like the proper discipleship in place. when we don't have the right people pouring into us. Like he himself, and that's the beautiful thing about the Christian faith, is that our God is a relational God.

And here's the word. There's a system that he throws into. He throws us into an immediate relationship with himself. Here's the word. Jackie's preaching. I didn't know I was a preacher. I was barely read. Obviously, I remember not really understanding the Bible like that,

but I was learning the basics. And where I was, how I was with the tools I had, God was using my giftedness even before I knew my gifts. That's good. Oh, my gosh. Because poetry is not a spiritual gift. Teaching is a spiritual gift. But God was using the means and the art form of poetry

to already cultivate the preaching. That's good. Okay. I think that's how I last. I could be a last pause. With Dagan. Why do I know about Deggan? your heart already knows is wicked.

First 27 and please. Don't be like Lucifer by taking their scriptures out of context and you can continue to cheat God out of his glory. We not only affect ourselves, but we affect all the chicks that we lay with. We spend our whole relationship with that femur stem or whichever you choose by trying to make up for all the people that left the heart bruised. We become that father that left too soon. We become that dude that he didn't quit out of school.

We become that mother that had too many rules by becoming the God. that she's supposed to worship on Sunday afternoon. We take on the task of pasting together, every piece of her that's been broken, and when we leave, those pieces that we held onto so tightly on our hands fall to the floor, patiently waiting on the next person to come through the door,

leaving her even more broken than she was before. Before. I know you may be thinking, man, this is me. This is who I am, but the thing is, it's really not. All the girls' clothes and et cetera, is just a lackluster substitute for what you really need.

God. See, every feminine quality, every beautiful curve, every little thing that makes you a woman that you despise was given to you for the glory of God. Only if you can see with his eyes, you will see how beautiful you really are. Yeah. Wow.

Oh my gosh, I'm about to cry. Don't let it out. I don't want to. To fall. To fall. Oh, my gosh. some crying. Because he.

In real life. Okay, you can pause it now. Okay. Chattigan, you give me a favorite towel or something? I'm catching them. They're not falling. She's trying to catch her tears. They're right at the bottom.

Because I put on sedent powder. And so what we know what to do is about seven pounds. Praise God. Come on. Come on. Hurry up. Hurry up and catch it. Oh, Lord.

If you didn't have makeup on, I would. I would tell you to let it fall. Oh, that did it. And it's coming off. Okay. Oh, God. He's a keeper. He's a keeper.

Okay. Yeah. So, why are you crying? I don't want to talk about why I'm crying. You got to talk about why you crying because the people see you crying. So for us to, like, skim past it, it's kind of like, you know, we're here now. Oh, man, God is good. Did, I forgot.

They showed that shot of that stud who was in the corner. And she stood up and she was crying. Mm-hmm. I talked to her later. Yeah. She gave her life to the Lord. She gave her life to the Lord at night. And I forgot about that.

Yeah. And so was it that that made you cry? Uh-uh. I think I'm trying to be very objective and not subjective. I think just seeing God's kindness in that like even how in that place my message hasn't changed. Wow. You know, like how the emphasis, I end with the emphasis being God. not to leave, not to try to escape hell,

not to try to be straight, not to get married, not to have kids, not to have a ministry, not, like all of that is cool, but like the emphasis is like is the Lord. And to me that's just the Holy Spirit. It's not even me. It's like, oh, the Lord really did change me and he's kept me because my message hasn't shifted.

Yeah. It's become more clear, more defined. But, and so I'm just over here overwhelmed. Like, oh my gosh. You know, you know, the most people, beautiful thing I think with this poem that I see

one, you were very honest about homosexuality, about truth, about God's truth, but because you spoke about it in such an experiential type of way, you were able to resonate with this topic in ways that I haven't seen anybody at that time

talk about it, but also too, I think the beautiful thing about your testimony is that Because God brought you out, God also gave you a beautiful gift to articulate his gospel. But because you literally came for the lifestyle, you have a heart for the community. And so all this truth that you presented in the poem, you know, it was hard. But how you ended in the hope was so beautiful. Speaking directly to the stud, you are beautiful.

The person that God made you to be beautiful. you cannot be a real boy, you are not Pinocchio, beautiful. And so that's when she stood up. It's when she started to be affirmed. And that gets to the heart of the matter is that so many of us, I think gender norms and all of that

is a thing, right? Like how society constructs these stereotypes of what femininity is supposed to be. And we have to learn how to like read that through the lens of scripture. How does God define womanhood? How does God define womanhood? define feminity and all of that.

But also there's so, so part of it is I was raised in such a way where I just wasn't the typical feminine woman. Yeah. But because of that, there's also this part where you hate yourself. You don't feel like your woman enough. You're girly enough. And so there's this self-hatred where it's like you don't feel like a woman. And so you're embodying what you feel is opposite of woman, right?

Wow. So for me to say you are beautiful is to go directly to the heart of what you don't feel like. Yeah. You don't feel beautiful. Like words like pretty. You don't feel that. Like for you to feel more comfortable being called handsome

than being called beautiful says a lot. And so I think maybe that's what we all need to be reminded of is that people don't do what they do just because they're these wicked rebellious people. A lot of it is also that people, they feel low and they want love and they go where the love feels safe. Yeah, and that's not just what people

who are saying so attracted. That's with everything. Everybody. You know, men sleep with so many other women and become hortmongers, not because they're just merely lustful. It's because they want to feel value and they don't know who they are

and they're consistent looking for themselves in the bed sheets of so many women. So... Next. So this poem is my proposal poem you know to Jackie this is how I proposed to her

so give you a little context you know my first poem that kind of introduced me to the world was actually the night that she did the stub poem which was years prior from this or whatever and so you know

like I wanted to propose to her on the same stage that I met her at that I saw her at on the same event. Because this was the same event. It was an annual...

It had grown significantly. It had grown significantly. So my life is a stub poem that Jackie did was done in the warehouse. But because the poems went so viral and people from all over the world started to get, you know, a host of the poems on YouTube.

Now we're in a big old church that seat like 3,500 people. And so the place is sold out. And on the same stage, I was like, you know what? I want to propose to her at the same poetry event that we met. And let me tell you how crazy the Lord is, and I say that reverend with reverence.

I knew Preston was going to propose soon because me and him had an event in Trinidad and they gave him $2,000. And I was like, he works at Radio Shack. There's no way that he shouldn't be a wise steward of these funds and buy a ring. I just knew that that makes sense. I did it too.

And so I told my best friend, Dana, I text her. I said, if Preston asks you how I want to be proposed to tell him I would want to be proposed in a poem at Lyrus Lounge because Rhetoric used to be called Leris Lounge. And he actually never had a conversation with Dana. No. The Lord laid it on his heart to propose to me in a poem at Rhetoric, which is to say that the Lord saw my request

and led him to actually do it. Can I please tell the people real quick how the Lord laid it on my heart? Yes. It was so simple. I'm on my break, in the back, eat some Chinese food. at Radio Shat. Yes.

And I was thinking about two things. What poem I'm going to, what poem am I going to do for rhetoric? And when I'm going to propose to Jackie? Mm-hmm. Ain't that crazy? Mm-hmm. And it just... It literally dropped in my head.

Proposed to Jackie at rhetoric. Duh. Ain't that crazy? That's the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit. I love that. Yeah? Okay.

And so. Oh. later. I was so nervous. You're so skinny. Oh my gosh. The air was April. I have to tell the people. As soon as he said, the air

was April, I said, oh, he's about to propose. Because he had been working on this poem prior to this and have been doing it at like random poetry places in Chicago, but it was never finished. He was like, I'm just writing a poem about our story. So when he started that way, I said, oh, my God. But what was crazy is, you came in the back in a green room

because you didn't perform this night. You came and you prayed for me and you was like, why are you nervous? You've done this event so many times and I was like, I don't know why I'm nervous. Because I told you. Because you told you, I was going to do it upon anonymous. Yeah, I told you I was going to do it upon anonymous.

And so I was like, I know she don't know something up when I start off with the air was April. Which is a beautiful line. Which is a very beautiful line. By the way, if I can say so myself. No, that's great. So, mind you, when you said the air was April, I immediately looked at your pockets.

You don't know. I was like, I was like, Is there a ring in his pocket? It was a lot. It was a while since her warm eyes cut out my face, like the arms of a lonely lover welcoming her husband back from a cold war. To say I missed her was an understatement. That springed the way her teeth ran free from her lips when she laughed,

reminded me of the freedom of slaves must felt when Abraham Lincoln declared the emancipation proclamation, and their souls are finally able to soar with their dreams. We were friends back then There's no worries or expectations between us Just chemistry that we only talked about with our body language Both poets were tongues so sharp You would never guess it was made from the same flesh we daily died to

We always head our way with words But we never took advantage of them Respected the art form God placed in our hearts As if you can literally feel King David's blood galloping through our veins I often took advantage of us sporadic Chicago visits though Besides, it's not every day you can share your life with the female version of yourself. I miss those mornings when we arose from my slumber, drained from the previous nights when we talked the moon to sleep, and the stars grew tired of our company, how we manhandled our moments together,

and how our dominant personalities coexisted well like two humble kings at a feast, respect being the cornerstone of the relationship. This was us in retrospect. This was us before our true feelings shot from our heart. Her hearts flew out of our mouths and landed in each other's lives like two beautifully made missiles we didn't quite know what to do with. Ammiring the way they were well constructed but fearing that they might explode at any time to blow off the limbs of our emotions. And I knew this. I knew this because our relationship brought off the war in her.

Her heart became a battlefield. Her tongue turned into a shield and her eyes were like two swords that cut deep with every stare. And her warrior-like behavior shook the marrow out of my bones confused about how I became the enemy in the matter of months. started to question her love for me and then one day the Lord spoke and said, Preston, if you have been hurt and battled too many times to count you will adopt some guerrilla war type tactics too.

I'm calling you to love her, not like you, but like me. So that was actually a very real, real line because, like I said, this was the new lines that I wrote after I started the poem and you haven't heard this part. And so,

I wanted to kind of like build a foundation, you know, of our friendship, which is the reason why I said, you know, I often took advantage of a sporadic Chicago visits. It's not every day you can share your life with a female version of yourself. I miss those mornings where we rose from my slumber drain from the previous nights when we talked to moon to sleep. And so I'm building like a story about like our friendship. But when we became romantic or,

you know, started dating. Dating. We weren't. Not romantic, but like when we started dating, you just became a different person. And so, like, I was like, I also had brothers in mind, you know, who are pursuing young women

who maybe have trauma or daddy hurt or whatever when love and romance gets too vulnerable, vulnerable for them to like to be encouraged to still pursue a woman even when it gets hard because I think a lot of times and I say this all the time like you know God had to really check me because I was so used to you being my friend and then when we became we started dating and you became regarded and started protecting yourself I was offended originally and I wanted to back away

and I really had to be checked by the Lord and the Lord was like I didn't back away from you when it got hard. You know, I didn't back away from you when you rejected me. And so I had young men in my when I wrote that line. So just talking about like your rejection of me and how it hurt me. But how I feel

like the Lord was still saying, I still called you to this woman. You're out here being led. No, you're out here being led by the Holy Spirit. You really walk with the Lord. You got the air on from your place. But the type of love that would never leave. Even when her sharp rejection cuts the skin of your pride,

And the fear of being vulnerable starts to shiver your soul. I really like your two bones. How you first rejected my love too. But I still pursued you with ocean like passion. And then I'll woo you like a hopeful romantic. And even when your sins felt like the nails that drove their rusty bodies into my divine hands, to pin me to a cross that I built, I still chose to love you. Mm-hmm.

So I pray. I ask God to forgive me for not love and self as he like him. And in my imperfection to teach me how to love a flawed woman, the way he loves his flower church and I kid you not it felt like God cracked open my sternum planted 1st Corinthians 13 in the soil of my heart

and watered that spirit that scripture every time I was in his presence my love grew for her I'm intrigued by how you began nervous right but like did you feel like the Lord was with you

I did because I got so Because you shift into this kind of confidence. Yeah. Because, you know, you're always nervous. One, I'm nervous because I'm like, I got a very honest girlfriend at the time. And it's 3,500 people here. Right. It's so many things popping in my head.

Is she going to say no? But then when I started to just meditate on the words that I was saying and remembering, like, what God brought me through in our courtship and, like, and, like, I tell young men all the time, I got to know the Lord more intimately courting you. Because I had to depend on him in a way that I, you know, that I, you know, because it's not even that you were super difficult. That's not even the reason why, right?

It was because I felt so called to you, but I felt so ignorant in knowing how to love you and court you. And so I had to depend on the Lord to do something. so, you know, our stories were so unique and so, like, complicated and, like, my background and your background, like, logically, we shouldn't fit. Right. And so I had to lean on the Lord. And so, like, it was, it was me thinking about how much I love you, me thinking about, like,

how much God has brought me from, and it's all the things. And so I begin to think about the words and, you know, I think now you see passion. Yeah, it became, like, freedom. it became like this diversity of expression because what I hear you saying is there's a measure of meditation so therefore worship. Yes. But also a measure of like security

because it's like, oh, if he, I'm good because he's with me. Absolutely. Yeah, that's right. So today I stand. A fully bloomed garden of a man. Yeah. Ready to love like Adam the first time he saw Eve and Eden. Eden

And I bet you is reminiscent of the first time I laid eyes on you Three years ago You stood on this stage and declared how the Lord Broke the shackles of homosexuality off of your predestined life With boldness roaring out of your mouth As if a lion lived in your throat And I saw the truth that day You start writing right here

I saw a young woman longing for righteousness Like lungs long for air And I guess it explains why it was so hard for me to breathe When you spit Your testimony held the crowd together like the sea holes, the sunrise. And at the end of your poem, when you told every woman in the room

that they were beautiful, I believed you, because in sincerity soaring from your chest sounding like the cry of a cage, bird, longing for sky. Right. You spoke like a gentle storm. You was writing. Wait. You were writing, sir.

You spoke like a gentle storm. Wait, wait. Like lungs long for air. And when you spoke, it's just... Wait, wait, the next line. Hold on. I'm enough... calm enough to ease our anxious souls

but violent enough to lift us off of our feet when you finished. And when you finished. I said to myself, yo, who is this girl? Wait. I don't even get props to me, right? Because what I'm explaining is

I'm literally explaining the first night I met you, which was the poem that I just saw. But the reason you're going off... I wrote that way because you amazed me. Like, literally. stylistically, you don't even write that way. Stylistically, you are a busy writer. So you will have 17,000 metaphors in one sentence, right?

So for you to have these kind of quippy lines, like you spoke like a gentle storm. And when you spit, da-da-da-da-da. Like, it was such quick but sharp stuff. That's what makes it. It gave a preaching cadence to it. Yeah. Because I think when you write about something

that you're super, super passionate about, you automatically fall into just being more clear and concise. Because I didn't have to, this poem came from such a real place. I didn't have to overdo it. Because like, even the way I described you, because when I said you spoke like a gentle storm, calm enough to ease our anxious souls,

but violent enough to lift us off of our feet when you finished. And when you finish, I said to myself, who is this girl? When I'm simply explaining this, it's like, man, when I saw you that night when you did my life as a, is a stud, like you were calm, but you were strong at the same time. Like a gentle storm, you know? And so like, and this is the reason why we all gave you an ovation because God used you so

mildly that day. And yeah, I was just like, okay, I was thinking about that day, yeah. It's the baby locks for me. It's the baby locks. With the little blonde in the front. I miss that length. I don't. I like your long time.

It was very cute. Oh, to get you crying. It just melt my face off. such a cryer. I never told you. Would you with the virtue my eyes

have I knowingly belonging to gaze upon? A real life Proverbs, 31 woman in the flesh. I was so irritated. Why were you irritated? Who are you doing this?

Who soon will become my homie and then my best friend and later on my boo thing. A goofy smile. I want you to know that through the years you have inspired me to be a better man.

You have challenged me to love like fragile hearts can't break no matter how hard we try. Just like our father, who doesn't love us according to our yesterdays, but every day chooses to humble himself to love a creation despite their unworthiness.

So all this to say, I desire to love you this way. I'm coming down there. I believe that there's a beautiful covenant waiting for us on the other side of this relationship. This is when the crowd went crazy. I wasn't expecting this. The whole crowd stood up.

And they put you on the screen. Yeah. With a mic in my face. I believe that there's a beautiful covenant waiting for us on the other side of this relationship. A new covenant. Filled with love, pain, and joy, and sacrifice that all brings glory to the king

who rose us from the dead. So with that said, I'm coming down now. That's so cute. Man, memories, man. 2013 memories. So I told Morgan to sit next to you in case you try to run. I was like, don't let her run.

I don't know. You so much. Will you do me the honest of Mary, man? I know this is going to happen. She said, yes. I just love my hair. I really do. That was

That was memories. I was telling somebody the other day that you lost, and I lost a lot of my Chicago accent and you lost a lot of your St. Louis accent. Oh, you're trying to try to be funny. Yes, yes, yes. Because when I said, will you marry me?

She said, yes, comeer. Yes, comer. You literally make me sound delayed. I don't like it. That's how y'all talk. Okay, Kai. You want to get. And I said, I'm coming down to.

Yeah, you think that sounds great? That you deleted ours out of, like, where it belongs? We delete ours in Chicago. Y'all add four to every word. Listen. Come, or. Listen, I've, I've, the ethnic, parts of my accent have had to go because I just, people don't understand us. If I talk like St. Louisville, people, y'all don't understand me.

Yeah, man. That was good times, though. So we'll end with one of our last, this is probably, this is probably, the last poem I written. This is our one flash poem that we came together to do for poets in autumn in 2019 and we wanted to write a piece

that kind of, it was us telling each other's story. Yeah. You know, because it kind of feels conclusive in the sense of, you know, I started with my life as a stud doing poetry. He started doing poetry where when I met him,

then he proposed to me in a poem and this kind of felt like our, like, I guess, last hurrah as far as poetry is concerned together. The difficulty in writing this poem, though, is by this time I had moved on to writing books and teaching. And so it was actually hard for me to get myself back in the rhythm of poetry again. Yeah, even the process, because our most popular poem together was a poem called The Fall

where we reenacted Adam and Eve, but, like, that process was so much easier because we were writing poems so much back then. And we were young, married, or whatever, this was like, man. and us trying to write a poem for a tour that we were on. And, but God Hand was on it. Yeah. So. I don't even remember nothing about this poem.

So these are going to be very fresh reviews of commentary. Me neither. It's a good idea to have our old pictures. Who did that? Hop. I'm saying, whose idea was it? I don't know. I think it was probably, fine.

Yeah. You did this? Oh, Kim did it. Shout out to you. She said. There was a boy Halfway grown Skinned all the brown

His ancestors once carried If you knew him You love him quick Call him little bro Rest your arm on his shoulder And let your Saturdays become his new home Great line His voice wasn't heavy yet

It was still a swing on the playground A game of horse A do you like me say yes kind of noise That was a girl Her skin in a beautiful coffee stain Eyes deep enough to swim in but never drown. More inquisitive than most her age, she was always

a question staring at the world for answers. She made most grown-ups prophetic. They would all say, this little girl going to be a teacher, amazed at how her early mind worked. There he was, breathless from playing house in the bottom of Grandma's home, the basement, a hiding place for his cousins to run and wrestle and be all that puberty demanded,

playing with a girl he knew. They went from basement to bathroom. He went from virgin to an open door, swinging with the sound of lust and lions readying themselves to devour every bit of identity he was never given. He sat eyes wide and insecure, exchanging his body for hers there.

Sex and syringe were made into metaphor. Her and everybody like it made into drug there. He thought he learned something new about himself. He thought her body gave him his first name. He thought her thighs could tell him who he was. He thought lust and love had the same hands. There she was. Can you pause?

Barely five. Can we not. acknowledge what happened? He thought sex and syringe was a metaphor. Yeah. He thought her thighs. There he was. He became virgin to an open door.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so, I mean, my testimony is, I lost my virginity to one of my grandmother's foster kids. She had already had an abortion by the time I was a virginian. And she woke me up, you know, by giving me. I don't want to dishonor. You know, oral sex and so.

I don't even want to dishonor your explanation of the event. But I do, I do think that that was sexual abuse. Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't know if you remember my old poem Nacrophiliate. Yeah. And that poem I said, just because I enjoyed my first time, doesn't mean I wasn't molested. Yeah.

Because I think to say even you lost her virginity, she took it. Yeah. You know? And so I think that's helpful because the longer I've just listened to the stories of men, that's such a common story that some older woman or some older man basically like took their consent from them when it came to their exploration of their sexuality. And it's like I think the world and society and culture will say, oh, because you enjoyed it, it was like you actually just being a boy or you being a man.

When it's like, no, that was satanic. Yeah. What they did. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Thought her thighs could tell him who he was. He thought lust and love had the same hands.

There she was. Barely five. A tiny giggle on the playground. Carefree and anxious for nothing except for more time at recess to make as much fringe as she could. It was there when she first felt the urge to call another girl her own. Where in her mind she replaced princes in Disney movies for princesses and it felt right. It felt good and natural like the breeze making her skin.

hush on a warm summer night, and then she was six. Still a small field of innocence, wide-eyed and growing into herself. On the lower level of a family-friend's home is where her life began to bloom tragic. The room was dim. Darkness tucked between each corner in the basement is where he named her his victim. Daddy gone, living somewhere cow was safe, couldn't hear her heart trying to claw through her chest. So some teenage boy, his hands, much bigger than hers, made her feel safe, and then confused, and then scared in a matter of minutes. That day, molestation made a mockery of her small body. That boy became an almost man addicted to the sound of his name in a woman's mouth.

If you asked him if he knew their names, he described their bodies. He tells his friends how we got her to get underneath him without God's well done and hear them open their mouths with praise. They pat him on his back and stretched their smiles at how he got so good at conquering pieces of land and planting his flag on foreign soil. That brown boy colonized bodies like it was his right to live in someone else's country. But he didn't know where else to call home. Every woman was a house and a hug

And I see you, you refugee of a boy That little girl grew up only making women her safe house She would dying between their breasts While telling them all of her fears And afterwards she would make a bed out of their torsos She was now in a colorful world She can call her own But rainbows were no longer a promise

But freedom from dark clauses Where she hid from the burning stare of church folk Far from that dark basement And where she played out all she knew she was at recess We are writing People didn't even get that line when I had wrote it. People didn't even get that line when I already wrote it.

No, we're writing. Oh my gosh. She was now in a colorful world she can call her own. Well, rainbows were no longer a promise but freedom. Was she here from the burning state of church folk? No, we're writing. I got to say it. Come on now.

Can we two to our own horns for a minute? Because to me, one, one, it shows progression. Yes. Right? So we began with the poem, My Life is a Stud. That was my third poem ever written. Covenant. already write real good. We're coming it.

So that's when I started to write better. Yeah, we didn't even really show your like I didn't show the early early. Your beginner, amateur poems. Jesus is God, and I tell you, tell me otherwise. So now you come, we're coming together where it's like, no, we've grown up. We've grown up artistically. We've grown up as people.

This is 2019. So this is after autumn. So yeah, we've been married a few years. We have two kids at this point. Like, a lot has happened. Yeah. Yeah. She was now gay, but the absence of true happy, only someone sovereign can bring her often left her joyless. After Jesus, I met him, a boy, Chicago-born built like a city of winded kings.

So I don't know if people realize. So I start by telling your story. Yes. You start by telling my story. Then we switch where now I'm telling the story of meeting you. Yeah. And then I tell the story of meeting you. Yeah.

but rewind it. And turn it up a little bit. I met him. A boy. Chicago born built like a city of Winded Kings. Before him, the only people I'd ever loved were called woman. Women were to meet a cathedral, beautiful and religious even. Their ability to make worshippers out of a secular born body was worth writing a poem for.

But with them, I became unlike them. Sag my pants, flatten my chest, sat down, legs wide as if I had something between them to protect my voice. Already a cello played with one hand made women obedient. They treated me like the man they wish men could be, but as much as I tried, I couldn't be what they were created for. Oh, that was my favorite line. Meeting the man God made to be mine was scary. To see him was to see the man named daddy that came and left like he couldn't stand to see his face on somebody he didn't love. To see him was to remember all the men before him that taught me that trust ain't safe with nobody but God. But what happens when God is telling you to give your trust to somebody that ain't him? When I met her,

saint and I had met God too. Our hearts knew as the wet earth when God first whispered the world into existence. Because of grace, I was now learning to see women as women and not bodies to lay my insecure. Most midnights I fall to enter into God's presence instead of entering into a woman to feel whole. Hard when your skin worshipped a woman's touch for so long. Hard when for so long created beings with soft hands held my broken instead of the God who made their hands. Silly how I often doubted if his touch can make me feel new as theirs did, but she intrigued me. I heard her voice before I saw her hips. Her honest tongue and mouth, ready with truth, grab my heart and wouldn't let it go.

God knew I needed a woman that I'll give my respect without her asking for it. Three years of friendship was enough. I was ready for her to wear my last name. Then we became one. When I said I do, I didn't know one flesh was literal as much as I wanted to hide. My shame and fears and failures, I had too many skeletons in my closet to act like I wasn't dead. Before sex made me feel alive, but now my flesh. She had to die for another.

No one told me my wedding was also a funeral. My hands are a casket for the... Let me start right there. One, this must have been one of the early shows because we're rushing through this poem. It is. We're going really fast, which tells me we didn't know it yet.

Yeah, but I love that line because it's really simple. No one told me my wedding would also be a funeral. No one told me my wedding was also a funeral. Preach that real quick. Because I don't know who came up with that line. Yeah, but like, that's what a wedding is.

It is. It is also a celebration of two lives coming together to die. Literally. Not this. And so it's just a real creative way to say, oh, these two lives are coming together to die. Yeah. When you walk down the aisle and you make this covenant and you say I do, it's me committing to die to myself to honor you. Yes.

If we could just remember that one thing. Yeah. Flowers to lay. My dress a white lie. Couldn't a guess see all the dust. I come from all the dust I was going to. Couldn't they see the girls and the porn and the girls and the lust and all the things God set me free from?

That's right. And sent us free from the pride and the fear. And all the things God put us together to make each other free from. Isn't it a mystery? I messed up. Imagine tricked us from two sexually broken people and made us one flesh whole in matrimony and made us holy.

Identities now up to God to give for God to define for Jesus to see and tell us who we are. We are here and each other. And ain't that a miracle? The process of turning two and one, uncleaned and to forgiven, the visibility of God's voice when we became the Lazarus, to whom he spoke.

This boy, a man now, a husband, mine, he has been to me a mercy every new morning. I don't think of all the women she has known when we wake. I remember them as God does. Therefore, I forget them as God does. Wait. Wait. Rewind it and play it again. Rewind it and play it again.

And tell us who we are. We are his at each other. ain't that a miracle. The process of turning two into one, unclean into forgiven, the visibility of God's voice when we became the Lazarus to whom he spoke. This boy, a man now, a husband, mine,

he has been to me a mercy. Every new morning, I don't think of all the women she has known when we wake. I remember them as God does. Therefore, I forget them as God does. When they come to hunt us... You want to break down. Every new morning, something,

I don't think of all the women. I say he, you say she lay with when I wake. I remember them as God does. Therefore, I forget them as God does. Break it down. I don't even know who. I think there's this sense in which we are communicating that one, every time you wake up, there's new mercies.

So I think we're playing on that scripture. But also like how God says, like, I've put your sins into the sea of forgetfulness. And so it's not necessarily dishonoring your past or your history. It's saying that I don't treat you across. according to what you've done. You know, if God has put your sins into the sea of forgetfulness, then I will too. Yeah.

Right? And so I'm not going to, I'm not going to move with you as if, like, your past or your history defines who you are with me. It's crazy. And this is what I often say when people ask me, how is it, how is it being married to a woman that used to be gay? And it's like, ultimately, my hope is not in you. My hope is in the God who keeps you.

And so, you know. And vice versa. And vice versa. Because people will often ask you. you know how it is to be married to me but they never asked me how it is to be married to you. Yeah. It's like... A man who had all these relationships and sexual... It's a lot of

skeletons in his closet. Right. They still be texting you. Well, they don't text you. They don't text you. They, but they try to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Show their face. And so, yeah, and I feel like the next line that I said kind of explains... I think I said... I feel like I'm watching this for the first time.

Reminding us of what God buried, both his struggle and mine. We died together as promised I live for all the ways He says I love you without words When he holds my heart with both hands I say his name under my breath You'd have to be him to know what it sounds like out loud

I promised God I would love People didn't understand that line People didn't get but that was the most It was actually very central That was the most freakest line you ever wrote Listen that was the most freakiest line Jackie ever wrote in poetry history Can you explain that line? Come on

I don't remember it You said No it was very low Dessential. I remember them as God does. Therefore, I forget them as God does. When they come to hunt us both, reminding us of what God buried, both his struggle and mind, we die together as promised.

I live for all the ways. He says, I love you without words. When he holds my heart with both hands, I say his name under my breath. You'd have to be him to know what it sounds like out loud. I promise God I would love. And yon. It's kind of self-explans story. It's not a self-explans story for people who don't write poetry.

I live for all the ways. He says, I love you. He says I love you. No, I left all the ways he holds my heart with both hands. He holds my heart with both hands and I say your name under my breath. You would have to be him to know what it sounds like out loud. I'm basically expressing Song of Solomon. I love it.

Love for her like fragile hearts can't break. He threw our past into a sea deep as mercy. How dare I dwell on the women she cradled before me when God gave us a right now, love. Our marriage is not void of struggle. But when I see her, I don't see her sin. I see a song God is still writing. Every dawn she is cloaked in God's newness. She is a fresh scent on my tongue, a sweet residue left on my lips.

When she leaves, I smuggled the memory of her beneath my breath. And when she returns, I kiss her soft. And all of nature begins to sing of God's goodness and how he made our love abstract art. I vowed to do this. I took this woman to be mine, to have it to hold. From this day forward, for better for worse, for sexually broken or whole. and imperfection and in health

to love and to cherish till death do us. Our pace was really off. Yeah, our pace was off. But that was good. It was good, man. All right. I miss writing poems with you.

I don't miss writing poems. I miss writing poems with you, like just spending the time us writing, but I don't miss writing poems. I don't miss. You don't miss that either? No. Okay.

All right. Bye y'all. Peace. With the Perrys is produced by the Perrys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing the McBride. editing by Xavier Fairley, video recording and audio production by Kim Powell, artwork by hop, and music by school. If you'd like to support The Perrys, you can visit the link in the show notes.

This is with the Perrys. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.