“I probably wanted a photo of the couple's entire body. Surrounded by pungent fog machine smoke and lasers, these embracing strangers probably knew less of each other than they knew of my taking of the photo. Oblivious to the debauchery surrounding them, their kiss isn't something wasted on drug addled one night stands and immediate bad decision making, they are in love. The type of love that builds empires and destroys civilizations. The type that brings together estranged families while destroying concrete friendships. That divine LOVE.

But what do I know? I only got a photo of the top of their heads.

Back when I was in college, discovering myself like a child's first time bathing alone, I was susceptible to any idea that had a clever hook and a charming rhythm. This was my return to New York City after a failed attempt at fine arts and love at a small arts college in upstate NY. My first love was a white girl—and (obviously) I wasn't white enough for her family and in the end, for her. After eight months of living in my sweatpants, sharing a room with my little brother on the top bunk, watching every sitcom ever made at my moms house, it was time for me to re-enter the real world—or lose my scholarship generously being provided by Geraldo Rivera (long story). So I finally got up, showered and went to study and live at Long Island University's Brooklyn's campus—where I found refuge in the 5% Nation Of Islam's "The Black Man is God" radical ideology. This was something my stained sweat pants and shattered self confidence desperately needed.

I was always questioned as to why this was such a easy thing for me to believe. Being that I was a 1st generation Dominican and not a African American, this baffled my mother when I came home with my new righteous name and my black medallions smelling like Fulton Avenue incense sticks. I would smile, and instead of tossing self serving dogma or twisting bible quotes to use in my defense I went with two simple and (kind of) easy ways to understand me: Egyptian Mythology & Physics.

I took physics as an elective. I thought that I would learn more about astronomy (as I was a stargazer, or just had my head in the clouds as a miserable romantic) than anything else but instead I was bored to death with the complicated composition of the gasses and atoms that composed the fabric of the universe. After painfully prying into the elements in-between naps I took, hiding behind my two thousand-page books and staring through my instructor, through the chalkboard to a paradise that was anywhere but here—I finally learned something that peaked my interest. My teacher started to break down atoms. He compared them to blood cells, and then to people and social interactions followed by planets, and then to our galaxy and hence our universe. Then he explained the elements—the smallest compounds of our reality—and described them like this: each element when photographed for classification is captured as a black bar with different color streaks in different places like a UPC symbol in God's grocery store. Basically all light, all color. Comes from black. White is the absence of color while black is the totality of it all...

Yup. Black.

"So you're saying the black man is God huh?" No, My professor definitely wasn't saying that, but that's not the way my infantile and weak ego took it.

In the Bible they describe Jesus as having hair of wool. Something I always wondered when I saw the way Jesus was portrayed in Hollywood. To me, Jesus was more Bob Marley than Jim Cavezial—but this is the world we live in and I'm not a hotshot LA script writer. They also speak of Israel and Egypt. This is all located in the Fertile Crescent where the Middle East and Africa meet. Those people are pretty, pretty brown (*Larry David voice). Pharaohs and pyramids are also mentioned in what is our earliest recorded history—and this brings me to Nut & Geb:

Nut is the woman and the sky is Nut's body, arching from horizon to horizon. Geb is the man, or the Earth lying beneath her. During the day, Nut and Geb are separated, but each evening Nut comes down to meet Geb and this causes darkness. If storms came during the day, it was believed that Nut had come closer to the earth. It was believed in ancient Egypt that Geb's laughter were earthquakes and that he allowed crops to grow. Of course in 5% ideology the man is the sun and the woman is the earth and at night is when you see the stars—the star is known as the child. Basically the union of woman and man is what creates the universe we all know and enjoy to this day.

So here are now, in 1040 Metropolitan, minutes before the sun rises and we all have to scatter for cabs while hiding behind our sunglasses... Two lovers surrounded by fog smoke in a shroud of mystery. The strobe lights illuminating the shimmering aura of their passion. Life being born out of darkness. I mean most babies are made in the dark—ask any inner city family that had to weather any major electrical blackouts. They tell you in countless books about trails and tribulations—from the Torah to the Koran—that you should follow the light or that there's a light light at the end of every tunnel. The light is what brightens up our path that we need in order to achieve and reach our desired goals. The light isn't as much as a destination as it is The Road... A road to creation or a road to an uncertain afterlife—either way the light is what defines our only moment in time and space.

This is the gift of our Lord.

Our lord being the darkness that begets the light, which heats up the water to create precipitation, and that rain feeds the land which then grows the food we need to live. Our Lord being the science of atoms and molecules that create the blood cells that run through our bodies powered by the vibrations created by sound. The Lord of the whispers of sweet nothings and violent everything—the dynamic opposites we need. The very yin and yang of our existence. In this theory of mine white is just as important as black, just like God needs the Devil in order to exist, and these roles are interchangeable. I've met white Gods and black devils and everything to me is as confusing as it is clear.

And that's OK, that's perfection.

That's The Lord.

Even in a shitty after hours where most would say love and hope goes to die while despair and decadence thrives...

And The Lord is my light.

'Dedicated to the memory of Dust La Rock who would totally get what I was saying...'"—O.C.J.