Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 16

My Body is a Map

I hear because I listen.

A few years ago, I was asleep in bed. I had a dream about this police officer who was shot. It was out near a stadium and I witnessed the person shoot him then run away. Only I couldn’t do anything about it because it was just a dream, right? But it was so vivid. Rosalind, in her early 20s, didn’t know what to make of it. Even when I woke up the next morning and all over the news was a story about an officer who’d been shot and killed the night before. I was convinced that I had been there, somehow, but I didn’t know how. Like all the vivid dreams I had back then, I simply wrote as many of the details I could remember from the dream in my journal. My journal is full of dreams. Dreams that seemed to be significant. Then there was the time when my brother passed away and he came to me. He had a message for me. He was calling to me. I never told anyone what he said. I just wrote about it in my diary.

But I always wondered why these things were happening to me.

Fast forward to 2016. I have had lots of people come to me. There was the woman I saw clearly in my mind, the one who inspired the story I’m currently writing, Ruby’s story. I still don’t have a title for the story, but I’ve gone through several re-writes. And it’s one of the most difficult stories I’ve had to write. It has been emotionally draining, but in a good way. If that makes sense. It does to me. I want to tell the story she came to me wanting me to tell. When she came to me, she was sitting before a vanity mirror, staring at her face. Tears glistened in her eyes. I could feel the defeat emanating from her body. Then she dropped her face in her cupped hands. That’s it. The story came to me the day I sat down with a pen in my hand ready to tell it, just a few days after I saw her. Then yesterday, I saw in my mind’s eye a naked young woman. She was standing before a full-length mirror looking at her naked body. Though her skin was flawless and she was physically beautiful, she saw something other eyes might not be able to see. “My body is a map of places I never should have visited.” I heard her say that and I didn’t change those words. The poem is below:

My body is a map of places

I never should’ve visited. Marred.

With the fingerprints of men who

came to visit, but chose not to stay.

Down my right arm lies the state

of memory: the one who lied,

said he was dying. Many tears

were shed in that place. Across

my chest stretches the state of

the ones who always promised to

love me, then took those promises away.

My back is covered with rough terrain:

I just don’t know how to love you.

A few have traveled that way. My

abdomen, the place where my womb

is found, bears the bruise of the one who

said he’d been searching his whole life

for me. A state that sorta resembles Texas.

And down there, that spot between my legs,

is the state of Baby, I really do love you.

My body is a map soiled by reuse

by the ones who got lost in the curves

of my body, curves they read like Braille,

a book they never could understand

even if they went totally blind. The terrain

here is not flat like on a map and

there’s more to me than that gold

you thought you’d found at the parting

of my thighs. But they never discovered

their way to my heart because they only

wanted to be able to say they’d visited.

I was just a place to visit. Now when I stand

in front of the mirror, my naked body exposed,

I see souvenirs left behind from all the places

they visited, fingerprints from all the men

who suffer from the Christopher complex &

have claimed to have discovered me when

all they really did was set sail and land

in the place where they could rape the land

& my mind, pillage, loot and try to

destroy me. I existed before they came,

before they landed on me, left their handprints

all over me. Handprints no amount of bleach

can rinse away. I spent years trying to find

myself but I’d drifted to those places,

secret spaces where criminal minds were taught

how to murder me. To murder my soul.

Those savages who defended their right to

bear arms. How could I know the weapons

would be used to kill me

before I learned to clean up the smeared prints,

the smudges on my soul. Like a foraging native

in my own homeland, I found out their secret.

I existed all along. And I will continue to

exist long after they depart and have become

dead to me.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Grandmother’s Yard

When you’re ten years old

lying on your back in the grass

in front of your grandmother’s

house, watching clouds overhead

transform into your dreams and

you turn to look at your best friend,

your virgin heart has no way to warn

you of the heartache that awaits you.

At that age, lying on your back

holding his hand is the closest

you’ve gotten to Heaven and you

can believe that Heaven lasts

forever. And when you’re old

enough to lounge on grandmother’s

porch, listening to the radio

all the songs you hear affirm

the lies cloaked in your soul.

You begin to think

make it last forever is simple

as holding onto the one who loves

you like you love him until you see

him chasin’ the one who refuses to

love him and you must watch while he

accepts the challenge of holding

down a love that doesn’t want to

be owned because a real man

doesn’t want anything just handed

to him, sometimes not even love or

you realize the one you love

never loved you, is incapable of

loving you and the ten—year old

living in you must accept that

love that once was able to

transform existed only in your

ten-year old imagination.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Dance With My Father

On my way to Starbucks this evening, I put one of my CDs in and started singing along with the music. It was one of those various artists mix CDs. Just when I was about to get out of the car, Luther Vandross’ voice emanated from my speakers. “Dance with My Father Again” came on. And I broke down. I sat there with tears in my eyes, listening to Luther and hurting for him. And anyone who’s ever missed someone they’ve lost. And that includes me. Just about everyone has lost someone they’ve loved and the pain of not being able to bring them back has been too much to bear. Listening to the song over and over again, I came up with the poem below:

How can I yearn for a dance

I’ve never even had?

How is it possible for my body

to yearn for a touch it never even felt?

How can I know what it’s like to have

my heart broken when it never was whole?

How can my soul bleed when there’s no

flesh within, only without? And losing

your love, a love I never ever had

shouldn’t hurt this bad. But it does.

How’s it possible for one song to

make me give birth to so many questions

knowing that answers are transient like the sun;

they hide away at night and leave me

tossing and turning, seeking answers

that will never come and having to

to spend another sleepless night

with all these unanswered questions.

How can I protect my heart from hurt

that shouldn’t have ever been mine to begin with?

How can I stop my heart from loving the one

I’ve known from before I first saw him?

How can I move on from a love that never

ever existed? How can I know what’s true

when the truth is nothing but an illusion?

How can I pretend all of this is fiction

when it’s based on a true story?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Coming Undone

The many faces of the moon

have sometimes been the sole witness

to my unraveling. Even when my soul

comes completely undone, I refuse to

become trapped inside my own body.

My moon mother welcomes me

to her side, night after night. While the

distant light of the stars whisper quietly

in my ear and the wind caresses my cheek.

Unbroken. Reconnecting not in death

but through my brokenness. How,

you ask, can something broken not be

broke? Is it an untruth? Is it an illusion?

A fusion of light and souls? Nah.

It’s just that black girl magic. And

if you don’t understand it,

you just might not own it.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

 

The Miscarriage

Her parents shoved expectations

down her throat. Her friends tried her

and found her guilty of trying to be

different. There were days she looked

in the mirror and grew dizzy

from the changing faces. She grew bloated

with the lives everyone else

dreamed for her. She carried the lives

within like an overgrown baby who

refused to be born. Once she tried to murder

the unfamiliar face staring back at her

from the mirror but she only succeeded

in proving them right, that they somehow

knew what was best for her. One day she

stuck her finger down her throat

sort of a misplaced act of courage because

when she regurgitated all the lives

that had been thrust upon her, no one

was there to help her clean up.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

It’s Official!

It’s official I have some exciting things lined up for this spring and summer. I’ll be participating in the Memphis Public Library’s Book Stock event on April 23 at the central library. I’ll be participating again in the Mid-South Book Festival’s outside event and I have several appearances lined up for the summer at different branches of the library. More details on all appearances will be posted here soon.

Like a bride before her wedding day, I’m nervous about all this year has in store for me. But I am very much looking forward to all the new experiences and all the opportunities to share my passion with others. When I have more to share, I will.

Now, I have to get back to writing. I went to a comedy show last night instead of staying at home to write, so I have some catching up to do. Let me tell you, though, Brian Regan was worth it. I spent two whole hours laughing, sometimes laughing so much I was crying. If you’re not familiar with him, you should be.

Anywho, have a wonderful and productive Sunday peeps! Do something you love today just because you want to. And, remember, every day do something that gets you one step closer to living your passion.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Love Was Her Religion

Love was her religion but

she tried to convince every man she met

that she was an atheist, non-believing.

At night, she’d sob her prayers to a god

in whom she no longer believed

preferring instead to believe the word,

written in the hand of a man

was full of lies because sometimes

it’s easier to accept lies than search

for truth. And sometimes it’s easier

to accept that religion just isn’t for you.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

I Came to Teach, Not to Bury Your Dead

We lost another one and…the story goes on.

death is a hooligan

misanthrope. killer.

claiming the lost nation.

lost boys. one funeral then

one more. must i drown

in tears before you see

i only came to teach?

i didn’t come to bury

your dead. like a mother

i see the crust of sleep

in the corner of their eyes.

how long have they been

asleep? if i shake them

will they care? my spittle

is not disrespect. mama

always used to clean

our face that way.

we could never

seem to get it right. love

moved her hands to her lips

where she could dab a little

spit and use it to clean

a dirty face. hold still.

don’t move. it’s all in love.

i want to change your mindset,

not you. i love you. always

have. always will. i string together

words to save you but you can’t

read can you? how can i get you

to see i came to teach,

not to bury your dead?

i will not carry the corpse

of another young black boy’s

soul. too many to count.

outnumbered. the stars

have nothing on the bodies i see

piled up. darkness. the

corpses obstruct the view

of the stars. makes a fence

around our souls and we

can’t see beyond today.

you smell of despair or

is that me? sometimes

i feel so confused.

the mud underneath

my fingernails should prove

that i don’t hate you.

never did. would i help you

bury your dead if i didn’t

love you?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Persistence of Memory

Because sometimes things need to fall apart…

Sometimes I wonder how I manage

to stand straight while carrying the weight

of so many worlds at once. Other days I know

it’s been nothing more than an illusion

‘cuz I look down and see the shattered pieces

lying at my feet. And the illusion breaks.

The persistence of memory made me believe.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

For Ruby: On the Inevitability of Death

the day he sliced her face

he swore he’d destroyed her.

how could he know her strength

wasn’t couched in flawless beauty

when she’d never known it herself?

it was a discovery. for them both.

one that saved her by exposing

the condition of their love: it had been

hemorrhaging for years. death

was inevitable.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind