Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 17

My ‘aha’ Moment- Again

I wasn’t going to write this post. Even after I was lying in bed last night and it came to me as if though from a tape recorder machine. I’d simply written it in my notebook and put it out of my mind. Sort of. Not really. But I wasn’t going to write this post.

A writer’s thoughts. Sometimes it feels more like a meandering passage down a dark tunnel where I have no idea what lie ahead. My thoughts. My actions. My path. Sometimes I just simply don’t know where I’m headed. Sometimes instead of the writer’s meandering thoughts, it’s the line of a poem. This blog. A place for public discourse, albeit sometimes one-sided, about the many paths I have traveled, currently travel, and will travel as a writer. The discoveries I make throughout the journey.

Yesterday I had an ‘aha’ moment for my writer self. And then, in conversation today it was re-confirmed. Saturday is a writing day for me. That is absolutely non-negotiable. But, yesterday was also the day I had an appointment to take the GRE. I’m preparing to go back to school to get my doctorate degree in English. I need more English hours to teach college composition and creative writing, so I thought, “Why not go for the degree?” Yesterday, my allergies were acting up. And I was physically and mentally tired. But Saturday is my writing day. My body and mind know this.

After testing though, I was lying across the bed, too tired to fall asleep and I began to wonder if it was worth it, all the things I try to squeeze into a day, into a week. I started calculating in my head: taking classes (for the next phase in my life), writing (which I can’t not do), teaching at the college level, teaching at the high school level, being able to help and engage with my son, etc. Maybe I shouldn’t go back to school, I could just wait until…yeah, I don’t know when. But I was ready to settle in my comfort zone because, well, it’s comfortable there. I’m unhappy here, but I’ve been here for seven years. Being a teacher is how I make my living. Theoretically, I could continue on until retirement years and then…then what? Maybe it will be the right time then. See how easy it is to settle for what we’re used to instead of working toward going where we want to be? I know I continue to be unhappy if I turned away from those things that my soul yearns for.

I don’t know how I will get everything done in the next year or year and a half. But I will. And that was my ‘aha’ moment again. I can’t turn away from what I love.

So, today, my friend asked me what if I’d ended up in a more ideal teaching situation? That’s not it. Teaching was never my passion. I do love it. I love the relationships I build with kids. I love when I see students finally “get it.” But I obviously had a purpose here and being in a more ideal situation won’t make me feel any less like it’s time to move on? Or maybe it would and that would be a bad thing. It would mean many nights lying in bed wondering why I’m not happy and I don’t want that.

So, maybe I need to take a break from writing. It’s not just a good time. I admit it was tempting. I came so close. But I imagined writing as the love of my life. If I walk away from him, he might not be there when I come back. The words might not flow so easily. The fire might not burn so bright. When I realized the time will never be perfect and I have to just do it anyway because it is what I love. I value my writing too much to put it on a shelf so that I can devote my time to something I no longer have passion for. Because in actuality, if I can talk myself out of it now, then I’ll be able to do it again. And I may never return to my writing or when I do return my passion may have bled itself dry. I don’t want to walk away. I want to satisfy my soul. And I can only satisfy my soul by continuing to go after what I love and value.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Lovers of the Dead

When did we become lovers of the dead?

Where did we learn to sugar coat early deaths?

Supplanting the celebrations of life in order to

make room for celebrations of lives unfinished.

How did we teach you that there was value in

dying in a blaze of glory rather than encouraging

you to write your own story?

When did we learn to yearn for the touch of lifeless

limbs as opposed to the touch of another warm body?

How did we teach you to value a black man dead

more than one living and breathing? Who

taught us this bullshit?

Who taught you that the tears of a black mother

belong in a glass jar on a shelf in a closet? Why

must we hide our pain from the world?

Who taught you to mourn publicly the passing

currency of the death of another black body?

Who taught you to seek validation through the

collection of black bodies, the accumulation of

skeletons for the mass grave in your thoughts?

Do you not hear the voices wailing from the ground?

Or see the blood soaking the dirt under the silent

weight of the quiet love of dead black bodies?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Loving a Stranger

I don’t know how to love someone

that I cannot know, though it is possible

to become attached to your breathing.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

The Wait

So, last night I was leaving Starbucks and as I was leaving, I saw this car pull up. Fast. Apparently someone had stayed out too late, way past his curfew. A man and woman jumped out of the car. The man came to pick up his car that he’d left at Starbucks. What struck me was the way he paid no attention to her. He raced from her car, jumped in his and tore out of the parking lot. He didn’t look back. A man that has left a woman he loves always looks back. Sometimes just to make sure that she’s okay. But it was obvious one of them, more than likely both of them the way they tore out of the parking lot, had to get home before their significant others became suspicious of their activities. Watching them, inspired the poem Fuck You, which can be found here. But, after writing that poem, which I meant to be not subtle at all. I wanted it to be profound but a stark wake-up call. Reality often is. Still, I had another poem in me. Something I’ve been working on for a few weeks. I spend a lot of time meditating on love and its many forms. Here’s the poem:

I will not claim ownership

of the type of love that

bites into the skin like a whip

finds unblemished swaths of skin

to lay claim to, to cover with

painful welts. Proof that love

once existed.

I will not speak possession or

existence of a love that is

tied to a need. Needing is fluid,

shape-shifting, cruel depending on

the shape it happens to take.

I will not mother a love that

continues to suckle at the breast

long after the time has passed.

A love that refuses to grow

developmentally distressed.

I will not become part-owner

of a love that’s built on the

shaky foundation of

one person drowning in another

to keep down the dissension.

I will not accept love made from

corkboard, smooth and round enough

to fill holes. The hole left behind

by a daddy who left before his time or

an ex who you chose to keep

long before her expiration date.

I’m not a placeholder. I will not

become filled with holes because

you have too many.

I will not allow myself to be

punished by love because others

have been bad. My love comes

from a place that’s pure and

I won’t allow another person to

sully the waters of my love.

I will not give birth to a love that

doesn’t leave room for loving me.

It took me so many years to

fall in love with me and that’s a love

I’m not willing to sacrifice.

I will only accept love that belongs

solely to me. My soul mate. The one who

knows from the day he meets me

that he never wants to live another day

without me. Not because I’m pretty or

cute because sometimes I’m not.

But the one who can say

“I’ve spent my entire life searching

for you and I’m never going to let you go.”

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

 

Fuck You

I want to offer commentary, but then again I don’t. So I won’t. Today’s poem:

How could you not miss

the simple act of love’s kiss?

He didn’t stop to kiss you

Did you not feel cheated

when he shot from the car

like a bullet from a gun?

I guess being fucked must be fun

because he fucked you tonight

and ran from the scene of the crime

like a thief in the night.

Out of sight

Out of mind.

But his semen was swimming

in you even though he won’t dare

be seen in public with you.

You spread your legs open wide

gave the most precious part of you

to someone who doesn’t love you

probably doesn’t even like you.

A convenient relief and

temporary escape from the knife blade

edge of insanity, the place where he

built a life with a woman he doesn’t love

but wants to share a life with.

and he’s too afraid of rebuilding so he

sneaks off for the most casual of sex.

You do know he doesn’t really want you?

If he did he would choose you. A man

never refuses to hold in the palm of his hands

the love that he’s searched a lifetime for.

Once he shut your car door, he never looked

back. He never looked back and that’s when

I knew? When did you know? Do you? Know?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

If

Yay! It’s a writing day for me:

If

she tells you she loves you

then asks you to peel away

layers of your skin to let her

in— that’s not love,

that’s insecurity.

If

he tells you he loves you

then asks you to swallow

yourself and children whole

without chewing, that’s not

love. It’s hunger, the kind of

hunger that ravages the body.

Don’t settle for love that

destroys you in order to re-make

you. That’s not love. Love is

not an army. And I’m not

a soldier.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

 

 

 

I Died Last Night

I died last night

but not in the way

you might think.

Last night the part of me

that had given up on love

because no matter how pretty

love is, it hurts – well,

that part of me died.

Time of death: 7:20 p.m.

I died. I surrendered freely

the old me and accepted

the new me, the one who

could see that not all love

hurts. And all it took was

one look from you. One look

from you and my soul sighed.

“You came, at last.” And one look

at you and I knew your soul

sighed too. Isn’t it funny how souls

recognize what bodies and minds

almost never do?

I saw my future when I looked

at you. Even if it was only a dream

I smiled knowing that at 42

I’d finally found the one

created, not just by birth but

experiences too, created for me.

This I knew after one conversation

with you. I hesitated; do you

remember my hesitation?

I need you to know

it wasn’t because I was afraid

to love you. How could I fear

rising and falling and growing in love

with my soul mate, the one who

knew me even before my own mother?

That would be silly and, no,

I’m not silly nor am I foolish.

I just looked in the mirror of my soul

and saw a reflection of you.

And that’s when I died.

Those five minutes from 7:20 to 7:25

I stopped breathing for myself

so I could breathe in you.

You were familiar, a peculiar remembrance

and it was so easy to die for you.

Seven minutes. That’s how long it

would’ve taken for me to die completely

but I already knew I was safe

with you. When I awakened from death

the memories of loving all the wrong people

had been erased from my memory and

the only love I knew was my love for you.

Cupid didn’t have a hand in this love at all.

He’s just a trickster, Cupid, who likes to

make people think they’ve found love when

they’ve only found lust or a clever substitution

for love. That last dude Cupid sent me

was a joker who liked to dress up

as a gentleman but eventually his mask

fell away. And that’s when I decided to wait

for you. The one my soul already knew.

And I’m glad I did because

when I met you, I died in love for you.

But I didn’t die alone. And together

we resurrected one another.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Life’s a Masquerade

Life’s a masquerade.

And you don’t know who

your dancing partner is

until they finally remove

their mask. We walk

around in a dream state

pretending not to see

the masks. Sometimes

the mask will slip and

that’s when we turn away.

No one ever really wants to see

who’s hiding beneath

the mask

because then they

might have to remove

their own mask.

Life’s a masquerade.

We’ve all become masters

of disguise and it’ll always be that way

until we figure out

that all lives are poetry

and why would you hide

poetry behind a mask?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Photo credit: Still image from youtube.com from Phantom of Opera, 2004

Haunted

The places I’ve been

all hold memories of

me. They won’t forget

even if you do.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Photo courtesy of getty images

Story in Your Eyes

“Dear one, it’s not love that hurts you. It’s loving the wrong ones. But even that hurt will help to shape you. Just don’t let it make you bitter. Keep your heart open so you can receive the love of the right one.”

So, I’m working on a story where my protagonist is a blues singer in a juke joint. She was hurt really bad by her live-in boyfriend and she is trying to find herself again. So, I’m working on a song, one that will show her inner change. Doing lots of scribbling and researching to get just the write lines. Never wrote a blues song before, lol, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.

This is just one of the things I’ve come up with so far:

You always told me you could

tell my life story back to me

because you could read it just by

looking in my eyes. There were chapters

you never read. You never saw the way

I closed my eyes and myself

every time you went away. You

failed to see how wearing the cloak of

remembering, the memory of love was never

enough to keep my soul from going cold.

After your love had kept it warm, your leaving

could only leave me feeling cold. But that’s

in the chapters you didn’t read. You said you

could read the story in my eyes but maybe

that was all a lie

like the story I saw when I looked in your eyes.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind