Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 18

Dreaming in Words

 

I dream in words. The words

of my ancestors enter me

while I sleep. The pictures I see

are composed entirely of words.

Words construct places for me,

places I’d dare not go while awake.

I dream in words while I sleep.

Words that shake up my soul.

Words will never leave me alone.

Words crawl in the bed beside me

climb up my back and straighten

my spine. The words all become mine

because I dream in words

while I sleep.

I dream in words. I dream in words.

I dream in words.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Photo courtesy of illustrationsource.com

The Break Up or What Never Really Was

He said

Just because you can

doesn’t mean you should

leave

She said

Any place that destroys me

destroys my soul, I don’t belong

He said

Sometimes it’s best to stay

Sometimes you have to hold on

a little longer

She said

Hope doesn’t heal a soul

that’s been destroyed. That’s why

I never would’ve destroyed you.

Not even a little bit

He said

I never tried to hurt you and

I most certainly didn’t want to destroy

you

She said

It happened too easily

He said

I want to stay and fight

She said

I don’t want an angry love

I need a love that’s soft

He said

Love is about sacrifice

She said

My greatest act of rebellion was learning

to love myself. I will not lose myself

fighting for a love that’s too hard for me

to handle

He said

Love isn’t easy

She said

It was easy for me

It’s always been easy for me

It’s loving the wrong people

that wasn’t easy

He said

Sometimes you have to fight for love

She said

I won’t fight you to love you

I’ll fight the landlord

the grocer

the butcher

the bill collector. Outsiders.

I’ll fight outsiders

But never you.

I’d never fight you.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Dreams

“Fight gravity and fly away. Reach new horizons and expand yourself.” — Bangambiki Habyarimana, The Great Pearls of Wisdom 

Is it possible for more than one dream

to come true? I certainly hope so

because when I look at you I know

you are a dream come true. But my dreams

don’t end with you. You are only the

beginning. And I hope there will never

be an end.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

belle homme noir

The fathers hold their children

in their bellies/ they ingested them

whole. Icarus’ revenge knows no end.

You can see the lines etched

in their skin/ unfulfilled lives

exist in the grooves of their age lines.

In the war some soldiers edged close

to the enemy lines/ burrowed beneath the ground.

This is no different. The manchild is the enemy.

Do they really swallow them

you ask. How could you not know? Bloated

bodies fill the streets. Some live in alleys.

Tomorrow glistens in their eyes

But nothing can stop the movement/ the children

try to escape but they have been sentenced to eternity.

These full grown children rebel

unlike fetuses. The pain

sometimes too much to bear.

belle homme noir. A father once walked right into

the middle of our village. He took a razor

and opened his womb, removed his children

and left them on the village floor. The father died

but not before completely losing his mind.

He never saw the insects gnawing at his black

children’s skin, never knew he released them

too soon.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

When Did You Know I Loved You?

When did you first know

I loved you?

Was it when I first raked

my fingers through your soul?

Was it when I first looked

in your eyes and described the

formation of the stars?

Was it when I first kissed

you and tried to drink you in?

Was it when I first read you

poetry, shared the flowers that grow

in my pen?

Was it when I first loved you

fully? Took all of you in?

When did you first know

I loved you?

Was it when we danced together,

neither one of us wanted it to end?

Was it when I held your words

in the palm of my hand and held them

like they were more precious than gems?

When did you first know

I loved you?

Was it the day I looked at you

and lost my words, wondered how

I could tell you without telling you

that I loved you. Simply loved you.

Because that’s when I first knew

I loved you. And I knew this love

would never know an end.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

He Took a Knife & Cut Her

She doesn’t have a name yet, but I can see her face. She thought loving was enough, but he wanted to fight. That’s all I know so far.

I’ve been jotting down notes this evening, trying to flesh out an idea for a story. In the process, I came up with the following poem:

He took a knife

& tried to destroy

her beauty. He thought

he’d stolen her

reason to live.

What he destroyed

was only flesh deep

he never even touched

her soul. She would

sit before a mirror

for hours, for days

running her fingers

along jagged scars.

Searching for way to

reconstruct the only

beauty he ever knew

to exist for her.

The salt from her

tears would fill

the shallow graves

of her scars.

Her days were

spent wondering

how loving could

go so terribly wrong.

All she did was love

because

she never learned how

to fight. So when he’d

fight her, she’d love him.

But her love

never spent time

shadowboxing or

practicing in a ring.

Her love was the softest

thing she owned.

When he got tired of

fighting alone, he knew

for sure he was losing her

so he took a knife

& cut her. Left her

for dead. He’d

rather see her dead

& broken

than have to look

in the mirror

every day & know

he’d lost her.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Moving Beyond the Fear

I woke up this morning to an email that confirmed for me that I’m headed in the right direction. Since this school year started, I have been suffering from soul discontent. It’s caused by the knowledge that I’m not where I’m supposed to be. And haven’t been for a while. But as happens with most people, the fear of the unknown has kept me here longer than I should have been.

So, I read the email (twice) and tears welled in my eyes. Okay, who am I trying to fool? Yes, I cried.

Over the past few weeks, I have gone through a series of conversations with trusted people in my life. I was trying to figure out how to get unstuck. I don’t have a sprit of settling and it’s not one I want to embrace. But it can be difficult to leave the place where you feel you don’t belong when it’s the only source of financial income that you have. What I decided was, while I wasn’t in a position to leave yet, I could stop giving it my ALL. I had days where I literally spent every waking moment planning, teaching, grading papers, etc. But I had to realize that there was no way for me to be able to live my passion when I give every ounce of my strength to the thing that was starting to destroy me from the inside. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching. And theoretically, I could do it for many more years. But I believe I have served the purpose I came to serve. I used to look forward to going to work, used to look forward to the end of breaks so I could see my students again. But, I realized early this school year that it was time for me to move on. I said, when the heart is no longer there, it won’t be much longer before the body follows. I meant that.

So, back to the email. It’s another thing that’s going to allow me to live my passion. I can’t share the details yet, but as soon as I’m able, I will. Actually, I have a few things lined up this year. So far. And I can’t wait to share it with you.

So, what’s the purpose of this post if I can’t tell you yet, you may be wondering. This space serves several purposes for me. It’s a place to share my works in progress. It’s a place to have conversation with other artists. It’s a place to communicate. It’s a place to inspire each other. Being a creative artist can be such a solitary endeavor and that’s what makes it easy to become discouraged. We all need a little inspiration to keep going. We all need to feel that what we’re doing is important. And sometimes we need that nudge to move outside of our comfort zone. As the quote goes: Life begins on the other side of your comfort zone. You are pregnant with possibility. Don’t go to your grave still full with unused talent and dreams. Don’t starve your soul. And stop accepting what destroys your soul. Material riches don’t mean a thing to me. I’m most happy when I’m writing. I feel like I have gold in my pocket when I’ve written a particularly nice line of poetry. Or prose. I feel rich when I connect with my characters and I know they trust me to tell their story. I feel like I’m rich when I’m surrounded by the work of some of my favorite authors. It feels like a communing of souls.

One of my favorite books is Ruby by Cynthia Bond. In the book, the protagonist, Ruby is a broken woman. The world has broken her and used her and she appears unhappy. But the soul is rich. She is sitll whole on the inside. She’s a loving and open spirit. So there’s this scene in the book (several scenes actually) where the spirits of dead children seek her protection. That passage speaks to me because that’s how I feel. The dead children are the souls of the stories, the souls of the characters that come to me. They trust me. They are those nudges I get in the middle of the night where I open my eyes and grab the pen and notebook I keep on my bed and I just write.

I leave you peeps with two quotes that have inspired me a lot lately: “If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.” — Seth Godin and “Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Lunch with Ricardo

I met my old friend Ricardo

in a café the other day.

I’d wandered down the street

after I’d gotten a bite to eat.

I suddenly craved tea and being

the type who refuses to deny my cravings,

I wandered into this little café.

I chose a seat way in the back

as Fate would have it

that’s where he was sitting too.

Startled, I stared openly.

I thought you had died, I told him.

He just smiled. No, he replied, you

wanted to believe I had died. There’s

a difference between the two.

Deep down inside you’ve always known

I never could really die. How can what’s

real, truly real, ever die?

Before long, I felt tears welling in my eyes.

How did you end up here, I asked.

I’ve been here all along, he assured me.

We talked for hours, Ricardo and I

He told me about the love of his life and

I told him about mine.

Ricardo told me, Most people believe

my third wife was the one I loved the most,

the one my soul longed to create life

with.

Those people are wrong. The one I loved

most belonged to another. Or rather she chose

to love another. I was poor and she desired

riches beyond the riches of heart.

Tears glistened in his eyes as he told how

he spent years trying to unlove her. You know,

he said, you don’t choose who your soul falls

in love with. And my soul chose her. My soul

loves her.

I wrote some of the saddest lines in my life as

those days stretched on like an endless night

void of stars and moonlight.

He spoke of nights where he was tortured by

hearing the voice of his one true love. She only

visited me at night while I slept. Sometimes

I slept for days at a time.

It was all I had left, just the sound of her voice

and knowing I’d never be able to hold her again

in my arms; I could only hold her in my memory.

That knowledge began a special kind of dying

even though I went on to live half a century more.

Why are you telling me this Ricardo? I cannot fix

your broken heart when my own heart has been

stitched back together so many times. My heart

is a piecemeal quilt of emotions and I’m always

afraid it’ll completely come undone at the seams.

When he fell into my arms, I must admit

I’d been expecting it. I’d always known Love

owned a piece of my soul but like Ricardo

I was prepared to live with only the voice

of my love to hold onto.

I know the truth that our soul loves who it

chooses, but sometimes the soul and body

have separate wishes, dreams and desires.

Ricardo and I spent the rest of our time in silence.

No words were needed in the presence of Love.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Let Me Study You

Can I share one of my secrets with you?

I love you. Not the air-brushed kind of love

that looks real on the canvas till the colors

start to bleed and fade. I’m talking about the

“Come here for a minute so I can study you” love.

I want to know you all the way through.

I want to skinny dip in your soul.

I can’t swim on my own, but I trust you to hold me

and keep me from drowning. I want to

study the breaths you take so I can breathe for you.

Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not obsessed with you,

I’m in love with you. And if ever Fate determines

it’s time for you to go, I will breathe for you.

Our love will keep you alive so I never have to

live another day without you. It seems it took forever

for me to find you, so no, I won’t just cater to you

I will love you. And this is not a love

I can take off and give it back to you like I almost

gave you back your hoodie, you know the one you

gave me when I told you I was cold without you.

The one I’ve worn all winter because when it’s on

my body, I feel safe and secure like falling in love with you

all over again. Even after all this time I swear

I can smell you in the fabric of the hoodie, the one

I won’t be returning to you like I won’t be

shedding this love for you. Return to sender

doesn’t apply to me and you. I’m going to hold onto

this love I feel for you, wearing it like I

wear your hoodie. Thank you.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

The Voices

I like to add a thought-provoking quote to some of my posts and today I have written my own: “Be careful of the voices that try to help you create yourself. Not everyone has listened to the beating of your heart to learn what will make it sing. And some people are only interested in getting you to help their heart sing. Don’t make yourself heartsick in order to create someone else’s dream.”

She heard voices in

the forest of her mind.

The density of her memories

eclipsed the true meaning of

their words. Her own screams

joined the chorus of disordered words,

became a motley crew of sounds.

Before long they rained confusion

in her mind and the screaming

never ended.

Now, I’ll end the post with a quote many of us may have heard before. My mama used to tell me this all the time. “An opinion is like an asshole; everyone has one.” So, with thos wise words from mama, I say: Listen to your heart. I try to follow my own heart every day. The only voice I try to follow is my own. And my heart tells me I must write. So, every day I have to write. It makes my heart happy.

Happy Thursday peeps!

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Photo courtesy of smithosonianmag.com