Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 21
December 28, 2015
We Don’t Own Our Black Bodies
We don’t own our
black bodies.
We’re walking ghosts,
memories of our ancestors.
We’re tears that cannot
and will not be shed.
We’re hungry souls
that will not be fed.
We’re dead bodies left out
in the street.
It was once a tree.
We’re monsters terrifying
in the midst of a Dream.
We’re not safe
from the Dream.
It haunts us and murders us
sometimes from within.
We’re not safe in our
communities. We’re not
safe anywhere
our black bodies
happen to be.
The Dream won’t let us
be free.
We don’t own our
black bodies.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind
*When no one can be held accountable for the murder of a 12-year-old boy, who happens to be black, my heart bleeds. I don’t pretend to have the answers but I will acknowledge my own pain. Tears well in my eyes when I look at the face of a young child who was murdered. There’s two reasons for this: one is that I mourn another child whose life was snatched away from him before he ever had a chance to live and two, I see my own child in the face of that child. We tell our children that they must be twice as good as all others and sometimes that just is not enough.


December 27, 2015
Drown
She was content
to drown
in chaos; she chose
to give up
fighting for peace
once she understood
she didn’t even own
her body.
Everywhere she went
someone
would lay claim
to her body.
Both men and women
wanted to own her.
But they all wanted to
break her to pieces.
Some clubbed her
with lies
while others
stabbed her with
the Dream
that always lived
in her heart.
Rumors swirled
about the girl
who dreamed
about holding Love
in the palm of
her hand. She
knew it did no good
to keep fighting
so she stopped
trying to swim
upstream and
just allowed herself
to drown
in chaos. It was
easier that way,
she decided.
And no one
tried to talk her
out of it.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind
Photo courtesy of : sleepgaze on tumblr.com.


Beautiful Beginnings
“He knew he would fuck her the moment he saw her.”
“” Call the police if you want. They can’t unrape you.” Kyle dropped the card on the bed. He carefully swept the room with his gaze, checking to make sure that he wasn’t leaving anything behind other than his calling card.”
“Sometimes a person’s aura is so strong, a connection so pure, it’s enough to make a person want to drown in them. They’re the one. You just know it.”
Any writer worth his or her salt knows that it is his or her job to hook the reader on the first page. With the first words, the first lines. So, in the beginning, it’s my job to grab the reader at the collar and say “Come go with me.” At some point during the journey, though, I want to be able to release the reader and have him reach for my hand and say, “Yes. Let’s go.”
Because the beautiful beginning must lead somewhere, it’s up to me, as the writer, to ask myself some questions. What is the goal? What do I want the reader to feel or know? Where do I plan to take the reader? How do I want him to feel when he finally arrives at the destination? So, as I was working through the beginning of the story I’m working on (various beginnings were offered above), I started to think more about the purpose of a beautiful beginning. When I asked myself these questions and answered them, I was finally able to craft the beginning of my story. But that wasn’t the end of my work.
Now came the hard part, creating the terrain, the meat of the story, that would allow my reader to feel that he or she hadn’t been tricked. I don’t want my reader, while reading my story, to drop my hand and turn and look at me and say, “That’s not what you promised. And if they end up feeling tricked, I have to make the end result so much better than expected that the reader feels terribly happy that he or she trusted me and took the ride with me.
I have to follow through on what I promised the reader in those first lines of my story. Because beautiful beginnings are soon forgotten if the beautiful beginning doesn’t lead to an experience that’s unforgettable and almost as beautiful as the beginning. Every writer must learn that in addition to crafting an unforgettable beginning, we have to maintain the momentum as we unfold the rest of the story. If we don’t, we risk losing our captive audience. And, once lost, we may never get their attention again. So, the goal is not to lose them in the first place.
I’d said before that one of my new rituals when I’m writing is to write the words “Be present” on the top of this page. This, thanks to author James Patterson, is a reminder to myself to be present in every moment of every scene of my stories that I’m writing. It’s a reminder to keep my writing from becoming simply a physical act without any real emotion or connection. If I want my stories to make the reader cry, they first have to make me cry. So, yes, I continually remind myself to be present when I’m writing. I owe it to myself as a writer, to my readers and to my characters. They trust me to tell their stories as fully and truthfully as possible and I can’t accomplish that if my mind is somewhere else when I’m telling their stories. Another ritual I began with this story, She’ll Never Tell, the title story for the book of short stories I’m currently working on, is to write the words “Reveal slowly.” I do this to remind myself to slow down and not rush to get everything out on the page at once. I want to have something to offer my reader beyond a beautiful beginning because that’s the point, right? Who wants to experience just a bunch of beautiful beginnings that lead nowhere? We’re all trying to get somewhere when we begin a story and the writer has the obligation to uphold the promise that is inherent in the beautiful beginning.
Here’s to many beautiful beginnings that take you to new and exciting places. And not just when you’re reading. Seems that a beautiful beginning is a good thing, not just when reading a story. And, now during this last week of 2015, seems like a good time to look forward to beautiful beginnings.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind


December 26, 2015
Words Not Spoken
I watched you this morning when you
went in the bathroom after we’d had sex.
I’ve seen you stand before that mirror
so many times before, but it was obvious
that this morning you were seeing something more
than what you’d ever seen before.
I saw how your shoulders drooped
and that’s when I knew that you realized it too
that all love is not absolute
and promises most assuredly can and will
be broken. These were words that wouldn’t
be spoken, but I saw them there written all over
your body. In the way you walked, the way you talked,
the way you held me tight
as if though this would be the last time.
Your body communicates a message
I cannot misinterpret
In that moment I know
we have been speaking for years
yet not really saying anything.
The chaotic noise of words spoken
something to fill the void,
the one that inevitably develops
over time when incompatible souls
try to forge a bond.
You cannot extract meaning from words
without knowing intention and
if deception led me to believe
that our friendship held a value
greater than things purchased with money
then it was because I was ignorant to intention.
I never knew I could be so easily deceived
into believing
that “twin souls” is more than propaganda
to inflate expectations and that
the Love that was sitting on the side
of my bed
was just a mere illusion
an excuse to
make a home away from home,
a place where I could be with you.
Suddenly you were carrying the
weight of truth
on your shoulders and truth unveiled
is hard to carry when you’re used to
carrying the honeysweet feather weight of
lies and deceptions.
Some words are spoken because of how easy
you carry them.
I love you is much easier to shoulder than
I don’t think I’ve ever loved you
so you keep carrying around expired love
until you can’t carry it anymore.
No truthful words filled the void
that was ripped open between us.
I wish you had been able to tell me the truth.
Why did it have to be revealed by me
noticing how you carried things differently?
How long have you been
shifting and groaning under the weight of
expired love because you were afraid to admit that you
no longer felt the same?
I can go back to the day I thought I knew
that you were preparing to walk away
that you were ready to become
a ghost memory of a Love that
never really existed
or a Love that was strangled
by veiled intentions.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind


December 23, 2015
Barbie and Ken
She wanted a knight
in shining armor.
He saw the longing
in her eyes, knew she wanted
to be saved. But
he wasn’t in the damsel-saving
business.
He was looking for Barbie
not a Queen
so he bought her things
like a Dream Car and Dream House
sitting atop a hill far away
from those who loved her.
Left her feeling like
a poor miller’s daughter
who might be able to
spin straw into gold.
But life is not a fairy tale.
Still
he filled her Dream House
with lots of Dream things
like red bottoms, rings, and
other expensive things.
Never a crown though
because she could never be
his Queen.
He bought her lots of
plastic toys, showed her
plastic Barbie love and
the shiny new things
convinced her
that his love was real
but not even the rings
he bought her
could withstand the heat
of her needing.
She was Barbie
and he was Ken
and he spent a lifetime
buying things to fill up
their Barbie Dream House
but it was never a home
because plastic love ain’t love
it’s merely a distraction
a trick of the eye, heart, and soul
to make you believe
all that glitters is gold or
that a house is always a home.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind


December 22, 2015
Pas Peur
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” – Anatole France
Change terrifies the best of us. We get so comfortable with things the way they are that we fight change—even when the change promises to be positive for us – with all that we have.
I’m the type of person who, once I begin something, I like to see it through to the end before I begin something else. This is how I scratch things off my to-do list. I attack one item at a time, until all items or projects have been completed. I don’t like my concentration to be divided among tasks. Even though I am able to read several books simulatneously, I’ve fought adapting this in my writing life. It has worked for me for years, so I’ve adamantly resisted change. Until recently.
I’m currently working on a short story, She’ll Never Tell, that will be included in a short story anthology slated to be released next year and I was about four pages in when I hit a creative wall. And, for days, I just sat there staring at that wall. As is my habit, I fought starting over even though the idea had floated into my mind a time or two. No, I stubbornly resisted. This old way has always worked for me.
Except it wasn’t working this time. At the point where I was, I just couldn’t come up with one single word to write. I knew, in my mind, what I wanted to have happen and why the scene was important, but I couldn’t move beyond thoughts. I had and have this picture in my mind of the scene unfolding, but I couldn’t write it down on paper.
After a few days of non-movement, I decided that I had to do something or this story would never get written (re-written really). So, I went and printed off the four pages I did have already and I started over with those pages. And, you know what, there was movement. I felt newly inspired. There was new fire to get the project moving along. No, it’s not how I normally do things. But the way I normally do things wasn’t working this time, so I had to change. And I’m glad I did.
I was afraid to start over because I feared I would become stuck in the cycle of re-writing my beginning until I completely lost sight of the middle. But that didn’t happen. I was able to get past the beginning, move through the middle and saw my way to the end.
Some people, maybe most people, resist change. They become so comfortable to what they’re used to that fear of change keeps them from venturing into new territory. I’m learning to welcome change. No matter what change it is, I want to welcome it. In the new year, I hope I’m met with lots of change; it’ll mean I’m becoming unhinged from the old and welcoming the new.
Here’s to a year of changes!
Peace & Love,
Rosalind


December 18, 2015
Love on Life Support
I was walking around
the other day,
making my rounds
when I checked in on Love
and discovered Love was dying.
I quickly placed Love on
life support,
tried to resuscitate Love.
But I went ahead and
started saying good-bye.
Artificial life, I knew,
could never truly sustain Love
for very long.
It’s just a matter of time
before Love is gone
for good. And I, at least,
wanted to say one final good-bye
so Love would know
I valued his presence in my life
and though he was leaving
and the good-bye was final
Love’s passing wouldn’t be
tainted with swollen words
unspoken and the cancer of
regrets.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind


December 17, 2015
Breaking All the Rules
What’s the absolute worst thing that could happen while you’re halfway through a James Patterson novel? Right. Misplacing it. One of the books I’m currently reading is Four Blind Mice by James Patterson and yesterday I realized I didn’t know where I’m left it. I knew I’d been reading it while I was lying in the bed, but I didn’t see it anywhere around my bed. I knew I’d had it in my purse when I was at work, so I told myself that maybe I took it out and left it in my classroom. I suffered withdrawals all evening, wanting to finish that book. But I picked up Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison to hold me over until I could get back to Patterson’s book.
When I got to work, the book wasn’t there. Now what, I wondered. Right. I went to the bookstore after work and bought another copy of the book. You might be wondering what does this have to do with breaking rules, Rosalind. I’ll tell you.
When I bought the new copy of the book, I was going through the pages trying to find where I’d left off. As I was re-reading some of the chapters, I realized I was jumping around in characters’ heads. At one point, I was reading first person point of view in Alex Cross’ head and then I was reading third person limited in a seemingly insignificant character’s head and then I was back to first person point of view inside John Sampson’s (Alex Cross’ friend and partner) head. I hadn’t noticed it before because I was so caught up in the story. Patterson is one of those writers who tells a story and it catches you up from page one and you just don’t want to put the book down until you’ve finished the story. Reading it this way, I realized Patterson was definitely breaking a rule. My mind flashed back to one of the video “lectures” from James Patterson’s MasterClass where he mentioned that sometimes he jumps around like that.
Now, I’ve been telling (and I’m sure other writing teachers have as well) my students to choose a point of view and stick with it. We tell them to choose the one that will help them tell the best story. When I was workshopped not long ago, one of the critiques was that I’d shifted point of view. I, of course, fixed it in the revisions. But who’s going to tell Patterson that he’s doing it wrong? No one. It works. For Patterson.
When I was looking for his book tonight at the bookstore, I had to scan four shelves of books (all Patterson novels) to find the one I was looking for. Breaking the rules works for him. But I’d venture to say it works because he learned the rules first and then realized that to achieve what he wanted to, he needed to break the rules. So, yes, break the rules. But learn them first. So you’ll know why you need to break them.
As I was writing this post, I recalled a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” In other words, be you, do you and don’t worry about what anybody else is doing. If it feels right for your story, it’s probably right.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind
P.S. I found the other Patterson book. It had fallen under my bed and I hadn’t stretched my arms long enough under there to reach it. Still, there’s a moral here. Despite the fact that Patterson tends to break a rule or two, the fact still remains that he tells a story so well that when you misplace a book while you’re in the middle of reading it, you will run right out and buy the book because you just can’t wait to finish it.


December 16, 2015
Footsteps in the Sand
Your words fell like
footsteps in the sand.
I followed the path
laid out by your words
only to never be seen again.
I lost my way and went
where nobody could find me.
I tried to get back to you
but the glare in my eyes
were the blurred lines
that blocked my view of you.
When I re-traced my steps,
tried to find you again
I walked back to a place
where all the grains of sand
had been smoothed over
by years of disuse. No
trace remained of your
footsteps in the sand.
And I was never able to find
my way back to you again.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind


December 13, 2015
Women Who Eat the Sky
She lay on her back at night
her head turned to the side,
always facing the wall
too tired to face forward. She
desired only to conceal the sadness
welling in her eyes. She was beyond
crying. Gazing outside of herself
was how she learned to yearn for the sky.
She wasn’t like the others who simply
wanted to be far away, praying to
feel lighter only. No. She yearned to taste
the sky. The heavier love became to
carry, nights were spent leaning her
head against the cold porcelain. She
would spend hours regurgitating the
bruised love that was burdening her soul.
She wanted wings, that part is true,
so she could fly far away one day &
on that day, she’d finally eat the sky.
Filling up her soul with patches of blue sky
was all she wanted. If it happened to be
raining on that day, she knew
she would close her eyes
as God’s tears would fill her to bloating inside.
But if the sun were up high in the sky,
she worried it would reach out to touch her
and melt her wings.
If only she could peel back layers of
herself, she’d have so much less to carry.
She was always planning, planning for the day
when she’d finally be able to take flight
and go where women like her could spend
all their days and nights feasting on the sky.
Peace & Love,
Rosalind

