Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 28

Chaos of Goodbye

Sometimes when I just can’t seem to find the time to write, I will pull out something I’ve jotted down before and see if I can turn it into something. I found some lines from early June that I’d written in my journal and this is what I came up with:

The expected chaos of good-bye

sometimes eclipses the truth.

My body is filled with you, for days,

while my days are spent unpacking

the heartache loving you has caused me.

Like my mother and her mother before

and every other woman before them

I carry a song of longing in my heart,

one that you labeled as strong

showing that you didn’t care all along.

I was just a careless note, something

to fill the empty spaces, improvisation

making it up as you go along, knowing

the song wouldn’t last very long.

I’m just one of those strong black women

who carries the bones of soulless love

like a dog looking for a place to bury the hurt.

Grandma told me that love is a choice

and the transparent truth is that

you don’t choose me, choosing instead

to devour my love like shabby leftovers

before pulling away from the table.

Yet, I choose to sit here day after day

mending my own broken heart, just

to allow you to break it again.

You keep breaking my heart,

cracking it like the pecans granny used to

eat after a long day’s work. Mindless clatter

of shells spilling to the floor

covering the noise of my tears, falling.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Mystery Shoes

I collect images like rocks, shiny little rocks that I may pick up along the way. Some of the images keep me up at night, won’t allow me to sleep; other images haunt me daily and I’m unable to shake. Unknowingly, I collected some pretty rocks yesterday.

I was driving down the street, headed home when I passed an SUV. The woman driver had jumped out and she was standing in the middle of the street shrieking. There was a man too, but I didn’t see him at first. I drove past but something within told me to turn back around and go see if I could help her. When I turned around I saw why she was shrieking. Her windshield was fractured. A man was draped across the top of her truck, his blood pouring down the side of her car. And the man, the one I hadn’t seen at first, had climbed on top of the truck and was yelling the name of the man draped across the top. After being assured that an ambulance was being called, I left. I kept going, knowing there was nothing I could do but join the swell of onlookers who were drawn there by the gory scene. As I was pulling away, I saw a pair of white tennis shoes near the sidewalk. I was sure these were the shoes the man had been wearing before…just before.

Those images I collected remained with me all throughout the evening. One kept me from being able to fall asleep and one greeted me as I woke up this morning. And one of the two will never ever leave me. It’s just one of those things they don’t tell us –like what it really looks like to witness someone you love die – those things you have to discover on your own. I won’t try and rid myself of the images because they remind me of the fragility of life and how important it is to live life fully and lovingly.

Mystery Shoes

The shoes in the road

were not enough

to tell you

who he was or

where he’d been or

even where he was going.

They were simply shoes,

not enough to make you

notice him

and perhaps that’s why

you looked away.

Didn’t see him till it was

too late.

And by then his shoes

were empty.

In the one second

it took

to look away

you were

gone.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Amusement Park Visit

I once visited a hastily thrown together

amusement park. Now I pass them by,

knowing there’s nothing there for me.

I have no use for death-defying rides

designed to scare the fuck out of me

in the middle of a sea of empty parking

spaces. I have visited one of those drive-thru

type of scenes but I’ve never visited a

hastily put together type of love. I know

the rides at one of those things, the ones

set up in parking lots will only make me

sick. One ride for sure took me way up high

before suddenly dropping me down low.

Like it briefly saw value in me

but just as quickly changed its mind.

Instead of telling me, it took me on a ride

whose sole purpose was to entertain me

while making me feel like shit.

I’ve never wanted the schizophrenic

type of feeling that comes with that type of love—

the one that makes me happy only some of the time

and leaves me feeling empty most of the time.

Like the empty feeling that comes over me

when I’m suddenly carried way up high and

just as quickly I’m being dropped down low

on a ride that is surely here today – it’s

not a mirage—but may not be around tomorrow.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Photo courtesy of Fox News

He Said, She Said Revisted

He Said, She Said Revisited

She said, I hid my sadness

in a façade of strength.

He said, I admire your strength.

She said, I feel like I’m losing me,

trying to hold on to you.

He said, I see you. And, one day…

one day.

She said, I feel like I’m losing you

like I lose parts of you every day.

He said, You’ll always have me.

She said, My tears are nearly

drowning me. I can’t swim.

He said, I know you’ll learn.

One day.

She said, Will you tell me that

you love me?

He said, Silly girl. Don’t I show you

every day that I couldn’t possibly

love you like I already love me?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Young, Black, Gifted, & Dead

Young, Black, Gifted & Dead

Life is a Greek tragedy

when you’re black like me.

The menacing quality of

the color of my skin

was birthed while my mother

was still covering me. A

murderous plot to overthrow me

was hatched with the planting

of my father’s seeds. An enemy

always at my back, hunting me.

Death himself stalking me,

haunting me like we’re bitter rivals

fighting for an earthly kingdom.

He developed a taste for the blood

coarsing through me, his final defeat

collecting my lifeless body. After

someone who looks just like me,

black soul, brown body

snatches my life from me.

You thought my mother loved me

till she left a trail, to get to me,

for that damn enemy: Death.

Or some street pharmacist or

crooked ass physician leaves me

with a bullet inside my head while the chorus

sings the tired ass melody,

at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Like somehow his life is worth more than mine

because his so-called struggle includes selling dime

bags and cooked meth to young black men

who look just like my daddy &

very well could be their own. And mothers

who’ve been struggling to breathe

since the day they were born. And they’re

still struggling to be free & trying to

fulfill a need that no street drug could

ever fix. It’s just a fix that’s temporary

& nothing that’s temporary can last.

Seems like I’m trapped

in some warped ass, lame ass cartoon

where I feel like Tom keeps chasing me

except he’s wearing a cop’s costume,

a dirty ass cop trying to eradicate me &

all who look like me. That’s the race you run

when you’re black like me. I have to close

my eyes, like blind justice, to try and be

invisible to the dirty ass cop who wants to

put twelve bullets in me. He’s supposed to be

protecting his beat—the heartbeat of a system

designed to commit mental & emotional murder

of me. He couldn’t believe the real Enemy

of the State was him, not me.

I only wanted to release my seatbelt

so I could finally breathe. I’d been

holding my breath since the red, white, & blue

lights of death began to follow me.

An involuntary memory keeps me from being

able to remain free. That’s how you control me.

The color of my skin has trapped me.

Made me a victim of a reality where I

step into the role you wrote for me. The role

of a lifetime: Young, black, gifted & dead.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Cradle Me

Cradle me

within your love.

Don’t let me fall.

Let me suckle

the juices

that flow,

the sweetest nectar.

Don’t poison me.

Love me

as a mother does,

unconditionally.

Bathe me,

shower me

with adoration

that will flow

till I finally know

I am loved.

The Boxer

The Boxer

Can you spare a love?

She asked for his heart,

just as polite as you please

& she tried to ignore

the red boxing gloves

covering his brown hands.

Overlooked the way he

beat her heart without

tripping over lost love.

Just gathered up her belongings

when he left her heart

lying in the middle of the floor,

a technical knock out fo’ sho.

When she came to, she

wondered how she’d missed

his unyielding fighting stance

& TKO dance. How she never

knew loving provoked the fighter

in him. Blood didn’t frighten him,

he liked to see it run like water &

like she would when he would

chase her. It wasn’t about the way

she nearly drowned after

the fight, for him it was only

about the casual dance of two fighters

in the middle of the ring.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Love

People are so quick to say I love you. Because it feels good to say. But if it only feels good to say and doesn’t feel good to show, maybe it’s not really love. Maybe it’s something else altogether different from love. Like guilt. Or  control. Or I don’t know what. Just something else.

Today’s poem contains only five words:

Love is not a weapon.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Unremembering

Torrents of blood

wash the feet

of my ancestral tree,

trying to drown the lineage

that births me

over and over again,

creating a fountain of

debility. Roots that are crippled

by the lies you’ve told me,

lies I didn’t have the luxury

to believe

because you shoved them down

my throat. Forced me to

digest poisonous leaves of truth,

like nobody wants me

because of my cocoa brown skin

or early death is an inevitable end

because of my own inhumanity.

When you told me to shuffle along

cause there’s nothing to see here

that’s when I knew I needed to

stuff my hand down my own

throat so I could throw up

all the poison I allowed you to

feed me. I closed my eyes

& tried to visualize rain

drizzling outside my window

pane while forcefully shoving

my hand down my own throat,

making myself upchoke

the garbage that you fed me.

That doesn’t make me

insane. My sanity’s loose

enough to still fit me.

And I’m not gonna let you

drown me.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Magic

Her eyes held the lines of a poem

Words that held the story of her soul.

Her smile held the taste of sunshine.

And her words were pure love.

At the end of the day, she’d sigh &

her sigh created a melody, a song

that carried notes of weariness. Tired.

She was tired of carrying all the sadness

that had been deposited in her soul,

she knew how to turn it into music that she

could dance to, carelessly, endlessly.

And that’s how we all came to know

that she was pure magic. Because

even though she was forced to hold

the sun high in the sky and keep it

from falling, she always kept music

playing in her soul.