Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 34

Another Goodreads Giveaway

I’m giving away copies of my latest book of poetry, Blues of a Love Junkie. You can enter for a chance to win by following this link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25594311-blues-of-a-love-junkie.

Enter to win your copy. Four winners will be chosen to win a free copy of the book. Hope you win!

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Gathering Pebbles

a pebble dropped in a shallow

lake

produces great ripples that

go on and on

but

drop that same pebble in a deep ocean

and

it’ll seem nothing was felt;

that’s how it was loving him.

instead of gathering pebbles

to try and affect

his love for me,

I decided to gather broken pieces

of me

and

to go and spend time making the pieces

whole again.

I just want to love again.

I want to touch and be touched,

without having to flinch.

I want to be kissed again.

No matter how he destroyed me,

I still long to feel love.

I long to be free from the pain

he caused.

I want to gather pebbles, not

throw them away.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Bob Marley & Me

“You say you love rain, but you use an umbrella to walk under it. You say you love sun, but you seek shade when it is shining. You say you love wind, but when it comes you close your window. So that’s why I’m scared when you say you love me.” – Bob Marley

I’m lost,

wandering

on a sea

of forgetfulness,

the one

who

once loved me

now my enemy.

I remember how

he

said he used 2 pray

for me,

asked God 2 send me

then turned his back

on me.

He’s the type of

man

who prays 4 rain

but looks 4 sunshine.

He’s the type of

man

who wants

the one

he can live with

not

the one he

can’t live

without.

He’s the type of

man

who

taught me

to learn 2 forget

the love

I once

thought

I needed.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Just a Corny Love Poem, For Him

Just some afternoon scribbling:

Let this love finally open your eyes.

Let the blinders finally fall from your eyes.

Let your heart hear the translation of my

heart & know what I’ve always felt for you.

Let true love in all its splendor wrap you up

in her loving arms, cover you with her presence.

Let your walls finally fall, so you can accept

all that I and my love offer you.

Know that I could never love another

the way I have loved you because there’s

never been anyone like you. To come into

my life unexpectantly, like a rainbow

after the storm. You erased all the memories

of life before you and renewed

my faith in love. Plant my seed of faith in you

and together we can watch this love bloom.

I miss loving you and I miss sharing my life

with you.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

I’ll Choose My Poison & You Choose Yours

When I should have been sleeping last night, I was up writing. I knew I needed to get up this morning and go to work, but I kept thinking about the piece of advice I read last week about following your passion, creating your art. The guy (the creator of Mad Men) said, get a day job, but don’t get too good at the day job because if you do, it’ll take away from your passion. So, while I should’ve been sleeping, I was writing. And reading. And brainstorming. And editing pieces. At the end of my hours-long process, I didn’t have anything concrete to hold up and say “I finished it.” But I did have a few more paragraphs added to the story I’m currently working on, I ended up with three pages of scribbles for future poems and stories, and I ended up reading a few more pages of Inferno.

Here’s one of the poems I started working on. It’s a collaboration of sorts with my best friend, the Mysterious Poet Dude ;-)

There are too many times when we

choose to run from our own distant

memories, to spend time chasing

other people’s dreams. In the space

of running other people’s marathons

we ignore our own realities.

The reality that we’re dying inside

a little each day as we try to find

a way to grasp hold to the poison

that was designed to kill us inside.

We take the poison willingly

believing we’re fulfilling the limited

vision of Romeo & Juliette.

Romeo drowned in poisonous dreams

believing he’d be free in death

to love whomever he pleased.

He didn’t know that even in death

someone will try to dictate

the kind of love you should choose

to drown in. You try to tell me

that what I feel for him isn’t real

not realizing I already know

it’s up to me to choose the poison

I will allow to kill me

for love.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

The Love Thief

Today’s poem is part of my exploration of masks. Like the poems before, it has to do with not being able to believe what you see. Not all who wear masks do so to be duplicitous, sometimes it’s just a matter of trying satisfy one’s goal. Whatever that goal may happen to be. Still, the wearing of masks makes it difficult, sometimes, to know exactly what you’re dealing with until it’s too late and the damage has been done. The thing to remember is that in every difficult situation, there is a lesson to be learned. It’s important to learn the lesson and move on.

He stole my love, took

it in broad daylight, knowing

I’d give in to loving him

without putting up much of a

fight. Loving is supposed to be

easy. I had no way of knowing

he would only love me undercover

and under the covers, always

remaining out of sight but

not out of mind. I craved loving

him and fell into it easily.

He only wanted to peddle his

wares a wholesale love affair,

some faux love that wouldn’t

look real to one trained in

recognizing love that’s unreal.

He did all his dealing – love is

kind of like a drug, isn’t it – like

any other thief. Quick in, quick out

smash and grab, then stay out

of sight. He chose to hoard all of

my love and kept his locked away

behind arm length excuses no warm

smile could penetrate. He was like

a squirrel storing love for Spring.

Squirrels never know they might be

dead by Spring. And by Spring,

my love for him would be dead too.

Killed by a thief who evolved

into a murderer.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Beneath the Mask, Cont’d

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The idea of masks intrigues me this week. Everything I’ve worked on has had something to do with the wearing of masks. It started out as an observation that so many people don’t know who they truly are, people whose identity have been dictated by someone else either through stereotypes or just plain ignorance. And so they of the lost identities struggle with trying to know who they are.

Today’s poem focuses on people who don masks in order to appear strong when they feel anything but.

I’m aching to know

who I truly am,

the me beneath the

layering, a façade to

hide the years of pain

built up like walls

to keep me from being

free, a disguise to hide

the pain that formed me.

The me who smiles to

cover up the tears

in my eyes, the ones

leaking from my soul.

I’ve spent so many years

covering me &

protecting me

I have no idea how it feels

to be free

to love without

being a casualty

of the crashing of souls.

I’ve stood free & unchained

in heartache, but never

free in being awake

within me.

All this time crafting

a protective covering —

hearing no when you

claimed yes, expecting the

worst when promised the best,

seeing holes in promises

deep enough to hold

buckets of water,

along with my tears.

I lived in anticipation

of experiencing my fears

& now

I have no idea

who I truly am

outside of all the well-meaning

disguises,

donned to protect me

from the lies.

Do you know what it’s like

to walk in darkness, pretending

to see light. I’m tired

of pretending that your promises

don’t cut me

that your inconsistent actions

haven’t bruised me.

If you look beyond the mask

covering me

you’ll see a well of tears

you’ll see confusion &

you’ll see fear. Though

I’ll tell you it’s just love

that’s afraid to mushroom

and be free, my love for you

began to wither

the first time you caused me

to shed tears

when I knew my fears

were being realized,

the first time I knew

I couldn’t find security

in the crook of your words

as they embraced me, the

first time I mistook the slaying

of my love for a gentle embrace

misplaced. I’m carrying all this

emptiness around, pretending

it doesn’t bother me,

when I’m weighed down,

trying to carry this broken me,

the one you pretend to love.

When all I want to do is

take off the mask

finally

and know that

within the dark emptiness,

I’ll truly be safe

and

you’ll no longer be

able to hurt me.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

*Photo courtesy of wikipedia.org

Hump Day Inspiration

If you haven’t yet, please check out my author page on Amazon. You’ll be able to view my latest book, Blues of a Love Junkie, and my two previous books: Tattered Butterfly Wings and Skinny Dipping in the Pool of Womanhood.  And always, always, I welcome your comments.

Keep writing…or creating because as John Green (The Fault in Our Stars) is attributed with saying, “If you don’t imagine, nothing ever happens at all.”

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

What You Can’t See or Beneath My Mask

An excerpt from a poem I’m currently working on:

I wear a mask, one

that grins and lies,

one that disguises the

hatred glistening in my

eyes. The mask of the

jester in me helps to hide

what I truly feel, so I

can keep all my anger

bottled inside, until I’m

ready to release,

flip off the valve

and let it all dribble out.

It’s not until I reach up

to place the mask upon

the shelf, that all those

around me can see the face

of a street slave, a home-grown

enemy. In the past week

alone

like a fool, I’ve created enmity

by taking the life of a newborn

infant, a baby sleeping

in mother-love’s embrace,

with blood covering her face.

I stole the life of a little girl,

so unafraid of the world, she

used to race up and down

the hill, sometimes

wearing her mother’s

too-big shoes, always dreaming

of the day when she’ll

be able to fit mama’s shoes.

But in an instant

I took it all away.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Life Will Never Be the Same

My daughter worries about me. She worries when I write and drive. Like yesterday when I was driving her to work. Well, when I’m driving, I’m not just driving. I’m thinking. A lot. One of my weird writing things is that I come up with some of my best ideas when I’m driving, when I’m mowing the lawn, when I’m jogging, and when I’m doing anything…other than writing.

The best way to deal with writer’s block, for me, is to get busy doing something. Anything. And while I’m doing that other thing, I usually come up with something. So, yesterday, while I was driving, I started thinking about this line that had come to me a few days ago. Life will never be the same…I knew I wanted to do something with that line, but I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go in.

Then, it started to come to me while I was driving. Since my daughter worries, I pulled over and let her drive. That way, I reasoned, I could write without having to balance my notebook on the steering wheel. I’m a responsible driver, right? Only once I got on the passenger side, there was nothing there. My ideas dried up like the rain when the sun comes out.

This is what I have so far, though:

Life can never be the same,

not since the day I heard you

say my name, the way you

held the letters of my name

on your tongue like they were

ice cubes you chose to hold

in your mouth, instead of to bite.

Life can never be the same,

not after you held my hand

like the string of a kite

you refused to release, afraid

of where it might end up.

Life can never be the same,

since hearing my name fall

from your lips; it transformed me,

made me believe

that the collision of souls

can lead to the building of

something real. That somehow

dreams can come true.

I witnessed the unfurling

of our souls, though hesitation

tried to intervene as we witnessed

the melding together of two souls

that had always been searching for

each other, and I knew as love

braided our souls together

that

life could never be the

same.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind