Rosalind Guy's Blog, page 38

We’re All Wrong Here

Yesterday, as we teachers were preparing to leave for a long weekend, some students were straggling out of the building. It’s a phenomenon we noticed a while ago. Though these students spend all day waiting for the school day to be over, they try to spend hours in the building in the evening once the school day is over. So, it was no surprise to hear the students’ voices. What was a surprise is the profanity-laced conversation and the raised voices, the beginnings of a fight, we knew.

I stood there and watched a seemingly normal young man transform before my very eyes. All because another young man asked him to stop calling him out of his name. It’s a change that you have to see for yourself. I tried to capture that change in the poem I composed:

We���re All Wrong Here

u were wrong.

we all knew it.

we were wrong 2.

how we gathered around

u

drawn 2 the scent

of blood

we knew would be spilled,

like maggots attracted 2

garbage,

we were drawn 2 what we knew

would be a savage beating.

& why did he deserve it?

because u didn���t know his mother

had never called him bitch, never

taught him the no respect that

yours taught u. still we

stood there like leeches

sucking the life out of men

who are already three-fourths thru���

dead.

u saw it 2

that day, didn���t u?

u saw death glimmering

in his eyes & it angered u

& u slashed out, tried 2

beat the death out of him

���cuz it looks just like the

death living inside u

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

* I’m still waiting on the author proof for Blues of a Love Junkie. It should be available in the Amazon online store April 11. In the meantime, check out my other two books, Skinny Dipping in the Pool of Womanhood and Tattered Butterfly Wings.

The Math Lesson

We are now on day two of National Poetry Month. And here’s my poem for today:

The Math Lesson

Daydreams have the power to

turn into illusions or rather

schizophrenic delusions of

grandeur or persecution, all

when the dreamer realizes that

the shortest distance between

two points is a dream that

refuses to come true or

the square root of an

unfulfilled dream sandwiched between

the sum of nonexistent and infinite possibilities.

No, that can���t be right. All the dreamer

has to do is measure the distance between

the hypotenuse of the angle to

where it mirrors the perpendicular

line racing against time, trying to

chase away the sum of all your fears

while wondering if all math problems

have solutions, because it���s quite possible

the answer is zero and there is no

explanation. Math problems have

definite answers, so why is it so

difficult to figure this out? Maybe

it���s best to just give up and not

even try to figure things out because

when will you ever need to use this stuff?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

My Love Can’t Save You

Today begins National Poetry Month, and of course, I will have to take part by writing a poem a day. I hope that you will too.

Today’s poem is below:

My Love Can���t Save You

I agonized all day &

all night, trying to find the

words to say. It seems I

spent only a day trying to find

the words to explain

how much you mean to me.

But I promise it took so much longer.

I need you to know that I need you

to save yourself. For me.

You think the fact that I appeared

when you turned 15 means

I couldn���t possibly love you

like her, but I do. I love you

like the one who nursed you,

the one who cradled you

in her arms because while she

held you in her arms, I

cradled you in my thoughts &

nursed you with my prayers and

my belief in you. I knew you

before I met you because

we���re more alike than different.

But that���s not why I love you.

I���d love you even if you

did believe in fairy tales and if

you didn���t know how the ocean

hugs the shore, trying to wash

it away, fully. Or if you didn���t

know how to cover your pain

with a plastic, transparent, smile.

I love you just because. I love

the way your brown skin glistens,

reflecting beauty it���s not possible

to keep bottled within, hidden from

view. I love the way you

share words with me like the last

slice of bread split in half because

half is better than whole if whole will

remove the light from your eyes or your

smile, casting lifelong sized shadows

that will keep you away from me.

And I love the way you

placed your heart before me, knowing

I could just as easily

smash it as love it gently.

I love that you trusted me

to love you like you wanted to

love me. As you took hesitating

steps toward me, faltering steps,

like you once took for her,

you had to know I���d never

let you fall. Alone. I���ll always

be there to catch you. I���ll always

love you. Even if you choose to

sacrifice my love, leaving me empty.

So, I hope you choose not to

run away, but if you do,

being unable to choose to love me,

at least decide to choose you.

Save yourself while dancing on the

shores of life, ���cuz one day I may

have to walk away, but I promise

I���ll never choose to throw our love away.

My love can���t save you, but it can

hold you up while you decide to take

faltering steps away from me.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

**P.S. for my lovelies, my Amazon Book Giveaway is still going on. Visit the link below to sign up to win a free copy of Tattered Butterfly Wings. There are still two copies left.

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/61bc0a454339258f

The House of Lies

Yesterday, I was talking to a young lady who’d just recently finished reading my book, Tattered Butterfly Wings. She told me that she cried at the end because she really felt bad for one of the characters she’d fallen in love with while reading the book. I won’t say more because I don’t want to spoil the story for you. (Psst, there’s still time to sign up for a chance to get you a free copy of the book. The link is below.) The poem I wrote today, well started working on today could have been written by Glory. This is just the first draft, but it was something that came to me as I re-played that conversation I’d had with my reader.

My mother was the architect of

my first house of lies. I moved

in without realizing I had a choice

of not accepting the lies she spoon-fed me.

She didn���t fill my belly with sweet dreams and

pieces of ���I can be what I wanna be.��� Instead

she fed me stories of hungry men who would

skin me alive and use my bones to pick their teeth.

She told me stories of little girls who always will be

the wicked stepsister or just nobody special.

The role she chose for me was nobody special.

I ran away from her house of lies and became

the architect to my own house of lies and

recruited other eager builders who would help tear down

any possibility that I could be anything or anybody.

The new architects were builders who

specialized in building McMansion-sized houses of lies

with lots of windows for inhabitants to gaze out of

and shiny new cabinets, only the top of the line,

the luster of the shiny new home would blind me

to the pernicious intentions keeping house with me.

And I managed to get lost in all the spacious, but unlivable

rooms. It���d be years before I found myself. When I did

finally find myself, I took on a do-it-yourself project.

I will probably move one & build another house

of lies. It���s all I���ve ever known.

Just a little something I’m working on between classes. Hope you peeps enjoy it! And, don’t forget about the book giveaway I have going on. Visit https://www.amazon.com/gp/r.html?C=RNOTE2AA1ZDP&K=A2EJXBKGW36YQQ&R=DJ269O71OD1G&T=C&U=https%3A%2F%2Fgiveaway.amazon.com%2Fp%2F61bc0a454339258f%3Fref_%3Dpe_1771210_134854370&A=3O0XCA19L1FWWEHC5OJPUQWVLIUA&H=FIS5LDIARATOQQTBXANKDPZLUAWA

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

It’s Another Giveaway!!!!!!

I’m giving away copies of Tattered Butterfly Wings this week. And I would love for you to get a copy! All you have to do is follow me on Twitter and you’ll be entered for a chance to receive a free copy of Tattered Butterfly Wings.

The link is below. Simply follow the link and sign up to follow me on Twitter. Good luck! Hope you win!!!!

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/61bc0a454339258f

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

The House We Built

I sometimes censor myself.

There are poems left unwritten,

nothing but unsaid words living

in my mind, afraid to find the air.

There are words I don���t say, feelings

won���t display because I���ve learned

to become the jester of my own story,

the fool who accepts only being half

of me cuz you can���t hold all of me

in the palm of your hands, you sift me

through your fingers like grains of sand

while time steadily slips away.

I have watched stealthily as my words

melt like sugar into water, while

they may be sweet or a necessity,

nobody ever really wants to own them.

Who drinks sugar water without adding

something in to make it go down more easily?

I read your words like empty messages

displayed on a marquee ��� here today, changed

tomorrow ��� words that lack staying power or

substance. Just something to draw attention, to

keep me from seeing you have always been missing

in action when I needed you next to me.

Even if you were there, all I owned was your

empty words. Marquee words that lack real meaning.

Tomorrow always brings something different.

So I stuff my true feelings inside me &

become who you want to see. Pretend

I can���t already see that you don���t truly

love or value me. Pretend that this

won���t one day only be a distant memory.

Bits and scraps I���ll remember like parts

of an unforgettable memory.

The bitter truth is love doesn���t live

here in the house we built & never

really has. Instead we welcomed a

caricature of love into our house & pretended

not to notice the exaggerated features of its face,

the floppy ears, the lackluster eye and

the comical lips, lips so big we tripped over them

every time we tried to speak to one another.

We pretended love could exist in the jungle

disguised to hide the lies that have always

lived in the house we built.

Got a busy day ahead lovelies. I’m proofreading the author’s copy of my new book, Blues of a Love Junkie, working on a story for my upcoming book of short stories, She’ll Never Tell, and I have a mountain of papers to grade. So, yes I’m going to be very busy today. But I’m never too busy to share a poem with you guys!

On another note, my giveaway this week was a success! I have another one coming up soon. So keep your eyes and ears open. ;-)

Do something epic today! Take a giant step toward that dream you have, the one that is wrapped up in every beat of your heart. Don’t think, just do it!

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Skinny Dipping Giveaway

I’m the type of person who believes there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody has to pay for it, right? Well, turns out there are some things that are truly free. I’m giving away three copies of my poetry book, Skinny Dipping in the Pool of Womanhood. And all you have to do is follow me on Twitter.

Check out the link below and get your free copy of Skinny Dipping in the Pool of Womanhood. Don’t put it off, though, because the contest deadline is April 1. Here’s the link below:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/fe17646153ce5e15#ln-fo

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

Drown

���But love teaches you. Clears your head of any rules.��� Junot Diaz, Drown

Since I started working on my second book of poetry, I view things a little differently. At some point, I began to see that every story truly is a love story. Take for instance the book, I���m currently reading, Drown by Junot Diaz. On the front cover, a blurb describes the book by saying that Drown is ���stunning���a front-line report on the ambivalent promise of the American dream.��� There���s a certain amount of truth here. The characters in the book do deal with poverty, two types of poverty. They are impoverished in that they lack money and sometimes have to resort to eating boiled potatoes, rice and other things, but are too poor for meat. But beneath the surface is the poverty of love. Yunior is the protagonist. He���s nine years old at the beginning of the stories, which weaved together, create one story.

Yunior���s mami is married to a man who doesn���t love her; he only wants the financial benefit of being with her. He wants regular sex, until he doesn���t want them anymore and so he abandons them. Leaves them in the Dominican Republic so he can come to America where he will build a life for his family and then send for them, but he never does. Yunior never received love, in the sense that a child should be loved. His father, who was unhappy in his life, would always take his anger and frustration out on Yunior. Rafa, Yunior���s older brother, never shows him love. Instead he ridicules him and makes Yunior feel smaller than he already feels. And he ends up in love with a teenage dope addict. So as much as the characters are drowning in life because they are financially poor, they all are also emotionally and socially poor.

So, as I���m reading the last few pages of the novel, a line comes to me: ���There are days when I fall apart for love.��� Here���s the poem:

There are days when I fall apart

for love. Broken pieces of me

stain the sheets of the bed where I

lay day after day, wondering if I

will ever allow myself to be whole

again. Maybe I like being broken,

like always being alone. Like knowing

there will never be anyone for me

to come home to. Like knowing

that everyone I���ve dared to love will

break me into a million indiscernible

pieces. So one day I���ll fall

out of bed & put myself back together

again. My strength is in loving broken

men, men who break me & allow me

to build myself up again.

That���s why there are days

when I fall apart for love.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

I Want You

I want you to encircle your arms

about me, cradle me like a newborn

baby, but crush me to you as if you

want to crumble a mixture of your bones

and mine and scatter them into

the winds of possibilities.

I need you to look into my eyes

as you hold me close, to keep me

from falling. I do not want to

fall alone. Please come with me.

I want you to call my name

like it’s the flowering of a seed

planted way deep down in the core of

your being — a seed of deepest desire.

This is still a work in progress. Once I finish the draft of the story I’m working on, She’ll Never Tell, I plan to work on this some more.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

*Remember, don’t dream only when you sleep at night. Dream big during the day and hustle your ass off to make your dreams a reality.

Blues of a Love Junkie Release Date

Blues of a Love Junkie is slated to be released by April 11, my birthday. I’m so excited. I’ve spent my entire spring break doing some last-round edits to the manuscript, getting it ready for publication. I’m currently finalizing the cover.

Today, I finished the Author’s Note, which will precede the poems. Here’s a little sneak peek:

Author���s Note

I���ve never believed in fairy tales. Not even as a little girl. I���ve known for as long as my memory stretches back that there is no such thing as ���happily ever after.��� I remember things like standing around with friends in the apartment where I lived, talking about the six-year-old little girl whose mother would allow drug dealers to sleep with her daughter in exchange for crack cocaine. I remember the popsicle man who drove through the apartment complex every day, looking to serve up something more than frozen confectioner���s treats. I remember wondering why my brother���s dad touched me differently when my mother was away at work. And I remember how even the park next to the apartment complex wasn���t a safe place to go alone because it was supposed to be home to a monk man, who would hurt little kids.

So, no, I never believed in fairy tales. I never thought some prince charming or fairy godmother would show up one day and change my life so I could live happily ever after. Not even in my dreams did I allow such childish notions to take root in my soul.

But I have always believed in the power of love. I remember trying to do things special to try and win my mother���s love. I remember asking for love instead of material things. Love, I thought, would be easier to obtain. I have always wanted nothing more than to love and be loved.

So the poems in this book are all about love. Because I believe that every story is a love story. Someone either loves, feels unloved, feels incapable of loving, feels betrayed by love, feels unsure about what love is, is afraid to love���Everyone feels something about love. And that feeling has shaped them.

So, I offer you a love story told in the form of poems. The poems in this collection have been weaved together to offer you a love story that I hope will touch your soul as much as it has touched mine.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind

I look forward to seeing the final product and hope everyone will get a copy of the book. Also slated to be released later this year is a book of short stories, tentatively titled, She’ll Never Tell.