Wk#4: #Rebirth Weekly Love Challenge – You Can’t Leave

Wow, this month is over already. This is my final Love poem submission for Lisa’s Weekly Loooovveee Challenge for the month of April. loveu1

made_for_each_other

You can’t leave me
not now
not ever
not while my kiss is in your bloodstream
and not when your tongue has danced on the insides of my mouth
not when your teeth have carved “I luv u’s”
on my heart like hieroglyphic images
to remember when were far apart from each other
like
long standing memories
And if I 4get to say I love you just use the seal of my kiss and put them in parenthesis
but not for a Greek tragedy
so you see
there ain’t no leaving me
Not unless you wanna leave you
and then our bystanders can tell stories of those days back when life made sense
back when you were already a man of pride
and serious eyes were already making love to the tears of my innocence
Not unless you want them to weep at our footprints
But if your heart continues to cry my tears
And my heart continues to cry your tears
Then it will be impossible for you to leave me
Because our hearts will be tongue tied for years.

************

Special thanks to Lisa for hosting this months Love Challenge, it was fun! Whoop! 🙂

#BeWoW Day – Ronovan Writes Weekly #BeWoW Challenge

So today I am a newbie participant in Ronovan Writes #Bewow Prompt; a weekly twitter Blogshare of positive posts. BeWoW is an acronym for “Be Wonderful on Wednesday”. Participants are supposed to compose a post comprising positivity, encouragement, motivation, or just something positive. This week, Ronovan suggested a topic where we write to our younger self: “Advice you would give to your younger self.” Of course, as he states, we don’t have to use this topic, but it is a prompt to help us to get going. I thought this was a wonderful post idea. What’s special about it for me is that last year I did a post very similar to this as suggested by The Daily Post, about when 27 year old me met 17 year old me for coffee. I’ll be 28 this year and this topic seems to have come up again. I think it can also be good practice for writing memoirs. So, let’s see what kind of advice I would give to my younger self:

be-wow-blogger

Dear Self,

Do not think that I am upset right now, though my speech is slow and my brow buried in my forehead. This is just my thinking face. We are actually pretty calmed right now, optimistic if you will. You see we’ve learned to be this way, content. I want you to know that it is OK to take your time. What you need is already prepared for you in the day that you need it. You’ve got some hard times ahead but some groundbreaking ones too. Your level of resolve will continue to be placed against your desire to endure, so pay attention then to the choices you make; they will bear fruit of whether or not you’ve chosen to be strong or held captive to your weaknesses. I want you to know that it is OK to acknowledge the good in your life; to seek good and to pursue love. The attacks to which you are set to receive are not small but they do have the potential to tear you down if you let it. But if you can instead, take the time to ponder all of the good things in your life, to notice the small progressions, these occurrences will not move you nor will they alter your desire to win. I know I know things are never easy for us, never have been. They are always hardcore, up front, and personal. I regret to inform you that this will not change and it will cause you to often, doubt. I would tell you not to doubt but you won’t listen. Experience will continue to boss you around and pain is still your teacher. However, love, joy, happiness, and contentment will not leave you. Like a mother, sister, aunt or a good friend they will not leave you. There will be temptations galore and they are not limited to the flesh. But remember that the fascination of wickedness obscures what is good, and roving desire perverts the innocent mind. Hold on to your innocence but do not be naïve. Learn to understand the world that you live in, and how to properly navigate it. If I remember correctly, we have much more important teenage stuff to do than to sit here and talk about goals but one more thing before you leave. I want you to write this down and to remember it whenever you feel hopeless. Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian journalist, he once said “There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to change them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them, will we understand why they were there.”

Signed, Your Future Self

Why Memoirs are Special

equipeng95“…it is difficult for those who publish their own memoirs to escape the imputation of vanity. Nor is this the only disadvantage under which they labor: it is also their misfortune, that whatever is uncommon is rarely, if ever, believed, and from what is obvious we are apt to turn away in disgust, and to charge the writer of it with impertinence.” – Gustavus Vass (Olaudah Equiano)

So, why do I want to tell my story? Why has the itch to spill the beans of my background always been with me? Some may call it a dream, but I call it a challenge. Of all the books I’ve written, writing my life story is one of my greatest challenges and I hope to conquer it real soon. I feel like I have not completely exhausted my writing endeavors until I have written a story of my life. I’ve danced with the idea off and on since childhood. Funny thing is before I was even finished living I knew I wanted to share my testimony. I’ve even gone as far as writing chapters and chapters, only to rip it up and start all over again. Truth is I am still learning all that goes into writing a memoir. I love the way

Maya Angelou for example, fictionalized herself in “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”. Not in the sense of creating a false image, but by fictionalized I mean she was able to present a real-life story that reads like fiction. To recreate real-life experiences that jump from the page with all of the excitement that comes from reading a good novel. Here, Angelou lends us her eyes and we are able to see her world in the most real, yet entertaining way possible. While there are various ways to which individuals have gone to write their stories, I imagine there is still an art to it; an art I am still learning to master and I hope to begin this journey real soon. (I’ll be 28 this year, maybe I should wait till I’m like 30 …yea, that’s a nice medium number….lol j/k, I know the next day’s not promised, let alone the next two years, even though it may just take that long, but I digress)

Primarily, I want to share my story because I am a person of a deep passion for helping people in the spirit of teaching. Not teaching in the organized setting of things, teaching the basic principle of acquiring and passing on information. Teaching in the sense of taking what I’ve learned and passing it on. I love sharing information and I believe information exists to be shared. And if it’s the right kind of information, it can be a positive influence in someone else’s life. Have you ever been in a room of darkness and found that after searching for some time someone turned on the light? And then you laugh at yourself for seeing the switch was right there? That’s how it is when someone has taught me something. I love advice because I love to learn. And I love to learn because I love discipline. If ever I’m hard on you, know it’s because I expect double from myself. As I tell my students, “Mediocrity is not an option. If you’re going to do something, do it well or don’t do it at all.”

In addition, I want to share my story because we live in a world that teaches us to fear our past transgressions, mistakes, experiences, trials, etc. The world tells us to keep our “skeletons in the closet” and to wear the impenetrable mask of pretentiousness. Not only have I never had the ability to not show my true feelings, but being transparent in my opinion is what helps build strong relationships, which is what the writing process is all about. There are ups and downs but the struggle itself is what helps to build character. It helps us to create a bridge of commonality between those who are still lost in whatever capacity and those who have found the strength to endure.

While we can write post after post about inspiration, nothing is more inspiring than truth. To see that someone is going through, or has gone through, what you yourself are going through and to witness their strength is more powerful than any quote I could ever give you. Our past, our burdens, and our moments of pain are not weaknesses. They are instead a showcase of humility; like a collection of light in a cistern of water that illuminates. It illustrates that the fruit of sorrow is unmistakably esteem and deliverance. And this is what I wish to share with my readers. Eventually.

The Early Morning Wake-Up Call

The calculated drip of the early morning, we wake to the resurrection of the senses; of sound and smell and want. Time longs for me, stretches its arms beyond reach it begs like a full glass tipping over that I must catch before the skies break into singing. We early-morning-300240wake with fresh thoughts whistling new inspiration against the smell of dawn. The sun itself is like a tingling on my skin, a warm kiss against my face, a whisper against my thoughts. “It is a new day” utters the sound of the wind. It is too gentle to be anything but the language of angels. They watch me sleep and leave their feathers for me to clean up this morning. I am the walking embodiment of message. There is a song required from my voice, an action needed from my fingertips. The blessing of a new start and the chance to do again is every day. The dry mouth of the morning waits patiently for the screaming sound of tea pots; to be caught up in the arms of cinnamon spice or to feel the race of blood awakening to the likes of the coffee bean. Embrace you the early morning wake-up call. It waits.

The Faceless Internet

turtleneck_by_faceless_monster-d5l2jwlIf I could go back in time to visit my great great great grandmother, she’d probably not believe me if I told her about this world; if I told her about the people walking around with no face. Except they do not exactly walk either. They glide instead on finger toes and eyeballs. Here skin meets electricity and together they blend their energies into the production of a being; a something with a name and a picture for a face. My grandmother would probably ask the obvious, “How do we know that’s truly them?”

“Well, Granny that’s the point, we don’t.”

These are faceless internet people. They create careers out of dot-coms, and download personalities they think will fit the World Wide Web. The most courageous, most bold beings I’ve ever seen behind Photoshopped Gravatars and surrogate heads. You see the Internets a place where flies are dragons and little blind mice are soldiers. Be who you wanna be and say what you will because no one will ever discover your venom to be nothing more than a glass spine. They don’t really have mouths anyway. Just faceless internet people walking around on keyboards with their fingers, pretending to be people.