Tag: hope

Your Playing Small Does Not Serve The World

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“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frighten us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Marianne Williamson

Wait for Me

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Would you let me ribbon tie my waiting into your lap?
Take me dripping in mistakes like I got flaws for fragrance
Can you wait for me to get it right?
This belly
filled to the brim with passion
like I got fire clenched in my fists and a furnace in my throat
As if you’d just emerged from the safety of your mother’s womb
would you wait for me
to breathe life into your lungs
to breathe logic into your conscience?
Let kindness touch you gentle,
soft like pillow talk
or whispering prayers in a bowl of incense
Touch me endurance
and I’ll dip my hands into purpose
and feed you hope through a straw
So let the storms begin
let the winds blow
and the nations rage
let the heavens chop off pieces of ice for our tribulation
let hailstones come bungee jumping from the sky to put dents in our joy
and I promise you
if you wait for me
I’ll command my words to stitch you a smile
and in time
we will simmer tragedy
into the polished pillars
of diamonds in the ruff.

Wait for me.

Holding onto Hope – Owning Your Blog / Writing

Holding onto Hope, blogging, writing

I decided to take a much-needed break from revising my manuscript and sat down to watch a couple episodes of Fringe (now my new favorite TV show. Yes, I know, it came out years ago but I’m new to this). After retiring to my bed and scrolling through Pinterest I was forced to deal with the thought that has been lingering in the back of my mind. The thought was doubt and as I struggled to ignore it, I knew eventually I’d have to face this beast, stop being lazy, and rid it from my consciousness.

As I sit here, typing this, I know I would reread it gazillion times before drafting it in WordPress. I will then preview it a billion more times when it’s drafted in WordPress and I’ll be sure to choose the Justified button for my paragraphs so they look nice and neat. If it’s anything like my usual posting, it’ll be revised in the draft five to six times before I actually push publish and even then I’ll go back to reread it as if I’m not the person who wrote it. I’ll read it on my laptop and then again on my mobile just to make sure it’s formatted correctly. I’ll probably then proceed to share it on social media and go look at it. You know, just to see if it looks right.

If this sounds a bit OCD, then diagnose me now because it’s not an embellishment. Yet despite how hard I strive to ensure the proper crafting and delivering of content online, I sit here and find myself the victim of “what if?” The truth is that I am on the brink of stepping outside of that comfort zone and I’m starting to wonder if I’m good enough. Will the confidence I know I need as a writer be mistaken for arrogance?

Can I be trusted with the responsibility of giving advice or do my readers scan my posts and think that I’m a fool? Yes, I know these thoughts aren’t true and yet, I found myself embracing the possibility that maybe I look silly writing about things that others are so much more knowledgeable of. I sit here and I publish a post with the passion and the authority necessary to own it and yet, I cannot help but wonder.

But then I got a wake-up call. One from Emily Dickerson and one from Verily Mary.

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

I realized as I read these words, that if I am to accomplish anything of significance at all, then I must buckle down, rooting myself in hope, the songbird of my soul. As one of my sister’s so eloquently put it, “Hope is your anchor. Stay tied down in your faith.”

Additionally, this was solidified by a post I ran across prior to writing this post. As I stated, I was scrolling through Pinterest and discovered the blog of Verily Mary. Specifically, her post on:

Truths Every Self-Expressive Writer with a Blog Needs to Hear

…brought me back. I’ve always published posts on this blog with a certain level of ownership and I realized after reading Mary’s post that it’s not about being puffed up and proud (which I make a consistent effort to stay away from at all cost), but only that writers must own their writing with that same level of authority and devout seriousness or we won’t make it.

Tonight I was reminded that if you know you put your all into something (not just your C work, but your genuine all), then there is no need to feel shame. Mary’s words, like my sister’s, spoke life and I offer them to you with the hope that they’ll inspire you the same as they inspired me. Hold onto Hope and never give up:

“I say all of this to say be gentle with yourself when you write online. Aim for excellence while understanding that you are a different beast altogether when it comes folks like you writing in the blogging world. Your writing may be just as meditative and self-reflective as it is logical and analytical. And just because your type of brand or niche is not as saturated or mainstream does not make it less valid. Keep playing your heartstrings and continue to let their songs spill over on your blogs. Whether 10 people or 1000 people hear them, they still make a sound. And in the end, that is what truly matters.” – Mary, Writer, Blogger

Dear Poetry

Dear Poetry

I wish I can take your words
and carve them into the sky
as if you alone was the cement at the fingertips
of the Almighty
wish I can
breathe life into your nostrils like I held onto the strings
stapled to the backs of the wind
Dear poetry,
I wish I can copyright your metaphors,
& trademark your similes
Wish I could draw you away from every mouth
whose saliva has not promised to cherish your wisdom
like stomachs rejecting old food
You see I wish that your nutrition could be savored
only in the mouths of those who speak truth
I’m tired
tired of seeing Allegory’s
washed down the drain of unconscious minds who
seek only to dream fairy tales
bathed in rhetoric
to wake up wet with euphoric ignorance
I appeal to the relentless generosity of poetry
to drawback its compassion if it dares
and stop playing the violin on our hearts
like disobedient children that tap dances on their mother’s last nerve
cause
Poetry can change nothing if truth
can’t hit the concrete with a curve
I wish
Wish I could ensure that you are used only when truth spreads its wings like butterflies
nervously flapping inside the jaws of understanding
Like truth when it opens its legs to laws and commandments
and gives birth to obedience
In whose laughter resounds like the deadness of Sara’s womb
I wish
that deception can be buried inside the heavens
like the stars at noontime
that do not wish to be available
only so that our eyes may see something deep.

Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge – Mystery Fog

 

Welcome back to another episode of Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge as hosted by Colleen of Silver Threading and Ronovan of Ronovan Writes. Now, I drafted this post as a piece of creative writing in general at first as part of another prompt. Then I thought to myself, “Wonder what the writing theme is today?” That’s when I went to Colleens blog and found Mystery. “Cool! I was already writing about the mysterious fog.” So, below is my creative piece and writer’s quote.

man-person-fog-mistDear fog, your kind of a mystery. I mean, what’s going on in there? I imagine its like when the clouds rise from their heavenly thrones like marching bands just to see what the ground feels like. Like when angels bow and secret themselves in the blanket of the air. Something familiar enough for the humans to recognize without fear. Fog. That moment when spirit meets earth in search of its other half. Floating its way through time wrapped in clouds and smelling of forever. I wonder if we become one with eternity just by walking through you. Like hands dipped in hope; the smell of expectation against our noses; a taste of courage on our tongues.

I think the Earth and everything around it is connected – the sky and the planets and the stars and everything else we see as a mystery.
– Marion Cotillard
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Why I Write Black

two generations

Because flowers grow in strange places

like tattered pieces of wood and recycled paper

 

Because history is frost bitten

and winter refuses to be comforted by the sun

bluish-white and numbed pain

cold skin

and prickling feeling

 

Because the sky don’t stay dark forever

but light ain’t taught in history class

 

Because some skirts

are too heavy

to lift without permission

Because Dust Tracks on The Road

was subtracted 3 chapters

Because some truths

are too big to sacrifice

on American alters

 

Because Zora died broke

and Nina died sad

Because their voices still sing

Because strange fruit still swings

 

Because ignorance is worth more than rubies

and diamond gems

Because no one has picked up the pieces

of truth

underneath the ruble

of bombed out churches

on 16th streets

Because little girls ain’t little girls no more

but crushed bones

and melted skin

a strike of disobedience

against premeditated sin

 

Because hope is stronger than despair

Because freedom is worth more

than all the

raisins in the sun

Break the Chain

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Thought I saw her self-esteem in the carpet.
Her back bearing the burden of bare floors
and
forks that scraped the bottom of clay plates
Thought I saw pain on the side of her state
of mind.

Thought I saw her spirit cut low like the grass.
Scattered pieces of forgetfulness floating fluently throughout her bones
that
clung its skin like melted wax welding its warring arms wildly in the sun
I asked her
Why she allowed herself to suffer she said, “I’m waiting for a change to come.”

I walked on…

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I felt metallic liquid lick my cheeks, the blood of one who’s hung.

His body shriveled up in the bowels of his own sadness,
His face “a raisin in the sun”

I can see that his faith had fallen down to his knee caps.
But his eyes bulged boldly on and his life sped passed me in just a few years
Till my taste buds could create a meal from the salt I saw dancing in his tears
Telepathically he told me
that he didn’t die right here beneath this oak tree
But, “stepping foot inside this land is what killed me” He said
And like a mad woman I stared deep into a dead man’s eyes and said, “I see.”
I said.

“So why do you hang out here like one whose been hung?”
He told me, “Cuz I’m waiting for a change to come”

I walked on….

At Play Near The Robert Taylor Houses

And this time crossed the Jordan
And I could hear nothing but the soft laughter of children in my ears
Shouting…jumping,
till I realized I had not entered the promised land,
but this was a street court filled with Jordan fans
Where
hope bounced back and forth to the sound of merciless concrete
polished “Niks” was like knives reaching for revolution in the air
it was cold
but the men were hot
contradictory

the American dream tied around the wings of the goddess of victory
these were project kids with $200 dollar Nikes
unknown vehicles hitting the streets
and then the seats
were suddenly empty

I realized then that I had been standing in the middle of a blank street
a court turned into a corpse
Low income homes now funeral homes, they trampled upon one another
fighting to “one up” one another
silently and still
I saw it
pieces of paper scraped up and scattered to the four corners
(Guess that’s why were still fighting one another for street corners)
a
basketball balled up and clumped like a clot of blood
carved into the cracks in the streets where crack addicts one day roamed the streets
I asked
this balled up clot of hopelessness “Where are you from??”
it told me,

“I wish to go back… but I am waiting for a change to come.”