leave
a fresh caesar salad
a bear hug
a tall glass of Merlot
the truth
a 90s R&B CD
four normal periods
prayers
and a handwritten poem
by my bedside
by the next
new moon.
PS: Breaking the Silence part two is up tomorrow. Be sure you have read part one for the backstory.
PPS. I am back on YouTube. Subscribe here. Also, be sure to follow me on Tik Tok to hear more poems. My name there is the same, yecheilyah.
He looked like a lifetime supply of confidence
black-gold wrapped in a Hershey’s kiss
like his soul had stretched up to the sun
this melanin-plated skin
When he shined, we were all shade
Sweat looked like honey dripping
from his brow
forming sweet golden pools
Look too closely, and he starts to look
like a lightening
his eyes two backpacks full of moon
and we scatter like children
looking for jars big enough
to capture the illumination of his essence
made up not of blood and bone
but stars
He looked like a lifetime supply of monuments
a dark sun-kissed body
full to the brim
with uncompromising
confidence.
The inspiration for this poem is from a poetry prompt I saw on IG on the topic of “He Looked Like a Lifetime Supply.”
Welcome back to another episode of No Whining Wednesday! Today, you cannot whine, criticize, or complain.
How other people view you is not a measurement of your worthiness. Both online and off, good decision or bad decision, right or wrong, your value does not change.
When I first moved to Georgia in 2017, I enrolled in Argosy University, Atlanta. This was before Covid, so I had on and offline classes. In one of my campus classes, we always did these exercises. In one activity, we were talking about hot personality, cold personality, and warm. We had to say which one we thought we were and why. A few of my classmates mentioned I was cold. This perplexed me because we had not known each other that long. When they said it, most of the class agreed.
I went home feeling down. Their words had seeped into my soul, and I questioned what made them think I was a cold-hearted person. Had I done something to them? Did I offend anyone? Had they heard something about me?
Then, I thought back to my childhood and realized this wasn’t anything new. I remember being told my twin would be a bride for Halloween and that I would be the devil. As a kid, I remembered thinking, “the devil?”
I laugh at it now, but it affected my self-esteem and how I thought of myself back then. This was not the only time, someone had also decided I would be a witch years prior. “A witch?” I remembered thinking. It was weird to me because my sister was some kind of animal. If we are twins, why am I a witch and she’s a cute kitten?
I was always referred to as “the mean twin,” and it affected how I felt about myself.
Going home after that class made me think of all these things, and I questioned if I was a good person.
What I’ve realized since then is how we tend to tie our self-worth to other people. We look at the way others perceive us, and we measure ourselves up to that image. That person doesn’t like me, so I am not a good person, or that person admires me, so I am a good person. This is especially true in the age of social media. This person I admire didn’t like my post, so I guess it wasn’t a good post, or this person did like it, so I guess it was good.
All of this is a lie.
The same worthiness you have when people think highly of you, or when you are winning and making the right choices, and being the best version of yourself is the same worthiness you still have when people think of you in a negative light, when you make mistakes, or when you are not your best self.
There is one truth, and it is the only truth that matters:
This worth does not need to be earned or won or acknowledged to exist. You have value and purpose the moment you enter this world. As the scripture says, “before I formed you in your mother’s belly I knew you, and I did set you apart.” (Jer. 1:5)
How other people perceive this set-apartness does not determine if it exists. It is there and was there from the very beginning.
Welcome back to another episode of No Whining Wednesday! Today, you cannot whine, criticize, or complain.
This week, I kept thinking about teamwork, network, and community. As such, I was inspired by the following quote from Gwendolyn Brooks.
I did something different this week. I asked my audience on Instagram what the quote meant to them. This was part of my quest for us to be each other’s harvest. As a result, I got a lot of good feedback, and I want to share some of it with you.
Gwendolyn Brooks poem from which this quote derives is about the Black singer, and activist Paul Robeson. In fact, the poem is called Paul Robeson.
“The poem from which the text ‘we are each other’s’ is drawn is one example of Brooks’s commitment to civil rights, a poem she wrote in testament to Paul Robeson. Robeson was a Black actor and activist, a famous baritone who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for his political commitments. Brooks celebrates his leadership at his death writing, “That time, we all heard it…The major Voice. The adult Voice…warning, in music-words devout and large that we are each other’s harvest: we are each other’s business: we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” – Interfaith Youth Core
Gwendolyn Brooks was a poet whose family moved from Topeka, Kansas, to Chicago during the Great Migration, the massive movement of Blacks from the south to northern cities. Brooks loved Chicago, as I do, and she drew on her experiences in the city to tell the stories of Black urban communities. Brooks called Chicago her “Home Base.”
“We are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
Gwendolyn Brooks lived these words, becoming the first Black Pulitzer prize winner, the Poet Laureate of Illinois, the Poet Laureate Consultant for the Library of Congress, and the first African American woman to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts. She also dedicated time to teaching the next generation of artists in Chicago.
In farming, a harvest is a season for gathering crops. (Come on, Queen Sugar fans) One of the reasons I felt this was such a powerfully timely quote is because Fall is harvest season:
“Harvesting is the process of gathering ripe crops, or animals and fish, to eat. While not all crops are ready for harvest in the Fall, apples, winter squashes like pumpkins and acorn squash, and potatoes are!”
– American Farm Bureau for Agriculture
If we are each other’s harvest, we nurture one another. In that spirit of collaboration, we can illustrate the lyrics of this poem by supplying one another with the strength we gather from the positive words of others.
That’s what No Whining Wednesday is about, working together to cut down on our complaints and criticisms by adopting a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness.
Here are some of my favorites from the post, and I would love to hear what you think of the quote as well!
About.
My Soul is a Witness, a collection of poems that reminds us that there is still hope in our darkest moments. Nothing we go through is without a purpose. No pain we suffer, and no trial we experience happens without reason. It all ministers to our education and the development of ourselves into the people we are ordained to become. It helps to cultivate in us a spirit of patience, faith, humility, and self-control.
Be safe and enjoy your week!!
Wherever you are in the world, welcome. I have been MIA a minute, and I’ve noticed an uptick of Freedom Readers to this blog. You guys are fantastic.
If you have not already done so, be sure to visit the About Page to learn more about me and this blog.
My name is Yecheilyah, pronounced e-SEE-li-yah, aka EC. It is a Hebrew name meaning Yah Lives. In case you are wondering, I was not born with this name. I follow in the footsteps of Maya Angelou, Ntozake Shange, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Kwame Ture, and others who are not widely known by their birth names.
At some point, I imagine these people, like I, have awakened to a truth that demanded a better version of themselves and a better way of living. Not only did they strive to change their perspective on life, but they changed their names to fit the newly developed person, they became. (I am drafting an article called “The Power of Your Name,” about the vital role our name plays in author branding. I should have it ready for you sometime next week).
Speaking of growing, this blog is so much more than what it was. It is the primary platform from which I share my work and the work of others. From our home office, living room, or bedroom, we can reach people worldwide. Isn’t that amazing? While I don’t intend to blog forever, I hope what I share here serves a purpose. With so many people home now because of this global pandemic, I take my role as writer/author/blogger even more seriously than ever. I know now more than any other time the power of the written word and its capability to change lives.
This blog runs mainly by a few weekly posts you might want to know about.
The Women with Blue Eyes – I usually author poetry and black historical fiction, but I have a secret love affair with Fantasy and Sci-Fi. My first published novel (The Aftermath, 2012) was Sci-Fi. I got interested in writing in this genre after reading George Orwell’s 1984 in 2008.
The Women with Blue Eyes is a free fantasy story I have been sharing freely here on the blog. When Tina’s nephew Ronnie died, it traumatized her. It wasn’t just that he died. It was the way he died. After taking custody of Ronnie’s sisters and brother, Tina experienced supernatural phenomenons that eventually led to therapy and hallucinogenic suppressants. This didn’t help.
She meets Azbuga, an Archangel sent to tie the missing pieces together, still connecting her to Ronnie’s death.
Paschar (pu-shar), is the angel of vision, once tasked with guarding the veil between the physical world and the heavens, between consciousness and unconsciousness, between awareness and illusion. She once saw the beauty of visions from the Almighty and projected these into human consciousness. Now, she is limited, capable only of seeing physical beauty, extracting energy from mortal man, and projecting illusions. Paschar has fallen, and in a jealous rage, she attacks black men for their energy. How dare he choose them over her?
Can Tina, Jason, and Az defeat Paschar and her Legion once and for all? More black men are dying, and you can’t fight spiritual warfare with physical weapons.
This series is divided into two parts, and I am sharing freely part one, chapters 1-20. Click here to read chapters 1-17. Chapter 18 publishes next week. (Note: The Women with Blue Eyes is a Rated-R Fantasy series. You should know there is some profanity for those sensitive to cursing, and adult language).
My intent is to use this platform as a motivation for completing the series and one day turning it into a full-length novel.
Throwback Thursday Jams – If I was on the edge of a cliff, music would be one force pulling me back from jumping.
Okay, well, that’s a lil dramatic but, yea. I love music. Tee Hee.
So while I’m a serious person, I am also a silly and musical person. I love R&B and old school soul, and Thursdays are all about introducing you to some of my favorite throwback jams. Now, when I say throwback, I don’t mean that they are all technically throwbacks. I post music ranging from Old School (60-80s), the 90s (my fav), and the early 2000s. And sometimes I might post something new-ish because I just like it. Check out the Throwback Thursday category to jam out.
Black History Fun Fact Friday -Black History Fun Fact Friday is a weekly blog series of articles focused on Israelite/Black/African American history. While the title of the series includes the words “Fun Facts,” not all pieces are “fun,” in the sense that is is all positive. My intention with this series is to present black history as it is without adding to or taking away from the truth, despite how brutal or uncomfortable it may be to read.
Take Sun-Down Towns, for example. The unfortunate truth is that some all-white communities today are all-white neighborhoods because they were once sun-down towns or cities where blacks were driven out and not allowed to enter after sun-down. Read more about that here.
And while this is a weekly series, we have had no new articles in a few weeks. There’s a good reason for that, and I will let you all know about that exciting bit of news later!! In the meantime, if you would like to participate, I am still accepting black history guest blog posts for this feature. Please click here to learn how to apply.
These are some top weekly posts you can get used to. In between them, I share poetry, quotes, blog, and writing tips I call Indie Author Basics with EC based on my experience as an Independent Author.
They have turned truth into a popularity contest
where contestants compete to measure egos
against evidence
but their faith is all fluff
and their zeal, a Judas kiss.
They forgot where they came from
so the hood is desolate of disciples.
Far be it from them to be seen in the streets of sinners
(the messiah did it, but they don’t really know their scriptures)
They preach salvation
but dine with demons
They walk on water
and dress in white
but they are not wise
Scripture is an early-morning anthem
but when one is hungry, they walked right passed them
Their heads are high, their garments fresh,
the world is ending; the time is dire
but the hypocrites do not reach for the lowly
they preach to the choir.
They teach those who already know the lyrics to the song
too mighty in their own eyes to see their own wrong
They sound intelligent to the human ear
but they crawl on their bellies and their eyes are slits
these die-hard saints are really just snakes
and hypocrites
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Author, Inspirational Blogger, Book Reviewer & Promoter (James J. Cudney)
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Sweet As Honey Among The Pages.
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Featuring books written by authors of color.
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