I sit here, folding and folding. I'm literally in the epicenter of a massive amount of laundry and have stumbled upon this bit of personal clarity. Not at all is it a thought of epic proportions. It's just a fleeting feeling that lets me know I will be fine. I'm hoping this feeling will stay because I feel I'm on the brink of a critical change in my life and would like it to be for the positive. I came home today with a laundry list of things I'd like to get done and I am in the process of tackling each task one by one. One by one. One by one. Let me say that again: One by one.
Now that I've typed that simple phrase out, I have now approached the crux of this clarity within my chaos. I've constantly been focusing on my thoughts of everything else, instead of actually focus on the doing. The simplicity in doing something and reveling in its action. Months ago folding clothes to me was a major chore (more like a daunting chore). I foresaw the massiveness in the task and avoided it all together, which in turn made getting dressed in the morning a chore, which in turn made me feel insecure about not looking as put together as I could be. Lord, the trial that I made it is unfathomable. Perhaps, to some this trial seems very relatable and even logical. The trial of completely avoiding an action as a result of the shear fear of being overwhelmed to a rendered state of incapacity is a shame.
I sit here and urge myself... and you to:
1) Take your thoughts and write them on paper.
2) Break your thoughts down into one overall action.
3) Create an action plan.
4) Tackle each action: One by One.
I'm pretty sure if I did this with all my thoughts I'd like to put into action, my life would be so much fruitful. Therefore, WHEN I do this with all my thoughts they will become actions.
You think; therefore, you are. So, speak your life into existence.
*sending positive energy into the universe for me and for you*
Adieu.
7.19.2011
10.10.2010
Lana (cont'd)
This man in my life never tells me he misses me. He dismisses my beauty and ceaselessly shows me he does not respect me. My heart is taken advantage of and minced into pieces by this man… this man that I love. He takes pride in wittily demeaning my person. Unfailingly he lets me know I’m nonexistent, yet I somehow continue to care. The moment I start to feel like something, he pleasantly reminds me that, to him, I’m similar to nothing. I question myself day in and day out, as to when I allowed yet another version of my voluntarily absent father into my heart. It’d make more sense for me to run from any feelings resembling the residual “daddy done left me” feelings. You’d think I would know better. I should’ve known better. I’m now stuck loving a man who can’t recognize my worth. This hurts.
© CafeUzuri
9.29.2010
Taye
Abashedly, I stood before him, my nude form exposed all too figuratively and quite literally. Here I stood feeling as large as a whale and his eyes pierced into my flesh as though awestruck by something beyond beautiful- something magnificent. Eight months ago he never looked at me with eyes like this. My reflection seemed average in his eyes. And today that look has garnered me perfect. I feel proud to be this... This magnificence.
The irony of it all is that it has come a little too late.
The irony of it all is that it has come a little too late.
9.28.2010
Lana
The bass in my father's voice verberates throughout the walls of my mind. His anger took on new facades each time: from a slow haunting anger, as if mobilized by a demon to levels of rage brought on by his sporadic delirium tremens. I remember one night in particular that the two of them had come home from a night of dancing.
With eyes shaded in anger he spewed, "whore!"
My mother retorted, "Jonathan, let's not start this shit tonight"
"I start whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want... Whore."
"What did I do now? I just want to go to bed."
"I saw the way that woman was looking at you tonight."
"Wh-what woman?", my mother responded in genuine bewilderment.
"Bitch, don't play dumb. That woman was looking at you. And you liked it. You liked it didn't you? Didn't you?! Answer me when I talk to you", he bellowed.
At this point my mother had taken off the red, suede stilettos she had been wearing. They haphazardly lay strewn on the floor, not knowing the weapon they would soon become. My father stumbled over to her and in one simultaneous swoop; he grabbed the hair of my mother’s head and the right shoe, rigidly holding its heel to her neck. As she grappled with him, he swiftly controlled the movements of her body via the clenched grasp he had on her hair. She fought, but it was futile. She cried out in pain and attempted to cower from the shear pain from an item she regarded as her favorite. The heel of her shoe was now pressed at her left temple.
My father spit on her in disgust. "I could tear your pretty little face up. You thought these shoes could only make you look good, huh. I'll show you how bad these shoes can really make you look."
My father took the heel of her shoe and attacked my mother's ribcage as if he were responding to her as a result of defense. My mother cried out, as her blood melded with the crimson shoe my father continued to pummel her with. I stood there shaking, yet frozen in stance. I understood my father most in that moment. I've never told anyone, because I know I'm supposed to relate to my mother. I understood that he loved her. I understood she was weak. I understood that he didn't want to lose her. I understood that my father was drunk and my mother stood for it. I understood that she dressed too sexy for a woman who had a husband.
I understood my father.
© CafeUzuri
With eyes shaded in anger he spewed, "whore!"
My mother retorted, "Jonathan, let's not start this shit tonight"
"I start whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want... Whore."
"What did I do now? I just want to go to bed."
"I saw the way that woman was looking at you tonight."
"Wh-what woman?", my mother responded in genuine bewilderment.
"Bitch, don't play dumb. That woman was looking at you. And you liked it. You liked it didn't you? Didn't you?! Answer me when I talk to you", he bellowed.
At this point my mother had taken off the red, suede stilettos she had been wearing. They haphazardly lay strewn on the floor, not knowing the weapon they would soon become. My father stumbled over to her and in one simultaneous swoop; he grabbed the hair of my mother’s head and the right shoe, rigidly holding its heel to her neck. As she grappled with him, he swiftly controlled the movements of her body via the clenched grasp he had on her hair. She fought, but it was futile. She cried out in pain and attempted to cower from the shear pain from an item she regarded as her favorite. The heel of her shoe was now pressed at her left temple.
My father spit on her in disgust. "I could tear your pretty little face up. You thought these shoes could only make you look good, huh. I'll show you how bad these shoes can really make you look."
My father took the heel of her shoe and attacked my mother's ribcage as if he were responding to her as a result of defense. My mother cried out, as her blood melded with the crimson shoe my father continued to pummel her with. I stood there shaking, yet frozen in stance. I understood my father most in that moment. I've never told anyone, because I know I'm supposed to relate to my mother. I understood that he loved her. I understood she was weak. I understood that he didn't want to lose her. I understood that my father was drunk and my mother stood for it. I understood that she dressed too sexy for a woman who had a husband.
I understood my father.
© CafeUzuri
9.23.2010
Elise
There are days which I rise solemnly to a morning that feels like the rhythmic rifts of Weldon Irvine’s Morning Sunrise, and there are others where I wake up to my brother bellowing, “Elise! Mom said to wake up. Wake up, now she said!”
Each morning I arise and peer at the walls of this, now, pastel pink room. There is a rugged patch on my wall, invisible to anyone else upon entering my room; yet, it is a daily reminder of what happens when my mother’s boyfriend thinks I'm sassing him in the midst of one of his many drunken stupors. My younger brother plastered it over the day he encountered the gaping hole in my wall. My excuse: I was in the middle of practicing my flag routine and had a minor misstep into the wall. One would think he'd ask why I was practicing my routine in the house. If you’ve seen an HBCU band routine, you understand what that means. My flag, standing rather melancholy in the back corner of my room is perhaps the most notable thing that separates my room decor from that of your average girly girl.
I sleep with a blindfold over my eyes to ward off the recurring nightmares I'm becoming all too fond of. But each morning, as my eyes connect with the sunlight peering through my sheer curtains, the sun beckons me over to the solitary window in the expanse that is my room. I fell into perfect adoration with this room when we first moved here, solely because of this window. They say windows are the opening to possibility. Actually, that's what I say.
Unfailingly, in my spell bounded walk to bask in the warm rays and observe the picturesque forest view that is presently my backyard, I hit my right knee on my vintage sidetable, which my brilliant brother ruined by bolting it to the ground for Lord knows what reason. The permanent bruise on my knee is the only bruise on my body that I played a hand in creating. Often, I forget that just a few years ago I shared a room with my brother. Those were the days I despised. The days where everything was cramped and we were two bodies, stifled in a space meant for one. Now, I seemingly have the good life.
A walk-in closet bustling with clothes whose tags remain attached - this is now my life..
CafeUzuri
Each morning I arise and peer at the walls of this, now, pastel pink room. There is a rugged patch on my wall, invisible to anyone else upon entering my room; yet, it is a daily reminder of what happens when my mother’s boyfriend thinks I'm sassing him in the midst of one of his many drunken stupors. My younger brother plastered it over the day he encountered the gaping hole in my wall. My excuse: I was in the middle of practicing my flag routine and had a minor misstep into the wall. One would think he'd ask why I was practicing my routine in the house. If you’ve seen an HBCU band routine, you understand what that means. My flag, standing rather melancholy in the back corner of my room is perhaps the most notable thing that separates my room decor from that of your average girly girl.
I sleep with a blindfold over my eyes to ward off the recurring nightmares I'm becoming all too fond of. But each morning, as my eyes connect with the sunlight peering through my sheer curtains, the sun beckons me over to the solitary window in the expanse that is my room. I fell into perfect adoration with this room when we first moved here, solely because of this window. They say windows are the opening to possibility. Actually, that's what I say.
Unfailingly, in my spell bounded walk to bask in the warm rays and observe the picturesque forest view that is presently my backyard, I hit my right knee on my vintage sidetable, which my brilliant brother ruined by bolting it to the ground for Lord knows what reason. The permanent bruise on my knee is the only bruise on my body that I played a hand in creating. Often, I forget that just a few years ago I shared a room with my brother. Those were the days I despised. The days where everything was cramped and we were two bodies, stifled in a space meant for one. Now, I seemingly have the good life.
A walk-in closet bustling with clothes whose tags remain attached - this is now my life..
CafeUzuri
8.09.2010
Out Of Time
I'm really scared that I'm falling out of love.
This in limbo phase is no longer making me callous;
it's driving me to understanding.
I understand you now more than ever and it's refreshing,
I'm also realizing that the love between us has shifted to something…
Unrecognizable.
I don't know what this type of love is
or where what we had went.
I don't know if my inability to know who we are to each other has
opened my eyes to who you truly are and leave me feeling
disappointed with what I see or perplexed by this person I see before me.
Love is so many things
all wrapped up in what we each want it to be.
I think you know what love is... never.
It's truly a figment of our imagination.
I believe this now more than ever.
And that's not even coming from a cynical place.
Just a realization*
This in limbo phase is no longer making me callous;
it's driving me to understanding.
I understand you now more than ever and it's refreshing,
I'm also realizing that the love between us has shifted to something…
Unrecognizable.
I don't know what this type of love is
or where what we had went.
I don't know if my inability to know who we are to each other has
opened my eyes to who you truly are and leave me feeling
disappointed with what I see or perplexed by this person I see before me.
Love is so many things
all wrapped up in what we each want it to be.
I think you know what love is... never.
It's truly a figment of our imagination.
I believe this now more than ever.
And that's not even coming from a cynical place.
Just a realization*
6.21.2010
No Woman, No Cry
I started this post in my mind three or four ways. All of them witty or silly, with the intention to mask the true title of this post. To the world my post may mean nothing, but in this space this is all I have holding me together; so to me, this means everything.
I am crying.
I am crying.
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