Meet Pamela…

“Loss”

Women are supposed to give birth

Therein lies their worth

Ultimate femininity

Expanding the human race

Leaving a piece of me

Forever multiplied in someone else

Infinity in the soft soil of a womb

Me

22 years old

Sentenced to life

Sentenced to be barren

My body a dry desert

Oh, child of my womb

I sometimes swear I feel your heartbeat

Your restless soul move

I see you in my dreams

A little girl

Ribbons the colors of cotton candy.

My baby girl

Trapped within me forever

Serving life in the prison of my womb.

I even named you

Epiphany

My awakening to womanhood

But I am just a girl

Never a woman

If I can’t let you out.

The emptiness taunts me

Like a bully on a playground

“You’ll never be truly feminine!”

Half a woman

An unfinished piece of art.

Begging the sculptor to complete me.

“Body”

You locked up my body, but you’ll never own me.

You gave me a number so you could count me every day, while you do everything to remind me that I no longer count.

While you were caging me in and tightening the locks, my mind struggled free. My spirit soared past the fences and wall, and left you behind.

My body remains locked up, but you will never have my soul.

I am free because I will not let you confine my mind.

While you were walling me in, I was walling you out.

Your man-made fortress is no match for the one I constructed around my heart, mind, and soul.

All your attempts to break in, damage me, demean me, derail me, and defeat me are futile. I decided long ago to never grant you entry.

Like mad scientists in a lonely lab, you concoct potions to bring about my demise.

Your mistake is that you never counted on the resiliency of my spirit.

I turned your hate into love, and emptied my pain into a river of good.

While you plotted to kill me, I planned to live.

The struggle rages on; I can never rest.

You are a relentless enemy, lurking and stalking, but I am a fierce warrior.

You may have my body, but you will never own my soul.

Meet Sarah

I love taking care of people. It’s one of my good qualities. I notice it within myself even today.

I suffered psychological and physical abuse for years. My mental capacity was ruined, I was emotionally unbalanced, isolated, and ashamed of speaking up about what I endured through the years.

The shame of my abuse, my crime, and fear of being alone and abused verbally, tormented me daily. I had no one and nowhere to turn so I stayed in shelters and in abusive relationships.

As a result of my mother growing up in the foster care system, I suffered from abuse and lack of love. Therefore, as a child growing up under these conditions I had low self-esteem and lacked communication skills.

I neglected my family by leaving the house at 16 years old to live in a youth shelter called The Safe House in Schenectady, New York.

I looked for normalcy so I enrolled in the Job Corps in Cassadaga trying to better my life. I tried to get my GED, I also took vocational courses, certified nursing assistant classes because deep down I knew that I wanted to be a nurse.

However, my life choices were negative, as I did not know how to make the right decisions. My capacity to make logical decisions was vague and it kept me from accomplishing my goals. I wanted to be more productive, yet I could not find the tenacity within myself to find a true purpose in life.

I left the Job Corps, went back to my hometown and met my first abusive partner. He found me when I was 17 years old and naive to what a healthy partnership consisted of. I thought this relationship was normal even after the thump upside the head. His aggressive and abusive behavior continued throughout the four years while I was with him and I stayed. I thought this type of conduct he exhibited was love, because I did not have the stability of normal nurturing and love from my parent’s household.

Despite my troubles I was in college throughout the entire trauma. I attended Mildred Elley in Latham, New York for medical billing because I wanted to be in the medical field.

Meet Tallulah

A year in review

It was a bad year for the planet.

Every creature on the face of the Earth endured the pain and/or loss.

Yet a Mercy, even though we do not understand it.

From one of the worst natural wildfires ever in Australia.

A blaze that killed a billion exotic animals.

Displacing kangaroos, koala bears, and humans alike.

A year in review.

2020 ended the orange man’s antics.

His support for proud boys.

And denouncing BLM.

“When looting starts the shooting starts”, said the former president.

Deadly ICE raids.

Continued construction of a wall meant to prevent “rapist” Mexicans from crossing U.S. borders.

Distaste for Haitians

And Asians

And any person not of European descent.

Races and Nations of people that slaved.

Who were hanged and slain.

Were Raped.

Who died for America

To,

Help build America

To,

be American.

“We The People”…

A Year In Review

Covid-19

The “Chinese disease”

“Originated” in a wet market.

Made its way overseas.

Killing millions,

Tearing families, lives, and societies apart.

That’s the highlight and low of 2020’s fresh start.

A Year In Review

The divine basketball league took a legend,

When Kobe died in that tragic crash.

So many mourned.

Skyscrapers lit up Gold and Purple, illuminating the cold and dark night skies for many to see and millions to remember.

Black Mamba.

Kids wore Jerseys.

Old folk wore L.A. caps.

It was all love and unity until they remembered the hand they were holding was black.

Until you’re walking your dog in the park and a black man tells you, you are violating park regulations…then you call the police on him for “harassment”.

Until, your iphone goes missing and you see a black teen with an identical phone.

It has to be yours…

Only to find out you left yours in the Uber.

Until, you see two HBCU students sitting peacefully in their car during a protest and you smash in the car windows. Tasing them and breaking one’s arm with unnecessary use of force.

Until, that knee sat steadily on George Floyd’s neck.

“I can’t breathe” became the motto.

Still,

I can’t breathe hundreds of years later.

After my mothers, mothers, mothers, mother put in work for me and my brothers to be black and free today.

For,

Brianna Taylor and the hundreds of other young colored folk who aren’t here today.

Because we are black we are not free.

We pay.

A Year In Review

Shout out to RBG and John Lewis.

You stood up against hardships and inequality by any means.

Courageous influencers, that’s who you are.

From standing side by side with MLK jr.,

To the young Jewish woman from Brooklyn, who broke the glass ceiling over and over and over.

Setting standards for words and actions.

You exemplified what justice is.

Still, America falls short.

Like Amanda Gorman said,

Just is,

Not always the acceptable norms identified as justice.

A Year In Review.

Music connects persons, souls, and broken hearts.

So even Musical notes cried in 2020

Sending blessings to heaven.

Music connects persons, souls, and broken hearts.

So even Musical notes cried in 2020

Sending blessings to heaven.

For many of Music’s Great like,

Little Richard

Kenny Rogers

And Eddy Van Halen

For those who were too new to know.

And even if known, only time will tell if we forget.

King Von

And “Pop” who got smoked out West.

They say, If you live by the gun, you die by the gun.

It was all too soon,

But I guess you chose the life you wanted to live.

A Year In Review.

Time claimed the lives of some of theater and televisions Boss Men.

Regis

Alex Trebek

And Chadwick Boseman.

Dry outta tears, we can’t cry.

We can’t try.

We,

Have been in and through rough times.

But we must try to,

Be remembered and remember to,

Do and be better.

To, succeed and excel.

To, strive for heaven while living in Hell.

To, rest in peace knowing that it’s not over.

Not just  because of tomorrow, but because yesterday is still new.

And vicegerents of the earth have a chance to change the unknown with a year’s review.