You can say hi, I promise I won't bite

Dear A,

It's crazy how the world works.  It creates these platforms that give regular people like myself (Regular meaning, I wasn't born with a red carpet in front of me or a silver spoon in my mouth.  The world did not throw a party for me or my mother when I was born) expansive reach in getting our messages out and then tells the people who support us to only do so from a distance because face-to-face contact makes you more groupie and less human.  (sarcasm font)

I'm here to tell you and everyone else, that artists desperately need those connections.  We sit behind computers, blank pages and canvases, in the shadows of smokey studios or in the corner of quiet parks and we are alone for much of the time.  We are alone so much that feeling lonely starts to feel the same.  No one is a groupie because they approach me and comment on my work.  Meeting you reminds me that I am not alone and I am not lonely.  I am a woman who welcomes other people into my space, my heart and my arms if they have good intentions and a pure gratitude for the fact that I exist on Earth.  I wish more people were like you; willing to extend a hand and remind us artists that our work isn't just a job, it's a conversation that we sometimes forget we're having.  I speak to all of you and though I may not hear your thoughts or responses, the day you reveal yourself to me, is the day that the story completes itself.  It's more powerful than a meet and greet. It has more depth than a handshake in a crowded bar.  We remember you and not in the crevices of our millions of neurons.  But we remember you in the front of our minds right before we begin a new project and dream a new dream.  We go home and talk to our loved ones about you.  We tell them how all we could keep saying is "Thank You" and how it still doesn't seem like enough.

You should never "feel" like a groupie.  In fact, I'm your groupie. I adore y'all.  I love y'all.  I write for y'all.  I'm indebted to y'all.  If anybody wants to meet you, it's me.  Artists are only as successful as you make us.  And if you feel awkward about talking to me, you're not alone. I feel awkward too because I won't be able to thank you enough.

I'm human, I'm grateful and I'm always listening to you.  I'm yours.

Cinderella

left my glass slipper behind
more like a pair of air max 95s
but I can't go back there
I can buy another pair
can't buy courage though - can't really afford it this pay period
I ain't no quitter but I'm not suicidal either
not this week, not for you man
not for any man this time
we didn't break up
I broke
in half
and then into smaller pieces
pieces small enough to squeeze myself in between the lines of our text messages
and when I re-read them I noticed something
you responded
you reacted
but you never reached for me
even when I ran out and left my shoes behind
you didn't reach for me
and now I can thank you for that
the wrong grip feels like a noose anyway

What a Challenge...

Let's catch up.

February 1: About me, creatively

Made with Love - that's all about me.

February 2: Past/current relationship

The most important relationship is the one I've had and have with God.  That's a love I can count on, it's the only one that hasn't hurt.  For that, it has been the only mutually monogamous one I've ever been in.

10,000 hour rule

One of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell examined the keys to success in his best selling novel, Outliers: The Story of Success.  In it, he mentions the 10,000 hour rule, claiming that the key to success in any field is largely due to practicing the specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.

I have loved the same man 10,000 ways.
And yet, I feel nothing like an expert.  
In fact, every time he looks at me, I feel like a beginner all over again.

the act

of course, you're good at juggling everything.  you're a clown.
and sometimes we feel like we're in the audience but we're really a part of the act.

marriage

Post by Melissa Sassie Christian.

you.

you ignite the same flame that will set my house on fire

and i'm gonna wanna run back anyway

to pull the burning memories out before they crumble into ashes that spell your name

i look at you and my blood tingles

my chest heaves in excitement

my vision gets blurry and I'm left to only smell you

because when you walk into a room, that room becomes my world

and it spins with every step you take

you are the only flower in my forest

regret

i regret everything you do 

and none of who you are

you are the coagulation of impulse decisions

the bloodclot to my own intelligence 

and i weep over my lawless stupidity

i want so bad to dismiss you 

to kiss you 

just to turn around and miss you 

this is an unrequited love of self

for loving you is killing me 

and suicide is full of the unloved

Being Best Friends

Jay-Z and Beyonce don't keep their relationship a secret.  They keep it sacred.

You have to be your lover's best friend.  It's about the basics.  The foundation, the crux, the groundwork.  You have to be each other's best friend.  I've titled this year "The Recovery."  It has been almost 365 days of applying the lessons learned in the last year.  There have been epiphanies and condolences.  There have been whirlwinds of truth; the type of truths that knock you off your feet; that require you stand before God and weep.  How dangerous is shame?  It makes you lie to yourself, convince yourself that you deserve better while still living in a very mediocre manner.  It's a shame, it's a bleeding shame that we crumble underneath our own truths.  And we focus so hard on being the perfect partner and we forget to be an honest human.  

I may not always have a boyfriend, but I will have redemption.  It will always be within my grasp.  I always have the opportunity to become a phenomenal person, I just have to decide that being phenomenal is worth more than being afraid.

How many mistakes have I made?  Countless and yet there's been an improvement anyway.  This year, I can count the mistakes on hand.  Before, I had so many mistakes, I could fill a football field with the type of regret I had weighing down on my chest.  That's God's mercy moving.  It's not enough to fix everything but it's enough to have faith that everything will be fixed.

I'm probably not the girl you want on your arm, or the girl who made all the right decisions.  But I see you the way God sees you.  I see perfect blood in your veins.  I see sculpted excellence.  I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet for the simple fact that your humanity is so sobering with a divine lens.

You are magical and I probably don't deserve you.  Thank God we don't reap what we really sow.  And thank God, I'm different from you.  You stay even though you don't forgive me and I hide in the shadows and forgive you anyway.  But I miss my friend the most.  Not even his lips, or his skin, or the way his bones curve underneath his flesh.  I miss the faith he had in me.  I miss the days he thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world and I miss the days where I thought our love was sacred instead of thinking our flaws would be a spectacle.  Somewhere I started doubting the man, I started worrying myself with the concerns of others.  I started performing instead of living and I lost my best friend.  And I miss him in the most gentle way ever.  It's as if he was a beautiful flower in an unlikely place.  I wouldn't pluck him from the ground.  I would simply watch his petals dance in the wind.  I would just watch and inhale his scent.  I lost my best friend and now when I look at him, I'm just happy to be here.

Be your lover's best friend.  Friends have a way of making us feel safe.  That safe place, where you can lay your burdens at the door and roast your truths into the warm fireplace, that safe place is where healthy relationships are born...

Fall in love with your best friend.  And if the first time doesn't work, fall in love again anyway.  It is the wings of best friends that allow us to fly.

ex-static for the old him

I'm glad he didn't give me what I wanted.  It was nothing I needed.  When I told him to "leap," I never imagined it would be out of my arms.  I told him to chase whatever he had faith in.  I didn't prepare myself for him having faith in another woman. A part of me is happy for him, truly.  He is with the very thing that he has true faith in.  He is not making more empty memories with me.  He is not robbing me of a magnificent love.  He is freeing me from a mediocre one - one which was simply out of comfort.  I was his comfort zone, he had to move to really have a chance at living, at loving.  I was his safety net and what are safety nets for?  They're just there to tell you that you'll be ok when you leap and if you don't land on something amazing, you'll survive landing in something ordinary. It was time to put to use all that I taught him.

I thank him for not keeping me.  I served my purpose in his life and he served his purpose in mine and maybe when I finally left, her true purpose was revealed.  Maybe I made a better man of him and maybe he required me to be more than a safety net for someone else.  Either way, we taped each other back up, healed one another and put the other back into the world.  

I thank him for putting me back into the atmosphere.  I was lost in America; wounded by many and recovery was more of a burden than the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.  He loved me when I was broken and I loved him before he was a man. He was just a boy with deep dimples when I held him.  Still, it made us who we are.  It made him for her and it made me for...well me.  No matter how tall my tree grows, I will always bear his fruit; ripe with experience and soft to the touch.