Wednesday, February 27, 2013 2 words I am thankful for

Hate Me






The following poem is from the section, "Secrets" of She Wanted A Love Poem, a collection of poems.




Hate Me
"Can you hear me?"

I could hear him
As I sat on the other
Side of the locked door.
My back on said door
As I waited for him
To do or say something.

"I can hear you breathing
So I'm sure you can hear me."

"Then speak your mind
And be on your way."
I spat, hoping my bitterness
Will quicken his pace.

"I know you love me..."

"I do not!"
I interrupted.

"It saddens me that
You lie so quickly,
So easily and yet
I still love you,"
He continued.

"Is that it?"
I queried, hoping
That that was all
He had to say.

"Woman, why do you
Test me so?
I love you!"
He sighed and
I came close to crying.

"You've said your piece,
Now be on your way."
I say quickly for fear
Of a toad jumping
In my throat and
Croaking.

As I listened to
His retreating footsteps,
I sank down to
The floor and curled up
Into a fetal position.

I loved him but
I wanted him to hate me,
Hate me now instead
Of later when......
No, he will never
Know the truth.

Hours passed before
I got up from the floor.
Morning had come and
With it came morning sickness.

No, he will never know
That for a short while
I carried his baby
And what I was about
To do this new day
Is reason enough for
Him to hate me.



To get your copy
of this collection
of poems,
click here.
Monday, February 25, 2013 16 words I am thankful for

The Only Man



The fever never broke,
It held for a few days
Before his temperature rose again.

I held him,
I never thought
I could love him,
This man I met
On my wedding day,
And yet here I was
Holding him, willing the fever
To go away.

The fever never broke,
Instead he broke,
Slipping into the cool waters
Of death never to reemerge.

There were days when
I wanted this,
I prayed for this,
For my husband to
Cease being so that
I may live the life
I wanted to live.

Now I would do anything
To see his smiling face,
To reach across the expanse
Of our bed and find
His solid form fast asleep,
To live happily ever after,
But....

But the fever never broke,
It instead swallowed whole
The only man I loved,
The only man I hated,
The only man who mattered.


Submitted to imaginary garden with real toads and dVerse Poets 
Friday, February 22, 2013 0 words I am thankful for

Untitled




She sat staring
At the dead
Cockroach
In her bowl.

She sat studying it,
Wondering if, out
Of the blue, it
Would come to life.

She was a smart girl.
Top of her class,
Primary school,
Secondary school,
Even in college.

Yet here she was
Staring at a dead
Cockroach
In her bowl.

It made her
Ponder about life,
The cockroach did.

It made her question
Life and death,
Questioning if it all
Was nothing but an illusion.

Was life nothing more
Than a two bit act
That never made it
To the big time
In Vegas or Broadway.

Was life something equal
To an act found
At the circus amid
Acrobats and animal trainers.

Or did it even make it
That far, more on par
With the freak show
Filled with all its oddities.

She sighed,
Then removed
The cockroach
And ate it.

She ate it not because
She was a freak,
She ate it because
She did not want
To be viewed as a freak.

In her world of
Mass consumerism and
Big cars with small lives,
Eating the cockroach
Would be freakish
But she was not in
Her world.

The world in which
She now found herself
Possessed delicacies that
Ran the gamut from
Palatable to disgusting,
And to save face,
She ate them all.

She ate them all
Because in a world
That appears to be shrinking,
One had to eat
All that was presented
So as not to offend,
So as to make that
Million dollar deal.

She was a smart girl
Who became a smart woman,
Who knew what made
The world turn.

She ate it
With a smile
On her face
And money
On her mind.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2 words I am thankful for

Nightmare

He sat me down
In a clearing filled
With broken shells
And broken bones.

He swept the debris
Aside and placed me
Gently as though
I was a babe.

He passed before me,
Shells breaking underfoot,
As he told me how
He came to reside here.

I sat watching him,
Motionless except for
My hands working at
The rope binding my wrists.

With a piece of shell,
I bit into the rope,
Hoping he was lost
In the story of him.


Then he stopped,
He stopped pacing,
He stopped talking
And he stared at me.

I dropped the shell,
I held my breath,<
I prayed to who?
To all who could hear my prayer.

I knew it was too late,
I knew nothing could or
Would save me now,
But I prayed, nevertheless.

As he came closer,
I screamed through the gag,
A muted cry and
Closed my eyes.

Then nothing,
No rough hands,
No lethal blade cutting skin
And flesh to find bone.

Nothing.

I opened my eye,
Then the other,
I was alone
On my bed.

The nightmare receding
Into the darkness.
A nightmare that was
Once my reality.
Monday, February 18, 2013 18 words I am thankful for

Her Sexuality

source



Her sexuality

Was like a rose.

Starting as
A tight bud
That slowly
Unfurled itself
Until it's beauty
Was revealed.

A rose that
Dared all to
Observe it's
Beauty.
Dared all to
Pick it despite
It's thorns.

Thorns that drew
Blood as red
As that rose,
But it was
Worth it,
Picking that rose,
That is.

With time,
Her sexuality
Began to fade,
Petal by petal
Falling away,
Leaving nothing behind
But memories
Of her glory days.

"But isn't that
The case with
All things,"
She would say,
Lying to herself.


Submitted to imaginary garden with real toads and dVerse Poets 
Thursday, February 14, 2013 2 words I am thankful for

The Next Big Thing





I had the pleasure of being tagged to talk about my eBook, Martine, by the acclaimed Antiguan/Caribbean writer Joanne C. Hillhouse, check out her interview here. Just to go the extra mile, here are two interviews by fellow Antiguans, Floree Williams and Bak2moi. Now to the interview:


TNBT:    Where did the idea come from for the book?
Like most of my writing, out of nowhere or a dream, or in that moment that I put pen to paper. I just had a story that wanted to be written and I just wrote it. Normally I could pinpoint the exact thing that triggered a piece but with this it just flowed.

TNBT: What genre does your book fall under?
Fiction, Race and Life, are the last two even genres. I guess I am a keyword/hash tag kind of person. But it is definitely fiction although part of me believes that people's life stories exist in a kind of ether and they flow through a writer in another time and space.

TNBT: What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Gosh! I never really thought about this becoming a movie or even a short film. Let me see... Viola Davis would make an interesting Martine.

 
It would be lovely if Jesse Williams played Allain.
 
Dennis Haysbert would make a great James.
 
As for the girls, it would be great to have unknown actresses.
 
TNBT:  What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
When the past comes looking for a woman who had made a new beginning and was at last happy.
 
TNBT: How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
The beginning took three days, but to complete it, it took me a couple hours about four months later. It's a short story and it just flowed.
 
TNBT: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The fact that race is an issue within a race.
 
TNBT: Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
This book is self-published, it is more of an issue that I don't see myself as a writer. I think of myself as a person who writes and puts things out there for people to enjoy. It's also for that reason that my future work will be self published, there is also the fact that I'm a control freak and I like things a particular way.
 
 
I would like to take a moment to thank Joanne for tagging me, definitely check out her book Oh Gad! It is a great book, had me hooked from the beginning and the twist and turns were so compelling.
 
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