A prisoner to myself
The doubts I had
Things I feared daily
Stereotypes due to the color of my skin
Judgement about what’s between my legs
Negativity coming out mouths of the miserable
Today I’m breaking free
Moving anything or anyone in the way
I won’t be stopped from being me
I did it again! But this time with a new self published poetry collection.
For about 3 years now I debated back and forth if I should release a new poetry book and if I should take the route of publishing it on my own. It took some time getting the format down and sending myself a ton of proofs to see if anything was messed up. I’m positive I still have some things to learn, but I set a date of Valentine’s Day, as this is the anniversary of my first published poetry book The Diary of She and I was going to stick to that date, which I did.
So here you go!
Her Final Entries: A collection of poems and affirmations
Before you go let me leave you all with a Intro.
Dear Diary
I finally decided to unwrap you.
You might have been the best gift I’ve received.
You’ve always gave me the freedom to say what I need.
There’s been so much going on & it’s hard trying to adapt.
My career, motherhood and everybody’s crap.
I’m less bothered, though times I still want to snap.
That’s why I got this new journal & I hope for it to be my last.
The last time I write about the hurt I’ve felt
or how I long to feel the touch of a man.
The last time I vent about consistently being misled or questioning where my life will end.
I’ll give you a bit of my pain.
Show you a little drama, but I’ll continue to uplift, just as I do myself.
Remind you that you’re important and to keep loving yourself.
Welcome to my final entries!
He crept into my dreams and kissed me like no one ever had.
The moment was engraved in my mind,
and he was who I wanted to see every night when I closed my eyes.
I craved his lips, wishing they were pressed against mine.
Thoughts of him would remain until he walked out of my dreams and into my life.
How can you look me in the eyes and say I’ve never been there for you? Looking back at you, I can see our whole journey playing on a loop.
Who was there giving you a shoulder to cry on when the world made you feel like you had to walk around in permanent armor?
The world made you feel like you had to remain hard in order to receive respect, but I assured you your emotions only added to the strength you possessed, and if you felt the need to hide from the world, you didn’t have to hide yourself from me.
You let your emotions flow like a river, and I was there to float freely with you.
My dear, please, don’t act like I wasn’t there helping you, building you up when you were at your lowest with no one around to lift your spirits to heights higher than the highest.
Treating you like the light that guided my way through the darkness you were living in when I was really your sun in the night sky keeping a glow on your face.
Helping you evolve into the man she sees standing before her, a man who found his way when he got lost in the wind and led into a direction that only read destruction ahead.
I traveled long and far to bring you back from the depths of hell only for you to up and leave me to fight the demons of your world alone.
When I’m asked where do I see myself 5 years from now the inside of me explodes. I get hot, irritated and my nerves are shot. The answer I give is always some speech I’ve had in my head playing on replay in case anyone happens to ask; an interviewer, a potential love interest or a friend. Really, if I blurted out what I really thought, the answer would be I just want to have my shit together, that’s it and that’s all.
I feel like most of us go through life believing that we must have a plan or our life will be a complete failure, but one thing our peers should have taught us are plans do not always pan out the way we want them to. Things change, major events happen, we change our minds and some of us die before we can even reach the 5 year mark.
There are days when I barely know where I want to be in a month or so. The more I focus on having a plan, the more stressed I become and want to give up on it all. If you were to ask me what my 5 year plan was at this very moment and wanted an honest answer out of me, the response would be something like:
Where do I see myself? I honestly don’t know. I hope to have a steady job, with all the benefits I need to keep me healthy and financially stable once I retire. I pray to still have a roof over my head and money piling up in my saving accounts. Maybe I’ll finally be a best selling author if I can release a book that grabs the attention of most of the people in the world. Motherhood I hope becomes easier but in 5 years I’ll be a year away from having a teenager. That’s just another fear I’ll be adding onto the plate of things I’ll be stressed about. In 5 years I think it’ll be something like that, but who honestly knows, you know?
I could write out a plan right now and there’s no telling if I’d actually be able to see it through, nor am I obligated to. A plan may look pretty and make it seem like you have your life together, but I believe that the universe already has our plan written out for us, in pencil, just in case things have to be changed around a bit. It’s the way of life and I honestly don’t need people out there making me feel like It’s required of me to know what my life will look like.
For almost two years now I’ve been working an amazing job, with great benefits and that alone makes people think I’m set financially and have nothing to worry about, but I do. I have bills, I have a kids and in just a few weeks I’m no longer going to have this good paying job or the benefits, because that’s how contracts work. The financial stability I’m used to will no longer be there. I’ve applied for a full-time position along with people I’ve trained and you want to know who got it? Yeah, the people that I had the pleasure of showing the ropes, all three of them. I’ve had a few other interviews and still nothing, and for a black single mom it’s beyond discouraging.
So, when I’m asked where do I see myself in the 5 years or even a year from now, all I can think about is I don’t even know where I’ll be tomorrow.
