Confessions of my soul

The End of the End


Something wasn’t right.
I’d known for months that
Something wasn’t right.
His mother wasn’t letting go.
As his wife I couldn’t take over.

I cannot think about anything
Survival flashes across my brain in neon red.
I cannot think about anything
Nothing else even matters.
I just have to make it until he comes

Time is growing near
I have a twenty-one month old son.
Time is growing near
For me to hold onto yet another child
I’m having our second boy any minute.

He was there
When I was slit from hip to hip
He was there
For one of give hospital recovery nights.
My newborn son and I cried together.

His presence was missing
As my mother and his sister drove me home
His presence was missing
When I stared into empty eyes lounging on our couch.
He asked, “What are you doing home so soon?”

The last heart string broke
When he decided she didn’t need to walk us out
The last heart string broke
When he didn’t call for days to check on us.
I was out of sight, out of mind.

When the phone call came
I shed tears for an hour.
When the phone call came
My friend was sorry to be the messenger.
I was told I needed to come home.

She asked if I was able
To walk and lift the baby on my own.
She asked if I was able
To confront everything waiting on me.
I told my mother that I had to go.

I was totally blindsided when
Another woman was on the other side of his mother’s ring tone.
I was totally blindsided when
His girlfriend asked who I was to my husband.
The father of my children had her in my house.

When shock left and anger came
I went on a mission to find his ass.
When shock left and anger came
I had the look that stopped a 350 pound gorilla that stood 6 foot 3.
He and the neighbors remembered that he was married that night.

Twelve hours after I found out
My things and my children’s things were packed.
Twelve hours after I found out
I asked if I could get a celebration dinner.
I was taking my first steps on the road to freedom.

Two weeks after I left
I had my mother serve him with divorce papers.
Two weeks after I left
I began to fight for my two children.
He told his girlfriend they were dead, now he wanted to lay claim.

At my six week check up I
Was embarrassed and humiliated.
At my six week check up I
Requested every single fucking STD test available.
I learned that the man I saved myself for had given himself to at least four others.

As I tried to move on I found out that
I had shared him with men and women.
As I tried to move on I found out that
All of my tests came back negative.
My babies were safe from the diseases too.

I knew that I had to repeat
The tests in six months to be sure.
I knew that I had to repeat
To myself that I was not just a statistic.
In the mirror, I still saw a 22 year old divorced mother of two.

Now that I have survived and healed
My babies see the strength that I didn’t know I had.
Now that I have survived and healed
I have once again been made whole.
If it wasn’t for Christ, death would have welcomed me home.

In order to grow, I had to let go
Of the perception that THAT man had of me.
In order to grow, I had to let go
And let God.
This is the way that God made Himself real to me.
Copyright © 2010 Natasha Guy

Inspired

I Have To Dream

I rose from slumber

To see a young black male

Standing broken before me.

Our hearts connected.

He was in turmoil and beaten badly.

His body was covered in cuts and bruises.

I saw the hand prints swollen into his face.

I imagined the white supremacists’ onslaught of hatred.

I saw the open oozing gouges on his arms and legs.

The dogs that attacked him for marching were real to me.

I saw the shame in his eyes that the system had instilled.

Then I rose to embrace him in my strong arms.

I rose to shelter and protect him from the outsiders that sought to destroy him.

His weary eyes grew wide with horror.

He tried to shrink back despite the pain of movement,

Only to be restricted by chains;

Bindings that secured him to my very own ankles.

My heart bled with confusion.

 I couldn’t comprehend the situation.

Why would this broken youth

Resist the love I was meant to give?

I was just having a dream confirming that

I am a Strong Black Woman.

Immediately I was flooded with the anger of rejection.

My mighty voice defied sound barriers as I questioned him.

“How dare you not see that I want what’s best for you?”

His ears, unable to withstand yet another assault,

Hemorrhaged as his face contorted from the excruciating circumstances.

The conundrum at hand startled my perceptions as I

Struggled to back up in repulsion from the hideous contortions of his body.

The forgotten links around my ankles drug his inflicted body across the floor.

I stumbled at his weight heavily countering my progression of retreat.

My every action was creating more injuries and intensifying those that already existed.

Tears began to fling themselves suicidally from my eyes, escaping my thoughts.

The boy recognized my pain and  pushed thru his own to offer comfort.

As he reached to brush my tears from my cheeks, they burned him like acid.

My eyes emitted lasers that cut through him down to his very soul.

I am a Strong Black Woman; how dare he only recognize me in my weakness.

He is afraid of my strength and only attracted to my vulnerabilities.

I finally addressed him with a question only he could answer.

“What is wrong with you?”

I could have never readied my spirit for his response.

He bowed as deeply as possible, considering his battered body.

He acknowledged me with the utmost respect out of fear.

His honor for me was grown from the seeds of tyranny and abuse.

“I do not know what is wrong with me my Queen.

From birth you told me that I was just like him;

That bastard that knocked you up the same time as my sister’s mother;

That low down dirty dog that did nothing but drink, smoke and fuck.

You spat venom at my core as I grew into his image; an abomination in your sight.

You continually raised me to realize that Strong Black Women are independent.

They don’t need men like me to come in and screw up their lives.

I learned that no man that looks like me is ever really about his business.

You expected me to fail and be just like the others, then berated me for living up to your expectations.

You fed me the script to follow, then chastised me for falling in line.

All the while you screamed that you loved me and didn’t understand what was wrong with me.

“If you look closely at the fist marks, that is your ring imprinted within.

That happened when I brought you my dreams and you smiled in my face.

That memory was erased when I heard you say that black men ain’t shit.

How could I live to be on top when you said I couldn’t even be feces?

The claw marks on my extremities match your one inch acrylic tipped nails.

Flip your hand over and gaze at my flesh rotting beneath them.

When I tried to branch out on my own, you impaled me and again

You reminded me that I was like the sperm donor, one who abandons.

I wanted to go out and get something to replenish you in your brokenness.

Your mistrust of men like me caused you to rip into my skin even deeper.

I was kept a prisoner of your watchful eye, only serving as a whipping boy to your ideals.

Your black love beat me down at home and in public.

The strength from my Strong Black Woman was made evident in my scars.”

He paused in emotion and steadied himself for my outrage to overcome him again.

Memories flooded back to me; the beatings, verbal, mental, spiritual.

This was my baby boy, my creation; this was my legacy laying damaged at my feet.

He was impossibly bound to me, awaiting death with no hope of life.

I had single handedly created and destroyed, heaping the blame on them;

When all his life he had never left my side, begging for true acceptance.

I told him what was right, and then showed him what was truth.

I glanced in the full length mirror that captured both of our beings.

I was a looming presence with scars that matched his blow for blow.

He was a haphazard mound of flesh, barely recognizable as human.

This reality was too painful to live in and take in so I

Turned the mirror to only reflect the shiny side of my armor.

I released my battle cry, “I am a Strong Black Woman,”

And returned to my slumber where I could walk beside a Strong Black King.

Copyright © 2010 Natasha Guy