so i say farewell
i'll let go of your coat tail
i'll let go of all the things that made me love you
like the tiny gap between your two front teeth
or the way your skin glistened in a day's morning sun

so i say farewell
its not like there won't be an imprint forever inked on my soul
it will be a reminder
for when i'm successful and wealthy
with lots of children and a loving husband
to not love them fully
because of the boy who stole my strength
the strength i was to pass onto them
\
so i say farewell
to the days where my youth shined bright
to the talks where i'd fall asleep with a genuine smile on my face
to the fights where afterwards i'd hate myself for caring so much
to the times where life was simple
but
now i say greetings to the life of fake smiles and empty conversations for your absence has made my life unbearable.

~

If you only knew

these feelings I clench in my fist,

locked in endless lingering,

breathing for only this

Painting a future

caused by eternal dreams

found in your…



Smile…



and I too shall smile,

laughing in flowered

blooms filled with heartbeats,

fragrances sifting

along alphabetical fence lines,

counting the letters

found in your…



Words…



send a message,

feeding desires of my visions,

fruited of vine fed bounty,

weaving about my skin,

tempting me to search deeply

the roots

found in your…



Thoughts…



flow freely

within my soul,

beyond scattered butterflies

on the top rung

of this laddered stairway,

padded with beliefs

found in your…



Love…



sets me free,

fits me with wings of chiffon renderings,

soaring to destined heights,

glowing in the shimmering rays

of a springtime sun

in the forever solitude I

found in you…

there was something so serene about being in love
the sky wasn't only blue
the sun wasn't only yellow
rain wasn't only water
trees weren't only tall
ground wasn't just flat

i could feel everything and that wasn't an issue
being in love made me vulnerable yet safe
being in love made me happy to love another
even
though
I
didn't
love
myself

I used to be a soft and spontaneous soul. Lust and music were my drives. Whiskey on a dry and empty stomach, lips the color of a newborn's blood, and a man's husky arm around my waist and his eyes looking through mine but not seeing my mind just what his mind will go through once he gets me laid on that 200 thread count cotton bedspread.
I now look back and see that life to me was comparable to a white plastic bag. I didn't care for it. I didn't even bother to pick it up and put it in the trash.

My careless ways made me to be a careful woman with three letters that run through my blood veins and tattooed on my forehead by a man that I laid on my 200 thread count cotton bedspread who had those same three letters written on his forehead with invisible ink written by his ex-lover, I dare not to see.
Mama’s voice always echoes in my mind every time I place myself on that hospital bed of room 234A.  I always hear her say the same thing, too. “Anathema, you best be getting what you have to do done.”  She told everyone that when they entered her house. What I had to get done was something no woman, no; no human being should ever go through. Being told if you don’t do this, you’re gonna end up dead. I wish I was told this before the word positive came before *** on my medical records.  Now, I’m sure to end up dead. They say “oh, it’s not a death sentence. Many people live long lives with ***.” Yeah, that’s fine but its bull.
I had a dream once. It was a happy dream; a dream that I could be living right now.  I could be wrapped up in the arms of my perpetual man. His perpetual love. His perpetual laugh. I could be wrapped up in the arms of my man in a big white house with navy blue picket fencing and a big backyard where my kids run and play with real smiles on their faces. Smiles that illustrate innocence and wonder and imagination and happiness and life and dreams. I had a dream once but I flushed it down the lavatory along with throw up after a night of heavy drinking.
My blood is now rotten and inked with death and shame. It is no more sweet and powerful like a gospel sung off a church woman’s lips. It’s tainted not by only a disease but by my offhand lifestyle. I want to blame myself for what I am defined by now but I’m too prideful to do so. I’m on a bumpy and dark road. I have no sight of what my future is to come and past. My past, I now see, is here. Standing in front of me, screaming at me and telling me I am nothing. But I know I’m not nothing. I’m something and I, Anathema Jacobs, just don’t know it yet.