I should be paying more attention to you

I have long wondered how in the hell God saw fit to keep my life away from a healthy relationship. I have been angry at, towards and about God. I have all but cursed God, but I’d never do that, so I haven’t. I have been hurt and if I’m not mistaken, I have cried.

Endlessly.

I have cried at the thought.

I have cried at the television. I have cried in my room, cried during church, I have cried while strolling through the mean streets of facebook. I have cried at weddings. I have cried driving.

I have cried while listening to music. I have cried while getting dressed. I have been in the midst of doing my make up for the day (make up meaning eyeliner and filing in my brows), and had to start over due to tears that began forming and flowing, turning my face canvas into an ice skating rink for eyeliner. I have cried and hurt….about love.

About not having it. Not getting it. Not having a fair shake or a fair shot at it. I remember hearing a poet say if a woman has never been engaged by age 35, there is something wrong with her. I may have mentioned that here before.  Because under that rule of thumb, something is wrong with me.

But I don’t live by that, so that doesn’t matter. But I have cried before…about it. About not having been anything great enough to be engaged to. Not being beautiful enough. I have struggled with body issues that you can’t imagine. Too fat, too skinny, just right , just body. I often feel like JUST a BODY. That’s it. Like fuck yo’ poems bitch, bend over and let me see that booty. Like that’s what every man that doesn’t call himself my brother thinks. I hope none of my brothers secretly think it and I admit to wondering sometimes have they ever thought extensively about my ass? It doesn’t matter because if we call each other bro & sis, they would never say anything right? Let’s hope so. Let this be a warning. Lololol……

There is something to be said about having this so called ‘hourglass’ shape, which I beg to differ @hourglass. I often feel like a prisoner to my body. A friend recently told me she didn’t want my experiences with other people to affect the way I saw and dressed myself. I have stopped wearing the long baggy sweaters and jeans in attempts to hide what never gets hidden.  Gone are the old tennis shoes and the weave ponytails. I rock heels, dresses, skirts and cute shirts. I love fashion and I love getting dressed. I love that the size I am. It took work and continues to take work to be here. But I am often a prisoner of this body. I feel like all I am is a big ass. Like the cutie who I almost slept with wouldn’t want me based on my face, my poems or my attitude in general. He sees something that looks like it would probably feel good. Like the poets who I have been so eager and excited to meet and fellowship with and talk all things poetry with who see me and say things to me like “ I was thinking of you when I was doing my erotic poem”.  …. .hmm… that’s interesting since you don’t know. <<<The response I should have said outloud.

I am a prisoner to my ass at the gas station, I am a prisoner to my ass around my stepfather’s friends (I always would see their reactions to me as I grew older and more into a woman), I am prisoner to my ass everywhere I go. Why do I say this? Because it’s ALL they ever see. It’s all they talk to. I’ve written and performed a poem about it before and have probably discussed this in this blog. My ass is beautiful. Very few dimples and yes, she manages to still have some type of sit-up capabilities. It’s probably all those squats I did when I was courting a nigga that should have been courting me.  She’s a nice color and looks awesome in boyshorts. Gone are the hand prints from the days of me stripping and niggas smacking it so hard that I would tip over in my heels.  It’s smooth. Shelly, is smooth…Shelly is the name I’ve been calling my ass since early 2000s.  I love my ass. People are out here buying and dying for asses….i have an ass. And I think it’s a nice ass and sometimes, I bounce it in the mirror to see if it will still pop the way it did when I was in my 20s.

It does.

For the most part.

But my ass is just an ass and doesn’t and has never defined me. It is behind me, so that alone lets you know it has no bearing on my future, yet it has dick-tated almost every man I have met. And for this, I have cried. I have cried because I can’t and won’t have children, but I really don’t want one beyond the age of 3, so it works in the grand scheme of things. I have cried because I don’t get attention. I have cried because the attention I get is all wrong.  I have cried because I wanted to be dated, I wanted someone to surprise me with things they know I would love,

I’ve wanted someone who WANTED to see me smile so badly, that they made it happen.

And I don’t have that. And haven’t had it. And I’ve cried because of that reason, MANY times.

I don’t pray for a man. I have never been that person. I just think of all the things I could and should be praying for, a man is not one of them. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it’s just not my cup of prayer-tea. I have prayed to be open, to be optimistic, to be ready….but never FOR a man to touch down. I don’t see that changing.

But I have cried about it to God.

I go home to the silence of my house and love it more often than not. But there are days, like the two that recently passed by, that I want someone to text me. To be excited to talk to me. And it not be like everybody else. That I know I am different and special and on another playing field than EVERYONE else. I want to FEEL.

I haven’t felt.

I want to LOVE.

I’ve only loved projections.

I want affection.

I’ve only given it.

I want to giggle and be tickled and laugh and write love poems again and have heart eyes and all that stuff…….

But you know what…..

One year later,

I don’t believe any of that is for me. I’ve toggled w/the idea that I’m not meant for companionship and sometimes it’s hard for me to believe and accept, but most times…I would say about 90% of the time, I just don’t believe it. I don’t believe that wedding will come. Or that honeymoon. Or those feelings. Or that happiness. I can see myself standing on a cliff nearest water crashes, but I see it alone. Not w/my husband and a pastor and a witness or  two. I feel like it’s just me.

And that hurts. It will hurt forever. It will always hurt me, to the earthly core of my body that i feel this way. That all that I am is for no one else.

I see the way men look at me and these days, if they are not giving me the salacious, salivating look, it’s so neutral, I could drive through a carwash with it. I wonder sometimes if the man looking at me, whomever he is at the moment, thinks I’m beautiful.

I still wonder these things. I still wonder will anyone ever see my light, and it still hurts that no one ever has and that I feel like no one ever will. I still continue to live my life tho. It’s still abundantly beautiful. I am confident in who I am and who I am becoming. I am proud of all I have survived and lived through. I know that if anyone were to ever catch me for real,

It would be the best catch of their lifetime.  I know, for a fact, that even in all my flaws, I am a beautifully created good woman. A Very Good woman. I have raised kids that weren’t mine, I’ve hidden guns, kept guns, hell put my fucking fingerprints on guns, I have been ready to fight, to tear up and to go to war for my man. I have written him to life in poems. I have sung him to sleep when he was sick. I have pushed is back until he stood back up and I have been at his side for every single thing that ever happens, good, bad and indifferent. I have taught myself how to be a top chef and I am sexually uninhibited. I am smart and I love who I love with all the love I have. I know for a fact that I am a good woman. I don’t desire to punish anyone for what others have done. I only seek to spend days patrolling the growing towers of love between two people.  I know I am a good woman. I know I have growing to do. But I am a damn good woman dammit. And it saddens me sometimes, still, that I spend all this good alone.

I get mad and angry. I  get angry with God to be exact. He knows.  I consider him unfairly creating me. Why would you create someone who was NOT designed to live life with another person? Why am I so in love with love? Why me? Why my forever tears?????? On songs. …. I have cried. “Mirror” by Justin, Latch Acoustic by Sam Smith along with Make it To Me…..Poetry by Tamia…..i have cried uncontrollably knowing that I don’t think I will EVER feel these things.

* tears *

See. I’m still hurting internally. I still feel them. The failure of them all.

One year ago,

I released the first blog of this series.  I was hurting. I was mortified by my hurt. By the fact that a man would come into my life and have every possibly opportunity NOT to hurt me and did just that. So I decided to channel that pain and hope to heal through this blog where I would not only talk about him, but I would talk about them all. I have gone through ups and downs, ins and outs of my dating life here. It’s been funny at times and often sad.

It has all had purpose to heal me, once and for all. To sweep up and out what the Only the Brave show didn’t get rid of. It has done just that in so many ways. I have watched it grow, I have watched the readers leave comments to my hearts delight and the number counts go up. This blog has allowed me the opportunity to purge feelings that would otherwise still be within me. Each one was written as spontaneously as they appeared.  Each one gave me life in some way or another.

And now here I am one year later.

I don’t cry as much anymore, but I still do from time to time. I don’t really want a relationship right now at all to be honest.

But I ABHOR the feelings of not being WANTED or DESIRED. …for my mind.

I know I rock. I do. 

I promise you that much. I know that any man should be proud to be chosen by me. Through this blog I have learned lots about the prey and the hunter shit. They say men are the choosers, but we women have responsibility in choosing as well. Folks act like we just sit back and look pretty until someone deems us great enough to go with his flow, but the truth is, everybody is choosing.

The ones I have chosen to allow to entertain me have been duds. Remember that one WB cartoon, I can’t remember which one it was, but the character was always hitting on bullets that were marked DUD. I never fucking knew what the point of it was. Eventually I learned.

I have hit duds with my choosey finger. And each time I got away with marks and bruises but still alive. But the last time, it blew up.

I barely escaped with mental life. It collapsed me. The hurt itself collapsed me. This blog is literally me rising, inch by inch by inch with each posting. Today, I stand straight up. Sometimes, I do get those feelings of wanting to be wanted and every now and again (def not like it used to be), I cry. But for the most part, I stand up straight in high heels and I smoke a black and mild while looking out my windows. I’m happy. I am. I have an internal joy that combats and beats out the tears that want to flow due to be being all by myself.  I have managed to regain control of the emotions that had scattered all of the place and were ready for war. I don’t troll twitter or Instagram and look for signs that the last person who hurt me is now hurting. I stopped doing that but it took a long time. I waited so impatiently to be properly front row seated to watch his misery. Misery indeed DOES love company. I tried to get him to be mine. I don’t dream about him anymore, nor do I see his name daily, EVERYWHERE, anymore. Sheeeeeeeeeeesh, I made it yaw. If I haven’t done anything else with this time or this blog, I healed from that non-relationship.

I don’t feel him or smell him or even think about him without being ‘triggered’.

I don’t want to tear my ears off from hearing Justin Timberlake anymore, but I know I will never get Stankonia back again. I have reclaimed my right to hear love music and love it for music and not cry about my life that lacks love.

I have healed from #MuseWeasel. 

But I am still working on healing from all of them as a whole. The damage is done. It’s repairable tho. And I’m still working, daily, constantly, battling sometimes and breezing by other times, to not be irreparably broken by niggashit.

I can listen to John Legend’s “I love, you Love’ and not feel like my life is falling apart, lololol. I’m still coming back, but I am back from a dark place. There’s work left, so the blog continues and the road to my first best seller continues right here. I thank you for taking this journey with me. I think I said that earlier. Now you should know it’s real ;) 

I will, in the future postings (this one not really included), edit !!!! I will definitely start editing, which is something I have not done in the past. Misspellings and misplaced words and sentences that flow well or are incomplete have been apart of this blog so as to show the raw emotion behind my blogging.  Now, I will change that. I will edit and clean the blogs up moving forwards. Hey, this is a book. So it has to be clean. But that’s it. Spell checking and sentence checking…..content is exactly what the content is. This is not your Christian Singles network blog. But God don’t love me no less. I don’t love God any less either. And I’m not mad at God. I hurt to God and hope that S(H)e hears my cry like a roll of thunder.

I don’t know if I will EVER share my life with someone. Like I said, I don’t believe I will. But I don’t count it out. I just don’t count it.

 I count the mile marker signs instead.  There’s a lot of living left to do.