Intimacy....does it live in me?

They say that your childhood can determine the kind of person you will become, and effect you in many ways even throughout your adulthood. Whether you believe it or not, it has held true for me. I don't remember feeling loved, appreciated, or valued as I was growing up. I don't remember receiving hugs and kisses from my mother. I don't remember her telling me that she loved me before I went to bed at night. Im not saying that it never happened, but it obviously wasn't often enough because I have no recollection of it at all. To me intimacy means the ability to give your whole self to someone else, to allow someone to truly see who you are on the inside. It also means truly opening yourself up in order for someone to unconditionally love you, and not for who you pretend to be but for who you truly are. In actions we as humans show it in a hug, kiss, cuddle, saying I love you, and the act of sex. I feel anxious, nervous, and afraid when I do any of these things. It took me until the age of 22 to get used to hugging other people. To this day it still isn't a natural thing to say I love You to my mother. I have come to have negative feeling to saying it specifically to her because the only time she tells me that she loves me is when she is drunk. I tried to investigate within myself why that bothers me so, and it is simply because a part of me doesn't believe her when she says it. I mean I guess the practical part of me knows that she loves me because I am her child. But the part of me that is intouch with reality knows that she doesn't really love ME. She doesn't know who I truly am. Our mother daughter relationship is missing so many things that a good one should have, intimacy, understanding, unconditional love, and most of all honesty. I don't share many things that are of importance to me with her. You may think that is wrong, but I had to learn to protect myself. I had given so much of myself to her, praying for her to see me, for her to accept that we are different, for her to respect my opinion, but that has never happened. There is a extremely large part of me that longs for all of these things: hugs, kisses, cuddeling etc. I long for it everyday, my soul craves it, desires it every minute of everyday of my life. I no longer want to be afraid to hug someone, or to allow them to touch me. I want to be freed of this jail cell, to release the chains. I don't pray for a good man, a new car, or even a million dollars. I pray at night for something worth so much more. I pray for intimacy. I pray for the day that someone will truly, truly see me, and love me just the same.
Amen....

Drugs OVER your children

It seems like all of my blogs so far have come due to watching some show. Todays show was Celebrity Rehab. I think a lot of people know that Frankie is Keisha Cole's mother and that she was a drug addict and alcoholic. She always gets angry whenever her kids lash out at her for her not being there and essentially choosing to get high over her responsibility as a parent. Anyone that knows me, knows that I am the daughter of parents that are addicts. My father at some point was addicted to dope. To my knowledge he has been clean for years now. When I was 2 years old I guess my mother got tired of all the drugs, gambling, and women on the side- so she left my father and took me to Florida. I lived with her in Florida until I was about 9 or 10. Then we moved back to Cleveland. I finally got to meet my father and other family when I was 10. He was still addicted at that point and was in and out of jail. I didn't personally experience much of his addiction, I just remember him being in and out of jail. Even though I didnt feel the full effects of his crack addiction, I knew what it looked like, because for about 2 years up until then my mother became an addict as well. I knew what the facial expression of a person that was loaded looked like, the gloss effect on the pupils, the constant twitching and inability to sit still. I knew when my mother was holding crack in her hand because she always kept it clenched tightly. I knew the smell, I knew what a pipe looked like. All of this I knew since the age of 9. I remember it still till this day, they won't leave my memory. I had to listen to murmors of my own family, telling me my mother was a crackhead. I remember sitting in the dark, or being bundeled up in multiple blankets because the lights or gas were cut off. My mother was married at this time to a man that I never loved, or would even shed a tear for if he died. I don't hate him, Iv'e learned how to forgive him, but that doesn't mean that I have to like him. I was told everyday that I wasn't going to amount to anything, that my father didn't want me, that I was a waste, that my life was pointless, that I was less than his biological son. Everyday, everyday of my life this is what I was told by a man that married my crack addicted mother. I instantly took on these things that he said to me, believing it was true. Believing that those things were me. It took me till the age of 21 to start to forgive my parents, and my mothers husband, also to forgive myself. Parents are supposed to be there to protect their seed, to provide for them, to keep them safe. Safe, I can never remember feeling safe. I don't remember joy, smiles, laughs, or love. I don't remember any of that in my childhood. My parents failed me, they left me to raise myself. They left me in the care of people that didn't care about me. They put me in harms way, walking to go with my mother for a 10 dollar rock, in and out crack houses. As a child I interpreted this as if no one loved me. Was I right? I think it may have been that they didnt love themselves- so what did they have to give to me. Hugs, to this day to hug someone gives me a certain level of anxiety. I didn't know affection, I didn't get hugs and kisses. I wasn't told "I love you". Those words mean so much to me now. There is a void, and I feel it everyday in my soul. Sometimes I feel like that same timid little girl who was always wishing for something- anything that showed me that someone somewhere loved me. Loved me for who I was, not for what I can do for them. Everyone demanded so much from me, wanted me to be the adult, wanted me to mother my brothers. All the while all I ever wanted was to be a kid, to be free of worry, to not have to think about if my mother was going to overdose, If there would be dinner on the table, if the house would be cold. I cried so much as a child, thats what I remember most from my childhood years, not playing in the snow, not Christmas dinner, not my favorite baby doll. I remember crying.

Woman...confidence more than skin deep

Staring me up and down wondering why my confidence lies so deep
mean while im wondering why your superficial, shallow ways lie on the surface
my tongue may be sharp, but my demeanor remains cool
still got me on your mind even after im long gone
my scent leaving trails, sittin there dumb founded remanising on yesterday
thinking that Im easy like sunday morning, just because im thicker than most
I can guarantee that u aint neva met a woman like me
Smart, loving, compassionate, funny so little of the things i strive to be
Staring me up and down wondering why my confidence lies so deep
mean while im wondering why your superficial shallow ways lie on the surface

Broken Hearted Woman (Poem)

Just when I think im over it, ready to wash my hands of it all
a moment comes in hard and strong knocking me to my knees
Holding my joy hostage, cutting off the life I breathe
controlling the only thing I have left in my world
Fighting to the death to win this war, i cant loose, i know ill fall apart if i do
I need you to feel me, dont you see how much this is hurting me?
or do you even care?
Why did you return? I burried you tried to stiffle you with every bit of strength I had left
Is this what you wanted to see? I have nothing left to feed you with, u have it
Haunting me with it, flaunting it for all to see....Happiness was my most prized possession and you took it from me
What else is there left that you could possibly want?
I will gladly give you my sleepless nights, my red swolen eyes, my heartache....just take it, take it all!!
Are you happy now? you've done it....im broken, stripped of everything
Everything, everything, you have everything.

Sincerely a broken hearted woman

Fatherless Men

Well this is my first official blog. I was watching a show on VH1 starring T.I (Storytellers). Tip begins to explain the inspiration behind his multiple hits. So he performs "Dead and Gone" ft. Justin Timberlake, and I can feel his pain, see the regret, and uncertainty in his eyes. Feel the sad energy through the television. He feels responsible for the death of his friend Phil. And I begin to think about what a heavy burden that must be to carry around in your spirit. Im from the hood, I was raised in the inner city in Cleveland, Ohio and every single day I see young men selling dope on the corner. I see single mothers pushing the strollers with their seed inside. I feel sad, sad and angry that this is a major issue of our people. I have 2 younger brothers, and neither of them have relationships with their fathers. They had to figure out on their own what it means to be a man. My youngest brother is in jail to this day and he is only 18 years of age. Everyday he was risking his freedom and life, for what? a 10 dollar rock, a nickle bag of weed. Something isn't adding up. Wake up black people! We are loosing our Kings and Queens. Their being replaced with no-good fathers, womanizers, jail birds, drug dealers, and bums. How many times do I have to walk over the cement that has a new name spray painted of the latest kid shot and killed? How many times do I have to read R.I.P on the side of some abandoned building. Dead beat fathers, how in the hell do you look in the eyes of your flesh and blood and deny them, how do you just walk away? Wtf is wrong with us? Maybe you know, because im at a loss. How do you walk away and leave your responsibilities, and leave people like me to mourn for this tragedy within or community. Im tired of carrying this shit, but I can't walk away even though you make it look so easy. Im scarred for the man that my brother will become, or won't become. All he knows is the ways of the hood, can he even imagine a life outside of it? I know i couldnt, I thought I would fall victim to it just like everyone else I knew. Waiting around for welfare checks, multiple kids by different fathers....this was the life I thought was predestined for me. It was all i saw, all I knew. Did our ancestors fight for our freedom just for us to put ourselves back in the handcuffs? I pray for the day that there is a day or reckoning, a day of change and realization. I pray.