Photo: Writing Binder

This binder contains about three years of writing. I love to write my poems by hand first and then transfer them to the computer. There's something about the art of writing, drafting, and revising that the computer can't quite do! I literally sleep with it next to me every night, just in case some brilliant thought pops into my head! This particular piece is the draft of my most viewed poem, "The Morning After!" (There is another page I used as well!) Just thought I'd share that with you all.

Happy Writing!

Jay

P.S. If you want to read/watch "The Morning After," check out the left hand column of my blog. My most-viewed poems are listed there, and this one is the first!

Coffee Shop Blues

We meet at our usual spot again--
completely secluded from the rest of the world.
And time.
We fill up each other's mugs with laughter,
toast to carefree evenings,
drink the day away,
get high off of nostalgia,
sit in silence and stare in each other's eyes.
I'm afraid to admit that I'm falling more and more in love with you
so when you ask why I'm staring I shake my head
and take another sip,
turning my attention to the spilled reflection of the sunset into the lake.
How beautiful.
I do mean you too.
We wrap ourselves up into each other and kiss away bad yesterdays
for this moment here is all that really matters.
When it's closing time, I'm simply overwhelmed with sadness
that time wouldn't permit us another cup.

Can't we always live in this world and just call it ours?

Haunted

When night comes and nothing but the soft, evening breeze fills my ears,
I can hear him coming.
I avert my eyes away from the door--
I know he is standing there.
Please, I plead, just go.
He doesn't say a word but continues to just--stand there. Waiting.
If I pretend he isn't there and fall asleep somehow he will enter my dreams and I'm awake again.
Other times he'll lie right next to me and then I can't sleep.
One night I asked him, What do you want from me? and he unpacked all of which I had stored away--
and I wept. Hysterically. Quietly. 
How could you be so cruel? To me?
He won't leave, and I don't know how to make him stay away.
But every night.
Every. 
Single.
Night.
He's there.
At my door.
Waiting.
I don't know what to do with him. Would you like an invitation to bother my spirit some more?
To interrupt my mind once again?
To cause more damage and then leave?
Nothing.
No response. 
During the day he's gone and I can finally sleep.
But I dread nighttime because I know
he'll be here once again.

When I Was a Little Girl

When I was a little girl I wanted to be beautiful.

I wanted long, silky hair that grew down my back. 
I wanted to paint my face like the women in Ma's Black Hair magazines. 
I wanted to "smize" the way Tyra Banks taught her aspiring models. 
I wanted to stop traffic and turn heads by simply walking like Marilyn Monroe in her movies, 
with her shoulders tucked back and her head held high and the way her hips would swivel. 
I wanted a man to fall in love with my eyes, 
because they were the only things on the outside of me that could never tell a lie and when he did, 
I would know that he was okay with who I was. 
And once he discovered my truth, he would think I was even more beautiful 
and love me even more.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be loved, too.

Not like the cliched lie Disney told,
where a perfect princess in an unfortunate circumstance is rescued by a charming prince
whom she never met before and fall absolutely in love and live

happily. ever. after.

I wanted him to stay long enough and dig behind the makeup, the laughter, the smile
and to find my nakedness enchanting and captivating.
I could stand before him with puffy eyes filled with tears and my heart on my sleeve--
and he wouldn't run away.
He'd find me even more beautiful than before.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be beautiful enough to be truly loved.

In Memoriam: Marilyn Monroe wrote poetry, too!

Today marks the anniversary of the sudden death of Hollywood actress, Marilyn Monroe. Many of you know that I am obsessed with her! I've watched several documentaries about her and even some of her movies. I learned so much and have come to really appreciate her. She took the art of acting very seriously and did her best and beyond to perfect her work. She is truly an inspiration. When I found out that she also wrote poetry, I was beyond ecstatic. According to immortalmarilyn.com, Norman Rosten wrote: "She would often hand me a scrap of paper with something written on it & ask, 'Do you think this is poetry? Keep it & let me know.' Or she'd send a scribbled sheet in the mail asking for criticism. I would always encourage her. The poems were, in the best sense, those of an amateur; that is, they pretended to be nothing more than an outburst of feeling, with little or no knowledge of the craft. But the poet within her - & one existed - found a form for her purpose." Here is one of her many poems. Rest in Peace, Ms. Monroe.

Life-
I am of both your directions
Existing more with the cold frost
Strong as a cobweb in the wind
Hanging downward the most
Somehow remaining
those beaded rays have the colours
I've seen in paintings-ah life
they have cheated you
thinner than a cobweb's thread
sheerer than any-
but it did attach itself
and held fast in strong winds
and singed by the leaping hot fires
life-of which at singular times
I am both of your directions-
somehow I remain hanging downward 
the most
as both of your directions pull me.

Photo: A Dedication

Last Poem (Lyrics Medley)

I don't think I could keep writing you into poetry anymore...you've lost the privilege to have such recognition. And my heart wishes it hadn't come to this. I've been writing to resurrect you to no avail.

I'm so tired of all the love wounds.
Loving you is like running, like I'm chasing down a loving and there's no finish line in sight.
I would have gone to the ends of the Earth for you even though you didn't ask me to just to make you feel my love.
I would have rather gone through storms with you 
than be enamored of someone else
but my heart can't take any more of you and I'm simply just getting used to you no longer being here.
I let my heart take its chances just to be loved by you 
but now you're gone and I'm missing you when I really shouldn't have to...why do you choose to be incapable of loving me too?

I remember when you filled my heart with joy
I was so mesmerized by the shape of your eyes and the bass in your laugh and the way you saw me, I've been lost in you...you don't see me anymore.
You've so easily set me aside. I've come to the dark realization that I can never touch you again when I had to ask for permission to place my hand on your cheek...someone else has been there, too, it seems.
And I've cried.
I have lain in soaked bed sheets for over a year, hoping they'd create tracks to help you find your way back to me.
My heart and my mind have been in constant battle
It kills me to know how much I really love you and you play it so cool, I can't tell anymore if you love me still.
You said you 'd always be there for me and that things would be okay...I waited for you, but you never showed. 

I've taken everything that is you and your poems too and buried them deep deep inside of me because I've given up this fight so when night comes I'll slip away so that I'll just be a dream you remember when you wake up in the morning but then will eventually forget. 

You're the one that I love, and I'm saying goodbye.

(Featuring lyrics from: Adele, Eric Benet, Anthony Hamilton, Jennifer Hudson, Melanie Fiona, Me'shell NdegeOcello, and A Great Big World.)