SILENT GOOD-BYE

God please give me the strength to forget him.

It has only been a few weeks but I have stopped living. The nights are long and the days are even longer. Getting out of bed seems useless and I want to give up.

Recently I had made a huge move and it was all for positive reasons. I know everything happened for a reason but why did you bring him back into my life? With everything that was already going on, what was the purpose? When you took him away God, you took a part of me.

The moment he got off the plane, it was as if we picked up where we left off. Twenty thousand minutes spent on the phone, numerous emails and some plans were shared between us. Losing him (again) would be devastating and it was. I finally trusted someone again. Now, I'm left holding nothing except a bitter memory of how it ended. I had enough on my plate and this only added to everything. That is why I should have known better than to trust another man again. I always manage to pick the same ones of the the same nature.

What hurts even more is that I knew days before that something bad was going to happen. Sure enough, it did. I was in the living room painting my toe-nails before he arrived home one evening. The front door slammed, the TV flickered and I knew there was an entity of some kind trying to tell me something.

I have been having dreams about the kitchen and I don't know what it means. The sink is overflowing with water, there are mango's on the counter and a cassette tape falls from the desk. It's beyond weird. I have had the same dream over and over and that is why I don't want to sleep. I'm hoping that I will find some closure and soon because the dark circle's under my eyes are doing me no justice.

God, please hear my prayer tonight and touch him somehow, someway. We had some wonderful moments and I knew you had planned them all. I will never forget him and my heart will always have a connection even if his heart has dis-connected me. I know now that he never loved me but I don't ever want to give-back what we shared, even if it wasn't real. The song 'Whiskey Lullaby" came on the radio tonight and it made me think of him. I am missing him bad God, will this pain ever end? Tell him a silent good-bye for me. I pray that he will be erased from my memory tonight so that I can start living life again tomorrow.

SOUL WHISPERER

Was it a dream or did it really happen……?

His breath on my skin and his soul combined with mine. Not wanting the moment to end, I held on stronger and made love harder. Never did I ever believe in something so much. God had brought us back together and the faith of everything working out was never doubted. Twenty-thousand minutes, ear to ear and heart to heart, meant something didn’t it? The tears, the memories, the intimate conversations had to mean something right? Evidently not.

As the tears fall on my laptop I am left to believe that it meant nothing. The comfort of family and friends can only go so far. It is nights’ like this when I am forced to face the truth on my own. I don’t ever recall crying this much. What hurts even more is to think he doesn’t even care. If my pain could speak, then I would write a letter that I would never send.

I had a dream a few nights ago. I was washing dishes and the sink began to over-flow with water. The kitchen was symbolic somehow because there was this glow that lit up my dream. There were mango’s on the counter and I don’t recall even eating a mango since I was in my late 20’s. Water was everywhere and then I could hear a radio of a song I wrote 17 years ago. I looked over and saw a cassette fall into onto the floor into the water. It floated there for a second then disappeared, perhaps sinking into the inch of water that flooded the kitchen. The smell of chocolate and peanut butter filled the air as I was led into a bathroom by a spirit named, Elandro? That is the best I could make of it. The chill factor set in and I could literally see my breath. Looking in the mirror above the sink it read, “”Miss You”” in red but it was more of a shadow VS. a marker or pen. I looked over and into the tub. The tub was full of water and Rose petals. Like an idiot I walked over and reached in. Assuming something would pull me in and eat me alive, I was surprised to grab a bag. It was a satin pink purse/bag with a sealed zipper.

When I opened the bag, I found a silver coin, a piece of paper, a cigarette, a piece of gum, and a ring box. I started to become restless. I turned around and headed back towards the kitchen. Breathless I saw a picture fall off the wall in the living room. It was a clock and it read 5:23 then the room went dark. Breathing heavily I walked a few step further and was in another room. I knew this because I walked into the door opening. Then it a spotlight came on. It was shining on a man, kneeling over looking for something. The unknown male figure was on his hands and knees looking for a pin of somekind. Then he noticed me. I wanted to run but couldn’t. He walked over and opened my hand and put a penny in it. He said, “find a penny, pick it up for this is your true very love. “ Then he shouted, 48 and vanished.

Remember that this is a dream. I wrote down what I could remember. Everything was so vivid and life-like. Creepy but life-like. Before I finally woke up I heard a male voice saying,”Believe in the signs.” Then I woke up. That was it.

I am not sure what to make of everything but I believe that everything happens for a reason. Even though I was frightened, I refer to the spirit-dream-person as my soul whisperer. I can’t conclude this because I am still trying to make sense of it myself.

BROKEN SHELLS

His memories washed over me, like waves rolling up onto shore, leaving behind debris. Broken pieces of the past tangled in the seaweed and imbedded sea-shells in the sand. The footprints left behind me reminded me of his spirit although I was the one left behind. There was no one to carry me except for my belief that the Lord did not leave me alone while I was walking.

For when the waters were calm and the sunsets were breath-taking, there was not a threat of destruction that ever crossed my mind, that is until it happened. Not being prepared left a traumatic imprint in my heart like the ink of a tattoo. Nothing could ever remove what had been burned and branded into my skin.

Conversations from previous moments are like recordings programmed on repeat, playing over and over in my head. There is no erase button and the batteries in the mental radio will last a lifetime. It is torture having to hear all the promises, lies and decoyed emotion like a twisted nursery rhyme sang to a child in f#.

Once upon a time, not to long ago there was a pile of sea shells left behind by an unknown person on a park bench. I picked up on shell at a time, examining each one closely and making sure the sand-dollar imprint was undisturbed. I chose a few that seemed perfect leaving behind the “not-so perfect” ones.

Like a broken sand-dollar, sometimes a persons design is chipped, broken and missing part of the symbol. However, that doesn’t leave person permanently damaged. No one knows how the shell was broken or even where the shell first started from.

Broken and not-so perfect was my judgement deficiency that left me like an object of “pick and choose.” My imperfections seemed fix-able and were repaired with edible plaster by amateur construction workers. All the major renovations could have been avoided just by using a simple band-aid.

You can’t read a book by its cover nor can you tell where a shell washed up from. Many will try to assume but no one will ever truly know.

Whether the shell was washed up on shore traveling from the French Caribbean or project waters of Africa wherever it ends up, it has a brand new beginning. It doesn’t matter were it started from or how many times it was tossed back into the ocean. The precise map of the journey will never be known and the story will be left untold until someone who lived the experience can tell it.

Like an old woman in her rocking-chair, there will always be memories to speak of. Then one day she will pull a sea-shell out of here pocket and speak of its’ journey’s. “I was once like this sand-dollar. I was broken and incomplete and no one wants a broken one. When a woman’s heart has been broken she is forever damaged.” The old woman would say. “But for every hand that has held me, looked me over and then threw me back has left a marking of some-kind. The person has touched my life somehow and even though I was only held for a moment? The optical thought of being kept and cherished by someone who showed some interest even for a little while, will last for an eternity. While looking at the broken shell in her hand she says, When the time is right, God will send 'ME' a whole one.”

DISTURBING PREDICTION

As I lie there in bed, I could hear my thoughts thinking. Unexplained emotion flowed through me, like anti-freeze through a 1957 Chevy radiator. The wheels in my mind were turning and my gut-instinct left a horrible taste in my mouth. Mentally inflicted assumptions that were supported by interaction and intent. My fears printed like letter-press and my curiosity left written in incomplete paragraphs.

Like red lipstick on a lapel, my intuition was evident. Prudential misconception, representing protocol, comparable to a secret government. The closed cases and empty files that have been collecting dust for years, were re-opened. An "UNSOLVED CASE" stamped on every piece of paper, stained with crusted coffee from all the previous readers. It was like the EX-files being resurrected from the dead.

After re-evaluating the visual exhibits in my own memory, there was a freezing draft that entered the room. Like an apparition passing through a living body, I could sense a ghostly presence and I knew something wasn't right. Biting my bottom lip, I held my breath for a few seconds. I closed my eyes while slowly breathing out a little air at a time. I was aware of everything. The case had been closed for a second time and rather quickly for never having a cross examination or a fair pre-trial. Restrained immediately by handcuffs on my wrists, I could feel my circulation being cut off. Taken out by a landslide, my promising witness deceased, and my mortal accomplice drove off with my heart.

Like being stabbed by a pitch-fork, everything inside of me was quickly dripping out like water through a faucet. Like remains of road-kill on a freeway,pieces of my corpse would soon be prey for passing predators. Some would stop and continue moving on, while some would anxiously devour what body parts remained. The crime scene forever an unsolved mystery.

Never under-estimate intuition, that gut-feeling that often is ignored. It is never wrong and humanly accurate. Like a mother wolverine to her kit, she can sense when something tragic has happened to her young.

I rose from my bed and walked over slowly to my dresser. I knew it was time to surrender what I loved. My tears fell like confetti as I put a picture of what was lost in the top drawer. The vacant spot where the picture use to be, was now like a hole dug in my soul. My acceptance like a shovel, buried the validated evidence. There was no more suffering because my disturbing prediction had been laid to rest and now it was time to mourn.

Inner peace

ECCLESIASTES 3

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

4: A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance.

6: A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep , and a time to cast away.

Life isn’t always fair but there are lessons to learn and applying them in the future is what matters. It is an endless journey into the unknown that can lead someone into the oddest places. After everything that has happened, I have left everything in God’s hands. Everything still hurts, but the voice of reason is loud and clear. I can look in the mirror and be thankful that I have changed over the years.

I no longer complain, I fix what I can.

I no longer hate, I pray for people.

I no longer expect something, I just wait.

I don’t assume, I ask.

I have faith, I believe.

Even though my world has been torn apart, there is something different this time. There is an inner-peace that I have never felt before. Never.

A sudden epiphany struck me today while I was in line at Walmart. A person can only do so much and even if they don’t win every battle, at least if they gave their all... Then that is all that matters.

It’s not always about getting everything you want, sometimes you have to be happy with what you already have. My angel is watching over me and I can feel her wings around me now….

Truly defined love

Where do you draw the line when it comes to love and fighting for what you believe in?

Loving someone can be wonderful and painful all at the same time. Coming from a woman who has had her share of heartbreaks, I must admit that it is easy for my insecurities to get the best of me. I always managed to choose the same type of man. No man has ever stepped up to the plate to swing when it came to proving their love for me. They were only interested in running the bases to get what they wanted.

No one wants to feel unloved or un-special. It is a horrible and dreadful feeling that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Tears were running down my face while I was driving home. There were no texts or missed phone calls the entire trip and it felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest, one artery at a time.

It is understandable that things don’t always go as planned but it is not right to have to feel left out in the cold.

I believe that when a man loves a woman he defends her. When you love someone you fight for them. After all isn’t true love worth fighting for? The victories are substituted with anniversaries and the gold star says,’we made it and we did it together.’ She is his princess and he is her soldier. Together everything is meant to be where it is.

Perhaps I ask for to much to want to feel important to someone. Perhaps, I settle for any form of affection that I can get. I re-play everything over and over in my mind wondering if I should have chose option B instead choosing A. I guess I will never know.

All I know is that I am not perfect but who the hell is. People love to talk about me but they know nothing. If someone attacks me, I attack back. I don’t put up with bullshit anymore. I can’t undo the past but I am on a promising path finally. This path doesn’t have as many potholes and speed-bumps like the path before.

Although I have learned to be alone, I have tasted love and I have felt love in the past few months. I worked my way into a comfort zone that I felt safe in. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Now my heart is open, attached and un-guarded. Maybe it's the way he touches me or the way he looks at me. I believe in my heart that everything he has told me has been true and genuine.

Therefore, I have no regrets. At least now I have wonderful memories that can make me smile and cry. Love has been truly defined in my life and even if it doesn’t last forever, at least I had the opportunity to explore a feeling a have never known before.

Only time will tell.

Angel In Stiletto's

Although I am not ashamed of my past, I do find that it haunts me on certain occasions. Many people have stereo-typed me and many people have commended me on my well known profession. At the time of my decision to become an exotic dancer, I was raising two babies on my own. My parents helped but at the same time they put a constant pressure on me to have a new car, a nice place, and to keep up with the "Jones." Anything I purchased had to pass my father's approval. As much as he hated me buying a 2000 Mustang, he sure didn't mind taking it for break-checks around the neighborhood, (twice).

What many people fail to realize, especially those who have never lived in the business, is that Stripper's, dancers, whatever, are people too. Society has degraded those who have only braved the unknown and who have survived what many people couldn't. I admit that some of my well known friends have gone over board with the implants, lipo-suction, and tanning beds but that is still no excuse for the hurtful feedback many dancers have put up with.

I remember my 1st audition back in 2000. I never saw a pole and I sure in the hell didn't know how to appeal to the audience of males that were there to watch beautiful women. To my surprise, I was hired but told to lose some weight and tan my stretch-marks. After 2 weeks of bruises, swollen feet and crazy 15 hour days, I managed to start making about $100 a day after a $20 stage fee. I remember going home with $32 dollars one night.

A few more weeks later I began to drink and mingle more with the men that came through the club. Dancing to 3 song sets, every hour or so help me shed the pounds revealing curves I never even found with "Sweatin to the oldies." My earnings went up to about $250 a day after stage fee. My earnings became more steady and I then moved to my own place after staying with my parents for those beginning weeks. I was bringing in about $800 a week after day care and only working 4 days, 11 a.m to 8 p.m. My parents both believed I was a cocktail waitress.

After I was established in my own place in 2002, my parents were over all the time visiting the kids or taking the kids if I had to work. I made my own days and hours so everyone was happy at the time. No one in my family put two and two together. I guess my 64" screen TV, 3 new furniture sets and unlimited cash didn't give me away. Not to mention I made over 3 grand in purchases over 2 weeks.

It was however, unfortunate that I met my youngest baby's father through my 2002 move. One thing led to another after he pursued me with flowers, tequila, and visiting me at my work. A few months later I was pregnant by a man who claimed to be sterile. I am thankful for my son but God, that man has it out for all woman kind. I will never regret my son, but as far as my ex? Catching a rare STD would have been more reasonable than what that man is putting me though now. I will leave it at that.

So after my youngest son was 4 months old, I was in the best shape ever weighing in at 105 pounds. It was now 2003 and I decided to give up dancing while maintaining: $325 daycare a week, $690 in car payments, $895 in rent, $450 in diapers, formula-kids needs, $140 utilities,$350 plus for food and what $150 or so on a $14 an hour job. My outgoing was almost 4 grand on two incomes. between me and my ex. Working the 9 to 5 job was not cutting it and in order to get out of debt I decided to return to the pole. Everyone was in favor at the time.

So I quit the day job. I worked 4 Sundays a month for only 5-8 hours (28 hours a month or so) making about $3500 dancing. Everyone was happy or so I thought. One break-up and one divorce later I was in the worst emotional mess ever. In 2005 I had money and 3 kids to support but I was completely on my own. My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer that December and died in November 2006. My 2nd ex-husband also put me through a mental hell by playing games and lying to his family that he was still involved with me during and after our divorce in 2005. I believe he was a spy for my ex during the next 4 years. We broke contact as-called-friends friends in January 2010. As the least the phone records say so.

To make a long story short I never found my fairytale being a dancer. About ten years later am struggling with my decision from ten years prior. I have raised 3 kids by doing what I did and now I paying the price for being able to learn that dam pole. There are also long-term affects that come along with my past not to mention the back-stabbers who are out for my blood and the money I no longer make.

It is now 2010, and after two repeated attempts at love in the past 3 years, I have found that both men have only viewed me as a sex object. I am not a fantasy. I am real person with feelings and I know how to take care of a household. Apparently, for every dollar I made in my past there was a heart-ache to pay in my future. It wasn't my soul I sacrificed, it was a promise for a stable future for me and my kids. My happy-ever-after was a sacrificial-curse because no one wants to marry and ANGEL IN STILETTO'S. I will never know what it's like to have a husband who loves me or to have a real family who gives a dam about me. Everything I wrote tonight is just a rough-draft of what I have encountered through-out the past 10 years. And to think, I never even stepped foot in a strip club before 1999.

I love you.......

So many years have passed since I last held you in my arms. Although many years have passed, it feels like only a moment has passed. When your lips kissed mine it was like an instant flashback of everything we ever were together.

I loved you then and till this day I feel that my love was dormant and waiting for your return. Now that you are back, I never want to lose you again for losing you again would be forever devastating. My heart would never recover and my spirit would be empty. There are so many things I want to tell you but it seems that I can't find the proper words that could describe what I am feeling. When you touch me, I can feel your love. When you look at me, I see your love. When you kiss me, I can taste your love. When we make love, I am a part of you and you a part of me. I never believed in anything so much until you told me you loved me again. I know it's real.

When I woke up this morning I reached over to touch you but you weren't there. I almost wanted to cry so I rolled over on my side and held my pillow. I closed my eyes and I could feel the imprint of your lips kissing my neck. I could feel your hands caressing my back, down my arms and up to my neck. I must admit that I have never felt like this before. Wait yes I have. I felt this way 17 years ago. We were just kids but I knew it was real. I remember kissing you good-bye at the airport and I never saw you again. My heart was broken. My mother comforted me and said, "if you love him set him free, if he comes back it was meant to be." Sadly, I set you free. Every time the phone rang I hoped it was you. Every time the mailman came by I hoped for a letter. But either of the two ever happened. I cried myself to sleep every night for at least 6 months.

17 years later, you returned. I finally was able to tell you how I felt. I fell in love all over again with you or perhaps I never fell out of love. Whatever the case may be, you are here now and I love you. No matter what tomorrow holds or wherever life may lead us, I want you to know how much you mean to me. I love you with all my heart and I cherish you always......................