Day 2: Write a Letter to Your Crush

This is an engaging task. When I like, I like hard, I get hurt and it seems like forever before I let go. I'm an Empath, a romantic, one with such a nostalgic flair but -what can I say?- I'm a passionate person.

If it were supposed to feel good, they wouldn't call it a crush. - Author Unknown

Dear Friend,

For much of our relationship, you've seemed most like a foe, this evil thing inside of me or perched on my left shoulder waiting for me to make a wrong turn. I hurt for you, an unyielding, smoldering hurt for you like a child who knows all the answers but was instructed by the teacher to sit still and say nothing. Maybe it's frustration, but it's useless in the end because it won't lead to instant gratification. I think that's what you meant.

Don't ask me to remember how it started, or where. What matters is that we were in college. My feelings for you came as quickly as a 16-year-old boy who had sex for the first time. Like me, they were innocent, naive. You were handsome and charming and intriguing. Even when I met the real you, you were handsome and charming and intriguing.

As the semesters rolled on you became beautiful and lucent and almost blinding to me. We spent a semester avoiding what I knew would happen anyway. You wanted to get in my panties, you wanted to feel the very thing that made me female and somehow claim it as your own. I will never understand conquests. Try as you might to convince me otherwise, I know that's what it was. But it's okay to admit that because I wanted to be conquered. Here I stood, all of 5'1" and here you were, 6'3" and stunningly slim. I wanted to be your Jane, your America, your prize.

I won't get too personal. This is not the time, nor the space, where I wish to air out my feelings. Like you said, we both have too much at stake to pursue the wavering promise of loving each other. Rather than say goodbye, we have always let the connection ebb and flow like a tide. It's best that way, although dissatisfying.

I also won't let this letter form the way all my writing does, with some altruistic stance and sentimental tug at the heartstrings. I think I felt for you stronger than you felt for me, but you also said that my perception of reality is skewed.

Thank you for physically being with me when you were. Thank you for being honest, being available, being yourself when you were.

Always,

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Day 1: Write a Letter to Your Best Friend

Dear Jasmine,

I'm a day late and a dollar short with this first letter, which is how our relationship has been for the last year-each having her own thing to do, never calling or coming to see each other until the climax has come and gone. I miss you.

When we were little children we would hug each other and hope and wish that somehow God would make us sisters. It wasn't good enough that were cousins; we needed more than flesh and blood to define us. We needed spirits and holy waters and whatever else that would make us closer. But despite the different sets of parents, genetic traits and birth years, I knew that God had put us together in this perfect little way that neither time nor last names could change.

I was wrong.

By the time we'd made it to high school everything had changed. You spent a lot of your summers in summer school; I stayed at the local library by choice. You were able to hold a steady boyfriend; I didn't keep one long enough for it to be interesting. I started having sex; you were still an innocent, "good" girl. But you have always been fearless, never afraid to be yourself, to love yourself, to be loved.

I tried to tell you when were 12 that Harry* was molesting me, but you were so wrapped up in the TV you didn't hear it. I made a plan then to leave whatever was happening in my mother's house behind and run for college with the fiercest wind beneath my wings. When I turned 18, I got the hell out that house. You were still in high school, had night classes and extra credits to complete because school was never easy for you.

I know that I broke our promises. I'm sorry that I moved to Atlanta and "forgot" about you. I didn't mean to turn my back on you, Jasmine. We had always dreamed of getting our apartment and having fabulous lives and finding love. We were going to get married to twins, live next door and have our children together. I know I broke our promises.

Isaiah was born January 30, 2010. You were the first person I'd told I was pregnant, first person who I told I wasn't ready to be a mother. You saw me 3 times during my pregnancy, and that was hard to bear.

Remember when were children? We did everything together. We dressed alike accidentally, liked the same songs, got our periods 2 months apart, and wore the same hairstyles. We spent the night together almost every night, shared the money I made from chores, helped each other sneak on the phone to talk to boyfriends... Is there anything we didn't do?

Looking back on the last 20 years, I realized that we really were sisters. I came to term with the fact that our paths were inevitably different because our parents' lives were. Time did to us what it always will to people, it changed our attitudes and our emotions. We have so much beneath the surface, too much to tell and share with the world but enough to have and hold in our hearts, forever.

I want to leave you with this. If ever life becomes too painful or too hard to bear, know that when you call or come running I'll be here waiting, with open arms. I didn't move to leave you Jasmine, I moved to lead you. To show you that there's more to our existence than the Flint River and Winn Dixie, more than broken wishes and false hopes for our generation. You are capable of the best. You deserve everything you've ever dreamed of; you're a kind and understanding person through and through.

I wove you widdle Jasmine.

Sincerely,

Court.

Anti-climactic, and unfinished.

I want to be your shoulder
More than just a sack of ribs and bones
And not your spine, to hold you up
or your elbow, to fall back on
But I want to be your shoulder
Your support

Kin to the softness of the dip in your neck
But hard enough to bear the weight of
the world when it saddles itself
on your back
I want to remove the daggers naysayers
chuck at your front and sides

Taking the 30-day Challenge

I ran across Bassey's blog again today, unintentionally. Thought this would be a great thing to do. Decided that I'd participate. (And for the record, I still don't think I'm emotionally/mentally well.) It seems like a daunting task, but if I can play with others' emotions and wellbeing, I can do this. if I can play with my own mental and physical health, I can do this. I need to do this. I need writing exercises that will build skill and I need to talk about my feelings because there's a lot I'm hiding inside.

The 30 Day Letter Challenge

WRITE A LETTER TO THESE PEOPLE :

Day 1 — Your Best Friend
Day 2 — Your Crush
Day 3 — Your parents
Day 4 — Your sibling (or closest relative)
Day 5 — Your dreams
Day 6 — A stranger
Day 7 — Your Ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush
Day 8 — Your favorite internet friend
Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet
Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to
Day 11 — A Deceased person you wish you could talk to
Day 12 — The person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain
Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you
Day 14 — Someone you’ve drifted away from
Day 15 — The person you miss the most
Day 16 — Someone that’s not in your state/country
Day 17 — Someone from your childhood
Day 18 — The person that you wish you could be
Day 19 — Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad
Day 20 — The one that broke your heart the hardest
Day 21 — Someone you judged by their first impression
Day 22 — Someone you want to give a second chance to
Day 23 — The last person you kissed
Day 24 — The person that gave you your favorite memory
Day 25 — The person you know that is going through the worst of times
Day 26 — The last person you made a pinky promise to
Day 27 — The friendliest person you knew for only one day
Day 28 — Someone that changed your life
Day 29 — The person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to
Day 30 — Your reflection in the mirror

Write: For Women Who Are Like Me

I would like to show gratitude to Kimberly N. Foster, founder of the digital magazine For Harriet, for her inspiration and support of my recently published article Who Will Cry for the Little Girl? The encouraging words from fellow bloggers GG (of PLPT) and Bethy Pierre that appeared as comments on my WordPress site were light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Although I am sure the path of freelance journalism is for me, I am sometimes discouraged in my pursuit of professional happiness. Seeing other women pursue their passions motivates me to follow my dreams fearlessly. Thank you all dearly.

Why For Colored Girls Wasn't For Me

Twitter Ramble: 12/23 - 12/26

Finally watched For Colored Girls. Wanted to post but haven't used my time to sit down and work the words into comprehensible order. I used Twitter as a digital notepad (what a treasure indeed!). Needed to remember these things.

This movie is literally making me cringe. It's like a horror movie. The cryptic beauty of opera juxtaposed with the ruthlessness of rape.

I feel as if this piece is going to put me in a negative space. It must be written.

My attempt at writing about personal struggles with intimacy has become a character analysis of Thandie Newton's role in #FCG. Go figure.

IMO, Thandie's character (like others) is underdeveloped. All we are presented with is a foul-mouthed, flirtatious whore. No depth.

I hope to gain insight into the causes of my own debauchery while critiquing this movie.

I should be thinking this hard about a Tyler Perry film. I should. Black snobs aren't going to see cinemas; they're on Broadway, at operas.