The window was open in the ballroom. Tickling the necks of onlookers, the breeze pushed her hair off her face.
As Prince Charming danced with his suitor, all of a sudden, the room stopped.
Unlocking the phony bond made between stranger’s hands, he let go of his suitor, and approaches his destiny.
“Dance with me,” he whispers in her ear.
They float. Snares and base drums were no match for the intensity their hearts. They dance.
“Kiss me?” he asked, “Midnight,” she replied.
When the song ended, he asked her name, “Cinderella,” she answered in a soft, yet matured, sound. “Cinderella, hunh? Sounds like we belong together.”
She giggled, and they talked for hours. Glancing down at her feet he saw clear slippers. Reminded of a story he heard his whole life, he asked, “Are you really thee Cinderella?”
Hope filled his eyes while he waited for her reply. “I…” she says, “Stop.” he interrupts her. He already knew, he had dreamed about this moment.
Running over to his father he expressed his joy. “Father, I know it is her, please tell me, am I right?”
“Yes.” answers the King, “But you have to make it through the end of the night.”
At the top of the steps entered another. Housing the grace of a horse past its prime, Prince Charming saw something different.
11:55. He wanted to get to know her. They talked.
11:56, 11:57, 11:58, 11:59.
Cinderella sat, looked on, still content. Another called her by her name, “Cinderella, kiss me.”
Midnight.
Hearing the loud interruption. The prince made haste to his feet. Dashing back to the place her left her, frantic, screaming for her. “Cinderella! Cinderella! I came back.”
Shocked, looking on in dismay, with another, Cinderella faded away.
Walking over to his son, the King asked, “How does it feel to know you had Cinderella, but could not wait until the end of the ball?”
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
I am...
Little girl is what they'll call you. But it is a woman who will respond.
Who gave a man a right to force a little girl to grow up? Remember, puberty won't let you keep believing in fairy tales, and once you realize that the boogie man is a man too, you're more afraid of the man than the boogie.
Sexual abuse involves two people whose lives will never be the same. The victim will always wonder what they did wrong. Was I too pretty? Did I smile too much? Should I have been like my sisters? He didn't do it to them.
What do you tell her, or him, to make them see past a momentary physical pain that torments, stalks and weighs on your heart, emotions and self-worth for what seems like forever.
You tell them to forgive.
What do you tell him, or her, who found themselves so weak, they they needed power of a child's body to validate their lack of self-worth. Searching for what they feel entitled to, they take control. In that ephemeral moment, they is no conscience, only desire followed by demise.
What do you tell him when he looks to another to find love and finds out that she felt the victimization of his lowest moment.
You tell him to forgive.
People who have forgiven themselves for their mistakes do not carry the burdens of what they've done. They are testaments that you can change your life.
You are not sexually abused, you were sexually abused. Then you were a victim today you are a victor.
And you are not a sexual abuser. That suggests that is all you are, and ever will be. Remind yourself of who you really are, outside of a moment when you were weak.
My attempt is not to take up for anyone who has sexually abused someone. I know that its pains are many. I am hoping that we will stop labeling people as they worst thing they have done
Who gave a man a right to force a little girl to grow up? Remember, puberty won't let you keep believing in fairy tales, and once you realize that the boogie man is a man too, you're more afraid of the man than the boogie.
Sexual abuse involves two people whose lives will never be the same. The victim will always wonder what they did wrong. Was I too pretty? Did I smile too much? Should I have been like my sisters? He didn't do it to them.
What do you tell her, or him, to make them see past a momentary physical pain that torments, stalks and weighs on your heart, emotions and self-worth for what seems like forever.
You tell them to forgive.
What do you tell him, or her, who found themselves so weak, they they needed power of a child's body to validate their lack of self-worth. Searching for what they feel entitled to, they take control. In that ephemeral moment, they is no conscience, only desire followed by demise.
What do you tell him when he looks to another to find love and finds out that she felt the victimization of his lowest moment.
You tell him to forgive.
People who have forgiven themselves for their mistakes do not carry the burdens of what they've done. They are testaments that you can change your life.
You are not sexually abused, you were sexually abused. Then you were a victim today you are a victor.
And you are not a sexual abuser. That suggests that is all you are, and ever will be. Remind yourself of who you really are, outside of a moment when you were weak.
My attempt is not to take up for anyone who has sexually abused someone. I know that its pains are many. I am hoping that we will stop labeling people as they worst thing they have done
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Blame Game
“Who else is gonna hire a man who went to jail for killing somebody; somebody you have to call to wake and pick up…nobody” J
Systems are not designed to fix the problems they create. So you create a new system to fix the old one. The lineage goes something like this:
The State begat the education system
The education system begat the jail system and GED programs
The jail system begat the prison system which had twins, welfare and child support
You could contest that order, and I could rearrange it but family is family and they all carry the same legacy: failing urban communities.
At the forefront of every media outlet is the failing school system. It’s supposed to prepare students for their next step in life, whether it’s further education or work. If they don’t get an adequate education life forces them to move on to the next step, unprepared.
So when Ray Ray and Nique Nique apply for jobs and school and are unsuccessful we blame them. In reality fault lies with a system that was designed to fail them. (Yes parenting and self-motivation play a part in this. We all know someone who overcame a bad public school education, but that’s why we call them overcomers.) When they have no money and nothing to do they run around committing petty crimes and conceiving kids who will be born into the same system.
The jail system and GED programs which are supposed to rehabilitate, teach lessons and provide second chances don’t. The teachers who work in GED programs are mostly retired public school teachers who came from the same system who failed these people in the beginning. They are trained to teach 12-year-old 7th graders not 30-year-old 7th graders.
If the State would have done its job the first time the Department of Human Services wouldn’t be overflowing.
It’s amazing that Michigan has such deep budget problems. If you spend the bulk of your money re-correcting the school system’s wrong you don’t have the money to fix it.
But states like Massachusetts and Connecticut are known for having great school systems and the largest populations of affluent resident.
It’s an old principle, if you get it right the first time you never have to do it again. Does this mean I’m saying if the state created a better educational system we could eliminate crime, not one hundred percent, but it’d be a heck a lot less.
I read it in Mrs. Swayne’s classroom when I was in the 6th grade on a red and yellow poster: Education is the key to life. Which makes lack of education….
Systems are not designed to fix the problems they create. So you create a new system to fix the old one. The lineage goes something like this:
The State begat the education system
The education system begat the jail system and GED programs
The jail system begat the prison system which had twins, welfare and child support
You could contest that order, and I could rearrange it but family is family and they all carry the same legacy: failing urban communities.
At the forefront of every media outlet is the failing school system. It’s supposed to prepare students for their next step in life, whether it’s further education or work. If they don’t get an adequate education life forces them to move on to the next step, unprepared.
So when Ray Ray and Nique Nique apply for jobs and school and are unsuccessful we blame them. In reality fault lies with a system that was designed to fail them. (Yes parenting and self-motivation play a part in this. We all know someone who overcame a bad public school education, but that’s why we call them overcomers.) When they have no money and nothing to do they run around committing petty crimes and conceiving kids who will be born into the same system.
The jail system and GED programs which are supposed to rehabilitate, teach lessons and provide second chances don’t. The teachers who work in GED programs are mostly retired public school teachers who came from the same system who failed these people in the beginning. They are trained to teach 12-year-old 7th graders not 30-year-old 7th graders.
If the State would have done its job the first time the Department of Human Services wouldn’t be overflowing.
It’s amazing that Michigan has such deep budget problems. If you spend the bulk of your money re-correcting the school system’s wrong you don’t have the money to fix it.
But states like Massachusetts and Connecticut are known for having great school systems and the largest populations of affluent resident.
It’s an old principle, if you get it right the first time you never have to do it again. Does this mean I’m saying if the state created a better educational system we could eliminate crime, not one hundred percent, but it’d be a heck a lot less.
I read it in Mrs. Swayne’s classroom when I was in the 6th grade on a red and yellow poster: Education is the key to life. Which makes lack of education….
Thursday, March 10, 2011
I'd Rather Be a ToysRUs kid...
I’m afraid that one day I won’t be who I am today. I get the privilege of talking with a lot of older people and hear them talk about how they had an elaborate plan when they were my age. And then they say the very thing I’m afraid of.
Life happened.
I know all too well how life can change your life. So ideally, I’d hope to plan for what life brings. But like the day when the principal called me into the office and I was shoved from foster home to foster home, life doesn’t knock, it already has a key.
Still, I’ll tell myself that I won’t make the mistakes of my mother. You would think her story is ideal. She had one love, my father. She’s been with him her whole life. All she has to show is 9 beautiful children, she didn’t raise and a life-long relationship of ups and downs that will probably end down.
Or your mistake, loving a man who makes you look happy on the surface but inside you’ve been so busy supporting him that he never really supported you. My condolences, I watched you dying to please him.
What girl doesn’t want a fairy tale life? But how many of us deserve it or could really handle it. I’ll say, I can, but I’m afraid that means that I actually can’t.
So today I’ll judge an older woman and say that she lost herself trying to find a man to love her while clutching my ID to my heart, hoping to never lose it.
But how do we know that we won't be one of those men or women who loses themselves in life. I could say, I'd never do that to my children, I'd never gain that much weight, I'm not like them...
they weren't always them.
Life is a journey, that I'm afraid of.But I guess if I get off track, how hard can it be to be me again.
Life happened.
I know all too well how life can change your life. So ideally, I’d hope to plan for what life brings. But like the day when the principal called me into the office and I was shoved from foster home to foster home, life doesn’t knock, it already has a key.
Still, I’ll tell myself that I won’t make the mistakes of my mother. You would think her story is ideal. She had one love, my father. She’s been with him her whole life. All she has to show is 9 beautiful children, she didn’t raise and a life-long relationship of ups and downs that will probably end down.
Or your mistake, loving a man who makes you look happy on the surface but inside you’ve been so busy supporting him that he never really supported you. My condolences, I watched you dying to please him.
What girl doesn’t want a fairy tale life? But how many of us deserve it or could really handle it. I’ll say, I can, but I’m afraid that means that I actually can’t.
So today I’ll judge an older woman and say that she lost herself trying to find a man to love her while clutching my ID to my heart, hoping to never lose it.
But how do we know that we won't be one of those men or women who loses themselves in life. I could say, I'd never do that to my children, I'd never gain that much weight, I'm not like them...
they weren't always them.
Life is a journey, that I'm afraid of.But I guess if I get off track, how hard can it be to be me again.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Who's That Girl
As women we constantly live in awe of each other. We compliment each other’s hair, outfits and the mole that sits above that woman’s lip. While we live in awe, we simultaneously live in fear, afraid that one day the mole that God strategically placed just above the curve of her lip will cause for him to notice her and not me.
Older women build misconceptions against young women that their shapes seduce the men that remain. If he says to her, I love your ambition, she snaps, feeling at 22 she had ambitions and drive too. She only has fragments to carry on her sleeve because while he chases and swears he doesn’t like a woman who wears weave she sits stationery with her fro going unnoticed.
While young women strut the shape of youth devoid of the pounds and wrinkles that stress will leave they drag the scars and pigments changes of skin and slowed beats of hearts that disappointment leaves.
When he says to her, I think you are beautiful, she assumes it is because of thin waist perked up a chest and a round behind. Looking down at her gallon figure she wonders if she will ever have that feeling, if she never changes.
Feeling beautiful is a constant race to emulate an outfit, hairstyle and persona we saw on someone else. Young women constantly chase the feeling that a second glance by a man and envy from another woman leaves. Yet we live as if they day never comes when that beauty fades.
We search for love believing we have to please him so we can love us. But if we really loved ourselves it would broadcast the deeply encrypted message of inner beauty.
While I used to thrive off someone telling me they loved my smile, I have learned to dash to the mirror to embrace a light toned woman who stares deep into my eyes and in cadence with my needs says to me, you are beautiful.
Older women build misconceptions against young women that their shapes seduce the men that remain. If he says to her, I love your ambition, she snaps, feeling at 22 she had ambitions and drive too. She only has fragments to carry on her sleeve because while he chases and swears he doesn’t like a woman who wears weave she sits stationery with her fro going unnoticed.
While young women strut the shape of youth devoid of the pounds and wrinkles that stress will leave they drag the scars and pigments changes of skin and slowed beats of hearts that disappointment leaves.
When he says to her, I think you are beautiful, she assumes it is because of thin waist perked up a chest and a round behind. Looking down at her gallon figure she wonders if she will ever have that feeling, if she never changes.
Feeling beautiful is a constant race to emulate an outfit, hairstyle and persona we saw on someone else. Young women constantly chase the feeling that a second glance by a man and envy from another woman leaves. Yet we live as if they day never comes when that beauty fades.
We search for love believing we have to please him so we can love us. But if we really loved ourselves it would broadcast the deeply encrypted message of inner beauty.
While I used to thrive off someone telling me they loved my smile, I have learned to dash to the mirror to embrace a light toned woman who stares deep into my eyes and in cadence with my needs says to me, you are beautiful.
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