I am all Alone,

Yet this is where I gain my Strength from when everyone is Gone.

I am all Alone,

Yet this is where I find Peace when every Hope is Lost on.

I am all Alone,

Yet this is where I find the Light when there is no Hope to Live on.

I am all Alone,

Fighting my Battles on my Own.

#poetry #Life #motivation #inspiration

©Alipoetry, All Rights Reserved.

You reach the moment in your life when you realize you are no longer a child.

What is it that kills childhood? Is it a defining moment that all people share, when what once mattered transforms into nothing?

A choice? Is it unique to each individual, a climax one can't take back? A conscious choice serving as a covenant, unbreakable?

It is an obligation? A rule, something that must be abandoned before adulthood is achieved?

We have no choice, a voice calls to us all. It is inevitable.

Whether permitted by the conscious, embraced by the teenager, or dying as we see the youth thrive in others, it's a universal understanding that all children must grow up. And to do that, the child inside dies. We must bury it with imagination, watch it find the fate of Titanic, where its remains may be mourned by the soul.

Or perhaps, childhood never dies, and a part of it still lives inside of us.

We just have to find it.

I was writing, as writers often do, when I had a revelation. Feeling flashed before my eyes in an epiphany, something I should have seen long ago:

There is no such thing as perfect writing.

Published or non-published, poetry or prose, there will always be something to fix. There will always be something to criticize. Years from now we will look back and want to change a hundred different things. Characters, a sentence, a word. There will always be a way to make it “better.”

Enlightening as this is, what does this mean? Are we to simply give up writing, if we will never reach our own standards? Of course not. But how do we tackle this?

Perhaps the secret to writing is moving past our perfectionism to create something greater than perfection. What is greater than perfection? The human spirit. What makes us human? Our flaws. It is our flaws that grow us and shape us into the unique beings that we are, and it is our mistakes that we learn from. Writing is risky. We all know that. We have to put ourselves on a pedestal. Characters that we’ve shaped and modified, who have become a part of us, must be shipped to the world through ink, to be loved or hated by all who perceive them.

So, maybe, writing isn’t about being perfect. We have to find something better than that. Maybe the best writers put passion on the page and embrace the flaws of their own words. Only then will a 9 become a 10, a 10 an 11, an 11 a 100. When we accept our imperfections and share them with the world in this new positive light, we discover a deeper part of ourselves, and that is what shines through over all else.

Keep writing writers, as we fight the revelation of the human spirit in its rawest form.

November twenty-third, eighteen-fifty: the day I committed my first crime against humanity. I was eight years old, one of the youngest in the Alabama plantation, the orphaned boy known for shenanigans.

Will. The little slave boy.

Wednesday morning. The air screamed of the winter holidays just around the corner. Snores sounded from the slave houses as I jerked my eyes open and slipped out the door, adventure consuming my thoughts. I had a mission. With one last glance at the horizon, the sun’s edge poked over the trees, and I sprinted for the barn doors. The air froze against my chest, burned down my lungs.

I stopped dead inside the door to find the stable boy.

Drat, I thought.

He wore more lines across his face than me, moving with force as he lifted each stack of hay and thrust them towards the trough. I glanced up to find him towering over me, yet his eyes were smaller than when I looked in the mirror. Like most who dared eye contact, his were brown, darker still than the skin of his forearms. A threadbare shirt stained with grease tore along his broad shoulders, down his scrawny spine. The proportions were devastating: spaghetti legs and poky spine, yet arms of melons and a face of a boulder. I was sure I had never seen him before, yet his hands moved with an experience I craved.

I snuck past him, eyed the stallion in the cleanest stall.

“’Oy, what ya doin’?”

My body shredded with indignation when a shadow broadened and loomed over my own. I hated how long the stable boy’s hair tucked out, camouflaging his shiny forehead, scars on his neck tucked away. It made him look like the white man. The overseer.

I met his eyes, felt my forehead crease. My teeth wrenched with the lie that seeped through them. “Everyone’s asleep,” I said, “I want to play in the haystacks.”

He flinched—at what I’ll never know—before wiping the gliss from his eyes and disappearing behind a stall at the far end of the barn. A shovel sounded against hay and dung.

“Go on then,” he said, “But ya’d best be back before dusk breaks out.”

A whimper melodied in the air, and I gazed back at the polka-dotted stallion. A rare breed, worth ten plantations put together. The owner’s daughter owned the magnificent beast—word around plantation had spread that she wanted to ride it. But someone had to tame it. I rested my hand on the stall. If I pulled this off, I would rise above all others, at the right hand of the white man, first to grab freedom and become the rare slave boy in the news articles, “black” and “free” in a single sentence.

Before I could stop myself, I flicked the stall door open. The stallion’s eyes shadowed to crescents.

An engine roared from the horse’s mouth and my knees buckled, mud puddling around my legs. Dust particles flew to my face with the stomping of its hooves. My thoughts went frantic. How could I ever believed I could control such a beast? What would the white man say? What would he do if… Horror drowned my lungs as the hooves thrust against the morning air and the tail flew behind it. My heart thundered through my veins when it rose over my figure, kicked dust for my eyes, air puffed from its nose.

Then it charged out the barn door. With a hard whinny, it leaped over the fence and faded in the distance.

My face froze. I was dead. I was nobody. They would beat me, sell me, kill me. My back ached. Soon I would join the slaves with long gashes down their shoulder blades, threatening to charge for their necks and pointing down their legs.

Something thundered in the distance and I jumped for the nearest haystack. Seconds passed. Minutes. How could they have noticed so quickly? Cornstarch flung up my nose as two shadows loomed over me. I poked my head through the straw, scratching my temples.

My heart fled my chest. The white man—the overseer. And the stable boy.

“Are you good for nothing, Foolzer?”

The slave boy edged away from the white man. “I-I-I didn’t let it go! I w-w-was on the o-other side mucking out t-the s-s-stalls when-“

Smack. The stable boy touched his fingers to his face, and the white man reared his fist to the other side. I felt for my own lip, shuffled from the straw, eyeing the door for freedom. That’s when a set of hazel eyes whipped around to find me strewn across the floor. The white man thumped towards me. I hated how my body shivered and hands throbbed against the wooden floor as I cowered on my back. No. He would not hit me. He would not make me whimper like the stable boy. It was time to tell a thumper. A big whopping thumper.

“Why were you hiding in that straw, Boy?”

Will. My name is Will.

My eyes darted to the stable boy, mouth clamped silent. His teeth pinched it, and blood trickled from his lip. He bit harder.

I knew better than to look the white man in the eye. Disrespect. A sign of rebellion. Yet, at the thought of looking like the stable boy, I scrunched my nose together and glanced to the sides of his nose, found eyes not much lighter than mine, penetrating his fare skin. They hardened into mine. Mistake or not, I held contact.

“I was scared when I saw him let the horse go,” I said. “He mumbled he wanted to ride it, tame it to impress you. Too high for his nut, I’d say.”

The white man drilled holes through my pupils with his stare. It’s the truth, I spoke with my thoughts. I needed to convince him that I was more than a filthy liar. I needed to convince myself.

Finally, with a new sense of establishment in his demeanor, he extended his hand towards mine. My fists shook, but I enclosed my calluses into my fingers as I stood on my heels, toes itching to bolt and never look back. I looked at the white man’s hand like it was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, and he sneered and pulled it away.

Something stumbled against the ground. My feet itched when the white man snatched the stable boy by the upper of his dark ear. Stop this, I thought. My mouth parted as he stomped him out the door, towards a shack on the other end of the plantation. Yet my voice caught in my throat. I could only watch as they disappeared out the door—like I was held at gunpoint and someone pulled the trigger, but there was no bullet inside. I hated the relief that rushed me, overwhelming the rotting wood in my chest.

Screams evaded from the shack. I peered around the corner—a whip flashed my vision. Never had I felt its lashes, yet as the boy’s wounds were inflicted deeper, agony scorched my veins. It could have been minutes. Hours. Mere seconds were eternities. When the man marched out, clenching his fist around the slave boy’s forearm, I abandoned the sight from my thought. His torn shirt soaked in crimson liquid. My eyes darted for a source. There were no buckets, no wells, no lakes. Yet the boy looked as if he’d just been drowned, choking up violent substances from his veins. My chest heaved as the white man dragged him back to the stable, chucked him towards the manure pile, then shackled his wrists against a supporting pole, leaving the guiltless in guilty’s trials. A long coil dangled from his hand.

The white man turned around, and I jerked my head for the floor. Watching is always judging in their eyes. He patted his fat hand on my back. It was caked in blood.

“Watch him,” he said, pointing at the body in the corner.

I nodded as the man charged across the yard. Each step distinguished itself, carrying authority. He knocked thrice on the big white house in the plantation’s center. More bodies appeared outside of it, shuffling with discomfort, but I’d turned away. I shimmied closer to the body and attempted to hide in the shadows, but brown eyes locked into mine.

My mouth parted again. I needed to show some sort of decency in myself.

The stable boy shook his head as if to read my thoughts. “Nothing of it. Treat us like animals, can’t not ‘spect us to act like ’em. Same thing any one of us would’ve done in your shoes.”

I clenched my eyes shut when he grimaced. I groped for something to cover the gashes.

“No,” the boy said. “He can’t know you was helping me. Just wait over there. Cross your arms. Show ’em you ain’t afraid of nothing.”

I followed his instructions.

The boy leaned his head against the pillar, closed his lids until they met the under part of his eyes. His voice carried age beyond what his face could mirror. “Good. You’re good at that, showing no fear. I’m no good at that, I cower at that pig’s face. Probably why he wouldn’t stop, gave in so quick.” His eyes shot open and I jumped. They protruded my soul, etched something inside. “You’re good at that—you know what you want. You’s the kinda people who’s gonna change all this for the better, ya hear?” He shoved his nails against the dirt, hardened his lip. “But no more against your own kind. Think of me as a Stephen for you, but no more of this crap. We’ve gotta band together.”

I nodded, but the boy’s lips tucked into his cheeks without looking at me. His gaze found a wall, salty liquid in the corners of his eyes. An eternity later, he spoke again, “You know my whole family managed to stick it out here.” His forehead creased. “Yours?”

My eyes drifted to the floor. “None to yap about.”

He grimaced again but concealed it with something that resembled a grin. Not quite crinkled enough in the eyes to sell it.

“Good though,” he said, “You can look out for yourself that way. Get outta here faster.” I felt my eyes water over at my nod, but the boy jerked his feet. “Hey, none of that. I coulda selled ya out if I wanted to, but they shouldn’t treat ya like that. You just a kid, too. I ain’t good enough to suck up to them anymore, but you might. Ya’ve got what it takes.”

“At least you’re a good person,” I mumbled. My chest flipped around my body at my words.

“Good person. Good as dead a good person. It’s those guys who’ll fight for what they want, tear down anything in their way, I wish I were like them guys. They’re gonna make a difference. Might not be liked, but those’ll be the ones in them history books. Like you.”

I stocked my shoulders when the white man reappeared in the door. He gave me a nod, and I left without turning back.

The next day, I was given the stable boy’s position. I was the one they asked to wake up early, the one they trusted with the tedious tasks. I was responsible for the daughter’s safety, the one who got to wear clothes over my back, the one who got to shake the owner’s hand.

I never saw that boy again. But as guilt converted to fire, I remembered his words. They rang through my ears, pushed my very being into something more than morals ever could.

You treat us like animals, you’ll get animals.

And an animal I was.

Does this happen to any other authors?

So you write a story or a piece one day on a whim that is pretty rough, okay plot, half decent characters. Not really much.

And then when you read it the next day, it sounds good. Better than you expected.

And suddenly, now you have expectations for yourself. Even if you don't want them, they just hover on the sidelines, a constant reminder of what you can do.

The next piece you write might not be as good, or to your standards that have been elevated, so you feel more hadicapped than when you first started.

And everything you write feels flat or lifeless or sad.

So eventually, after the wave of misery has left, you throw out normal ideas out the window to write a creative, abstract piece.

And it repeats.

As it goes on, more expectations become more evident, you are stuck in a cycle. Of tighter and tighter ideas of how you should and can write and it just gets crazy hard and everything feels resticting even though it is all in your mind?

Kaylen was a warrior.

She had scars on her eyes, her heart, and her lungs. She wondered constantly if she was even human anymore, or just a patched mess.

Kaylen has scars on her eyes. She could never decide if she liked them. On one hand, seeing her neighbour’s chocolate retriever was so sweet, and she wouldn’t trade seeing the snow storms in the winter than seem otherworldly for anything. However, they were the same eyes that had witnessed her boyfriend kiss her best friend. She remembered it too vividly. In the hallway next to the wooden door frames, against the wall, the way he had never kissed her. Right after he had left her to get a drink. The same way she could recall the wide eyes of her best friend when she realized Kaylen was watching, Kaylen could recall the sunsets on the one vacation her family took to the tropics, and her late brother’s adorable smile.

The beat of her heart ran through her, the same one that had once beat in sync with her soulmate. Or so she thought. The same heart that sang a little too loud with the windows down and left parties parties early to go for walks or see the stars. It had been completed, ripped and was healing ever so slowly. Exposing your heart to another was like holding yourself at gunpoint and hoping to end up with a pot a gold instead of dead. A gamble, that could end with you and this indescribable feeling that had to be, everything else just felt so wrong, but couldn’t be. Kaylen knew her heart had been naive, over eager and now, she had fading but ever lasting scars.

Kaylen breathed in the same air that had once drowned her. Suffering from claustrophobia was awful. She couldn’t breathe. It felt like her lungs were betraying her. Even breathing in open air, it could feel so restrictive. Being in closed classrooms or small spaces was terrifying. Being in a room with invisible barriers, like expectations or judgemental people was another type of terrifying.

She had so many scars. They weren’t always visible, but they were crisply defined in her head. The memories she held and the feelings she had experiences stayed with her for too long, according to Kaylen. Remembering his hand in hers during the holiday break, and then her hands clenched in fists at her side with anger was all too fresh in her mind. Seeing the dizzying ceilings and feeling air deprived lungs everytime she closed her eyes was just too much sometimes. It was all too much sometimes. Her memories, her heat, her lungs. And her scars.

You know that black friend who comes in a sitcom and has one funny line and exits to wait for the next awkward moment when they, the black friend, can come in with a cliche black joke? Of you course you do. Those black supporting roles are everywhere from Friday to Law and Order: SVU to Mike and Molly. That friend is more than a color, but you know that. You’ve done research. This character isn’t just a filler character or an attempt to make a socially relevant piece without embodying a character. One of my favorite Rupaul’s Drag Race quotes is that April Carrion didn’t “embody the role of a fat character”. (Spoiler alert I guess, if you live under a rock.) That means being fat is about more than pressing a bunch of padding against your body just like being black is about more than having melanin close to the surface of your skin.

Being both fat (despite my best efforts >.<) and black, I can identify with both roles. I have seen fat people who embrace their curves without ever wanting to be skinny, and fat people who will go to every length possible to be skinny. Being a part of the later, I really envied the former because of how easily they love themselves. How dare they embrace who they are when everything in the media says they should be different, and if they aren’t, they should hide between self-deprecating jokes and try to wedge themselves behind the main cast and tag alone quietly until it calls for a socially conscious moment to talk about whatever minority they fit that day? Why does the media think people have to tokenize every minority there is? Of course, this is a question you’ve pondered and yelled at and is most likely the root of you trying to be different and asking this pretty awesome question.

There are two answers, depending on what you are trying to do here. If you would like to not be offensive, you have to take into account what everyone wants. We don’t want tokenism, so toss that out. Only have a minority character that adds more than comic relief or fill a quota. That’s easy, right? But what should they look like? Looking at a black character, how should they look? Dark or light? If they’re light, you’re a colorist. If they’re dark and go against a public view, it may not sell. What about their style? Afro? Box braids? Perm? Do black people do perms anymore? We don’t want to look like white people. We go natural. Should they fight? Why do all black people have to fight? Is that too aggressive? Fighting makes you aggressive? What about them? What did they do to deserve that ass whooping? What’s wrong with aggression? Tattoos? Piercings? Glasses? Let’s face it, every decision you make will be shot down by the inner social wokeness editor if you let it.

The second answer is to say fuck that and write for you. Writing for you means to make that character your best friend. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never looked around a room and chose a friend based on what society thinks about me or what friends I already have. Your best friend’s appearance typically means nothing. If it does, it’s not that they’re black or white or have box braids, an overbite, thick glasses, and a slight limp. It’s that they wear Twenty One Pilot hats every day or they wear an Arizona Cardinals hoodie or they wear shorts even if it’s -8 outside. Just like you wouldn’t pigeon hole your best friend into a comic relief role or a “savior of the media”s cruel mistreatment of black characters since they started doing black/yellow/redface to avoid hiring minority characters.

Now, that’s not to say that their race and background don’t matter, but let’s face it. If in the first ten minutes of meeting a person, you know their whole life story, you are most likely going to run away from them. Just like knowing someone lets you slowly learn about them and their quirks and their story and whether or not you like them, your story should do the same for the reader. Take us by the hand and introduce us to your character. Tell us who he is. How he is as a person. That he keeps his shoes crispy (clean, so you don’t have to consult Urban Dictionary). That he hates Kraft mac’n’cheese. That he only listens to opera and Mozart. Then as we get to like him, add more. His mom works late and he has to take care of his younger siblings on Tuesday. Then keep going, unwrapping layer after layer like you’re peeling an Ogre. (It’s a Shrek Joke.)

If your characterization is good and you pull us into a friendship with this man, no one will even notice when you make a socially unconscious mistake since normal people don’t walk around charting their social unconsciousness. Long story short, make it unique and be you and don’t worry about what other people say because, let’s be honest, if they’re complaining, they already bought your book and you’ve already won.

She sits at her desk, long auburn hair tied up in a messy bun, black framed glasses sliding down her nose, as she occasionally leans over to take in the decadence of the midsummer's night candle, looming loyally beside her. The cello sounds echo through the dimly lit room as the candle works it's magic, lighting up her finger's as each key creates a methodic shadow onto the walls, one click at a time. She disturbingly notices rimenents of wax drippings, covering her crinkled up papers, blanketing her desk in an all too familiar hue. Time to break dawn. Time to end her silence. Until tomorrow. When she breaks free to do it again.