Squinting At Bright Lights After The Eye Is Accustomed To Darkness

By Nefertiti N.

Ribbons atop a perfectly wrapped package
An illusion
No one said it would be easy
And the answers are just beyond reach

No defying the laws of gravity
No bending the rules of nature
No turning back time
No magic wand

Just life
And work
And work
And work…

amor noveau 2

she was ready and knew by the look in his brown eyes that he had something special in store for her. her moans turned to sighs as he gently teased her. more nibbles here, another kiss there. her skin craved him and her body needed him. but his impatience was thinly veiled. just as quickly as he showered her with kisses, he grabbed her roughly by the waist and pulled her close. her dress long gone, had left her revealed in only the most intimate of ways. her breath caught in her throat as he whispered in her ear. "ma belle...mon amour." his voice touched her at the very core of her being and her heart swelled with emotion. her head dropped back as she lost herself to the sounds of the saxophone and the piano -- so sharp and so clear yet so perfectly intertwined, who would ever doubt that they were meant to be coupled. "nina...nina...", his voice trembling as he whispered her name over and over. she let herself be carried away on the wave of desire that he so expertly crafted. his hands continued their exploration. her nipples. her navel. and finally, the one spot that had been screaming for his attention. rough and gentle. gentle and rough. he let her know that she was as much his as he was hers. primal instincts took over as she bucked her hips, searching for the one thing that would completely satisfy her. she was ready to have him. she was ready to take him. she was ready for all of him.

by wynsters the tigress (inspired by Felicia's "amor noveau")

Amor Nouveau

His hands were rough and wide as if all his life he's never known the softness of a woman's touch. He caressed her doll-like face almost scratching her smooth ebony skin. He wiped away the sweat off her nose with his fingers and tasted the salty liquid. He held her close to him. His big arms coveing her, she felt safe. He held on tight as if he were afraid to let her go. She looked into his almond-shaped chocolate brown eyes and melted. He stared back into her. She kissed his soft full lips after which, he placed two smaller ones on both of her cheeks.

"Nina," he almost growled her name as he spoke softly into her ears. His soft French accent lilting his words. "Cherie, si belle." She smiled at him as he kissed her, unzipping her dress with his hands. Watching it fall to the floor, he kissed her neck. "So beautiful," he repeated. She let his hands explore her skin, closing her eyes to feel the sensation.

He left a trail of kisses on her shoulder, nibbling on her arms. He kissed her elbows, her hands, her fingers...She moaned gently, not wanting it to end. He held her as John Coltrane played "Naima" in the background. She loved the feel of her skin on his, his skin on hers. She knew where the night was heading. She was ready.

(to be continued, maybe)

remember the time

january 8, 2010

as i got off the train, the air was damp, in that way that it can only be after a day of continuous rainfall. i took a deep breath, several actually, as i walked down the steps onto the street level. it was late and i momentarily wondered where i would find the energy to walk the few blocks home. i paused at the bottom. one, two more deep breaths. i held my head down as i began my walk. shadows grew and changed shape as several street lamps flickered on. i imagined several worlds taking place behind those shadows. worlds where people did extraordinary things. worlds where dreams took flight and no one ever doubted their existence. i wondered about those worlds as i continued my journey through a world that had begun to bore me. i heard others walking behind me: a mother speaking softly to the baby in a stroller; a student blasting music in his earphones, lost and drowning in the sound. others walked more quickly, with more determination, as they scurried past me. my nostrils filled with smells that made me cringe. garbage, dog shit, exhaust, life. instead of washing it all away, the rain allowed it all to linger. i felt heavy, like a plow. pushing my way through. but not with an ease. rather, with a difficulty that bordered on apathy or insouciance. i felt disengaged, carried by the current of the world, to a place that lacked vibrancy; to a place where life has no definition. i should have run. i should have cried out. i should have done anything to force that life, any life, back into me. but instead, i slowed my pace, kept my head down and continued to walk. toward that place that held neither life nor meaning to me.

wynsters the tigress

The L Word

written by Felicia York

She wondered how long she could keep the melancholy at bay before it spread itself all over her face like a billboard on a highway. It was her little secret - the elephant in the room about which they all wondered but never dared to ask. How did she cope with it all? She mired about her daily life pretending not to care, not to notice the growing void which food nor self-administered orgasms could fill. The chasm within her mined itself a tunnel to dark places she'd long buried. There were places in the dark where the Sun would not shine again. She soothed herself, shaking off the day with vodka and coke and let the music play around her while she searched the recesses of her mind, numbed the voices in her head and let the rhythm take her.

Her gripped her waist, smiling at her smelling like someone else's man. She did not care, renting him for the night, placing her hands around his neck, letting him dance with her, taking the lead. She felt safe with him as he manipulated her body. She was in her own little world as her breath smelled of cheap wine and desperation. How long would she live like this? Clouding her mind with happy thoughts, she would not dare speak the words that danced on the tip of her tongue. She moved with him until the bottoms of her feet burned and the sweat dotted her brow. She kissed his cheek and thanked him as she disappeared in the night out of fear she would turn into a pumpkin.

She rode the train, ignoring the looks from the men who glared at her. What could they really offer besides broken promises and hard thrusts in the dark with half-flaccid penises? Maybe she needed those things to help her remember. She needed to remember she was a woman underneath the armor she'd built around herself. She couldn't remember the last time she felt safe and vulnerable in a man's arms. There were things she needed that she would never utter. She would never speak them to a soul because she knew the difference between want and need. She possessed a needing that was never fulfilled. Devastating.

She shrugged it off. She was tired and she would have to go home to face what she'd been running from all along. For the truth was that no matter how hard she tried, she could never run from herself. She would always have to face the loneliness that burrowed into her bones and rattled within her, radiating with each heartbeat; she had no choice but to face it. It would have to wait for another night. That night, she self-medicated, washing the pain away with borrowed smiles and spirits. Morning would come as it always had. The morrow would bring a new day with her old lover. She still wished for something that she quite possibly could not have: change.

Spoken By The Walls

Written By Kwesi D.

It was a thing that could not be whispered about comfortably even between confidants, not broached in a room off to the back, with the doors closed and the windows lowered, where two or three might have been gathered, drinking heavily and talking openly, with words distorted by the alcohol and a whizzing fan or perhaps a heater, making it difficult for eavesdroppers to decipher. It was too personal. It was just the type of thing that could not be clearly conveyed or willingly articulated. And a man is a creature of pride in numerous measure, and conditioning. It was too personal. It was the type of thing that could not be described freely, without the threat of interpretation. No. This rejection, this insult were for my heart alone to bear; the devastation, for my chest alone to attempt to restrain within its brittle walls.

The dead ancestors themselves would know for certain that one can only speak for oneself in love and other matters. Love was the subject. Love misused was the secret I hid behind my confident stride, with my shoulders pressed out, broad and foreboding, and a head held up against the sun. I felt the women swelter under their dresses when I appeared and regarded them, but I was dying inside. A love discarded flooded my consciousness. It overflowed into all of my happy fantasies and drowned them out. It banished me from the city and into the bed to gaze blankly at the walls, to watch them swell and deform from too much focus. It withdrew me from the company of others like salt water retracting slowly across sand. This insult, this heartache was mine alone to hoard. It was too personal.

It is the notion that love is the highest achievement of the living that holds us captive, setting us out upon unknown paths, making the lonely feel that they have failed somehow and question their purpose; their worth. Thinking that the divine had finally blown its kiss at me from the heavens or the outer galaxies or right here in the invisible dimensions, I flung open my doors to catch it. I watched it soar in and land on me like a little bird and allowed it to remain. Good sense and restraint were pushed aside and the wish that I might walk with you was dominant; it was paramount like the idols that send believers to their knees. I fell on my knees and cried when it was done; I cried and trembled; I cried and cursed my own weakness; I cried out my shame in a place that no one could see. A man is a creature of pride, after all – a creature of pride and conditioning.

The dead ancestors would know for certain the many mysteries of all there is to know, all that the living have yet to comprehend. They must see, from their positions, the end of the long stone path and grasp its maneuvers and meanderings; they must watch as one day unfolds into the next by design and predict the steady course of a healing heart. They have to know, before the unknowing, that he will once more find comfort in the contact of others; feel his way back to the world; acquiesce to a friendly gesture; see his way back from desolation; raise his head once more in the sunlight; stride with true confidence in good time; and genuinely smile at just the right moment, smile and look into just the right face; reconcile with love at last and wait once more for a kiss from the divine.

Pariahs

written by Felicia York

They sat huddled together in corners where the draft nor The Undertakers would catch them. Hiding in the darkness, they wept; some out of fear but others out of habit. Their tears could not be heard in the witching hours of the night.

"We must catch them all and make them pay!" he bellowed in the dusk to his men. "They're, they're...writers!" He spat the brown chewed up tobacco on to the gravel. The men took their horses searching with their lamps and when they found one, they would stamp out the imagination from each and every one of them with their steel-toed boots.

His mother held him close as her voice trembled. "You be safe now, ya hear?" He grasped his notebook in between them close to his chest. The ink smear apparent on his left hand. "You are the best of us, " she finished as she let him go down underground with the rest of the outcasts. He would run and hide in the shadows of the city, pretending by day to be a banker or lawyer and feverishly writing at night. She held her chest, feeling the ripping apart from her youngest child.

They burst into the door not moments after he'd taken the back way. They knocked her down. "Where is he?" they demanded. "G-gone," she replied, the tears streaming down her face as the slight smirk dared not reveal itself. They threw open closets and tore through drawers searching for some clue. Dissatisfied, they left her in chaotic peace. In her hand was a note he'd written. He said it was the most important words he would ever write. She opened itand smiled. "Mama, I love you forever. Mama, I'm free."

my first love

written by wynsters the tigress

today, i want to talk about one my all time favorite authors: edgar allan poe. i discovered his work in the 7th grade, when my (very good looking) english teacher, whose vocabulary i wished to have and writing skills i yearned were mine, gave me a collection of his short stories. the first one that i read was 'the masque of the red death'. imagine how swiftly i fell in love with that story. a lover of language from the day i was born, his use of words to create imagery that was horrific, gory and painful completely enthralled my 7th grade mind. i read and re-read the story, looked up words that i had never previously seen and drank in his phrases -- hungry for complete understanding of what he was trying to convey to the reader. i felt grand in poe's description of the prince's masked ball, as if i too were one of his magnificent dames. i could nearly hear the sounds being played by his musicians and i shared in the nervousness of his guests every time the ebony clock announced that yet another hour had passed. i remember my heart skipping a beat when the strange guest first enters the hall -- dressed as the red death itself and i could already feel what was coming. it took me several readings (mind you, i was only 11!), but when i finally understood poe's message, it was an eye opener for me. there is no escaping our destinies, especially that which connects us all: death. at the end of each reading, i often found myself at odds. always an over thinker and an innate problem solver -- i couldn't fathom not being able to escape something like a disease...if the right precautions were taken. how could the red death just simply be allowed in by those who were so desperately trying to dodge it? eventually, i was introduced to the idea of symbolism and i had to learn to reshape some of my thoughts on destiny, and the way in which the universe works. every action leads to a reaction. the prince and his friends, in their arrogance, shut themselves off from the rest of the land when it was suffering the most. their lack of compassion would not go unpunished. it's a lesson that i learned well. that no matter our 'status' or 'class' in life, there are some things that affect us all equally -- more notably, death and disease. the way in which we deal with these matters is often just as important as the issues themselves. in thinking that we can control everything, as the prince and his revelers do in 'securing' themselves away in the castle, we instead create illusions that do not reflect the reality of a situation. [recently] i picked up an edgar allan poe reader that i remember i had bought at a garage sale, not too long ago, for about a dollar. it includes a genre of short stories by poe that i often forget that he dabbled in: humor. now, when we all think of edgar allan poe, i'm sure these words come to mind: dark, grim, horrific. but few know that he also wrote a series of humorous short stories -- that poke fun and are relatively lighter than his more famous work. this morning i read 'never bet the devil your head'. an interesting piece that is amusing right off the bat because of poe's obvious efforts at jamming a bit of moral advice down the reader's throat. our narrator is telling the story of his "poor" friend toby and his ultimate demise. the entire story is wrought with a single moral motif, explicitly stated by the narrator, contrary to what is typically poe's style. i will not bore you with the details of the plot, but i would definitely recommend reading this particular short story, as it shows the wide range of poe's writing skills. it made me laugh out loud in its absurdity. poe's ability to mock the idea of having an explicit moral agenda while still driving home a message is comparable to no contemporary author of my generation, which is the one sad thing about classics. they are truly beautiful in their scope and demonstrate an originality that can never truly be re-created or copied. sure, i'm read dozens of books from my time that are exceptional and truly unique, but what literary movement can i say that i witnessed firsthand? in short, edgar allan poe's work is something that i will always enjoy because it takes me back to a time when i first truly started to explore my intellectuality. his work reminds me of a time when i first started consciously thinking, and synthesizing the plethora of information that was the world around me. through his work, i can always revisit a time that hasn't been lost, but rather continues to serve as a guide for the direction that my thoughts and ideas take today.


"...i'm a brooklyn [girl], i may take some gettin' used to..."

Caterpillar Love

written by Felicia York

I watch you there
in your silent reverie
waiting for you to notice

these are the moments that
we make

here in the evening

when the world is sleeping
my heart beats for these

your hand in mine
your eyes
the salt of your skin
the taste of your lips

my legs intertwined with yours
our breaths breathed at the same time

in the cocoon of our love
wrapped in comfort

in the silence
our own language
we speak.

Sisterhood: The Redemption

Written by Nefertiti N.

This is the final installment of a trilogy of short poems that began with Sisterhood: The Love, then Sisterhood: The Pain, and now Sisterhood: The Redemption.


The cathartic release of pain
Our sisterhood stands to gain
Invisible tears run down our faces
Our vulnerability a sign of strength
A desire for true sisterhood
A mutual recognition
Of a need to connect
Our words…a cocoon
Of honesty and love
Of struggle and pain
And our sisterhood remains.