Short Fiction: Lila's Lament (Part1)

Lila’s Lament

All she could do is think about how they hurt her. All but thirteen years old, Lila feels like she’s lived a lifetime. She sobs as she lays on her bed; sniffling and wiping away the salty tears that are pooling on her forearm.

“Lila!, Dinners ready!”

She looks at her fingers out stretched and then turns her hand over. Examining all the lines on her palm.  Trying not to think about them, ignoring her mother’s yells about dinner.  Who could eat now? Doesn’t she know I’m in turmoil?

Her bedroom door opens and it’s her little sister, Louise.

“Come on,  Mom wants us down for dinner” she said.

Lila just rolled over facing the opposite side of the room, wiping away the rest of her tears that hadn’t yet dried.

“Are you crying?” asked Louise.  She ran over to Lila’s bed. “Why are you crying? What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m not crying, just tired. Tell mom I’ll eat dinner later, I’m not hungry”

“Okay”

Louise knew that Lila had been crying, but she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because Lila seems to be always crying.  Louise is seven years old and in the second grade and she couldn’t understand why Lila was always so unhappy. Why she cried so much and why did she care so much about boys and her friends.  It all just seemed like a waste of time and energy to Louise.

Louise went downstairs.  “Mom?”

She ran into the kitchen…”Mom, Lila said she’s not hungry now and that she’ll eat later”.

“What? Why?”

Louise shrugs…” I don know, that is what she said”  She sat down at the kitchen table and waited for the word that it was okay to start eating.

“Well, I’m gonna go talk to her, you go ahead and eat, I’ll be right back with your sister”.

Monica Stanger is a single mother who works as an elementary school teacher during the week and as a yoga instructor on the weekends.   She had a very bitter divorce from her husband (Louise’s father) and has worked hard ever since to provide her girls with a good life, nice home to live in, food on the table and an all around stable environment.  Lila loved her step father and was devastated when her mom and he broke up, because her biological father was never in her life.

Monica was a teenage mom and when she told him that she was pregnant, he denied her and the baby.  She took care of Lila on her own, with the help of her family and hasn’t heard from him since then.

Monica softly knocks on Lila’s door and opens it. When she walks in Lila is on her bed balled up in a fetal position. Shaking her head Monica immediately wonders which kind of adolescent turmoil is plaguing her this time. Fight with her friends? A boy? A teacher? A bad grade?

“Mom, please I don’t feel like eating right now. I’m not hungry”.

“Yes, Lila. I heard, but I came up here to make sure that you’re alright. What’s wrong”?

Monica sits at the edge of the bed near Lila and runs her hand across her cheek, getting the hair out of her face.

“Mom, I just can’t take it anymore.  I’m so tired of the kids at school. Every time I turn around there’s someone new talking about me or lying about me.  People who I thought were my friends are not and it’s really pissing me off”. 

The moment Monica heard that, she prayed that Lila wasn't being bullied.

To be continued...

Back At It.....Changes To My Blog

I’m baaaaccckkkkk! 

I’ve been gone for about five months and just came back from a wonderful vacation with my very significant other; we went to Los Cabos Mexico for four days and Las Vegas for two. We had the best time. I’m mentally rejuvenated and ready to create.

For some time there’s been a struggle between me and my pen & paper that I couldn’t really understand.  The distance made me realize that my fear of failure AND my fear of SUCCESS, yes I said SUCCESS… held me back.

Recently I read two fantastic books that really changed my perspective on how I should be going about my writers journey as well as my life journey; Write It Down and Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra, both must reads for ALL.

Without going into further detail, these books made me determined to get off my ass and not just think about my dreams of a successful writing career but to actually make them happen and to ask myself “Why not me?”  I can be successful too just like any other successful author out there, that CAN and WILL be me. I deserve it.

So here I am, out of hiding.  This blog will change directions and be completely dedicated to promoting my writing by posting weekly (every Friday) works of fiction (short), poetry and/or commentary.

I don’t know why I hadn’t done this sooner, (actually I do know… pure laziness and fear!), but hey, better late than never!

Happy Reading.

See you Friday.

Smooches

Martine

Good Bye 2011

The year 2011 is coming to an end in a few weeks.  So many amazing things happened this year. The biggest thing for me was graduating college.  At the same time, there were so many other goals I had on my mental list, that I didn't even come close to accomplishing. They'll just have to carry over into 2012!

I wanted to take a much overdue vacation, self-publish my novel, save money and I could go on and on.  As frustrated as I am that I was not able to meet much of my 2011 goals, I know that they will come, maybe in 2012 or even in 2013. 

I realized that even though I set goals for myself, they are not always going to happen in the time frame that I set. As cliche as this sounds, God controls our plans. We may make the plans and take careful steps to carry them out but those plans are always tweeked a bit by God; things never go exactly as you plan because He holds the main plan.

2012 will be my year of major change.  I am declaring it now and will commit myself to take conscious steps towards that change and watch God's plan for me unfold.

Choices...

Everyone, at some point in their adult life reflects on how their lives came to be the way they are. We never pictured ourselves to be unemployed, broke, divorced, relationship challenged, without children or whatever the case may be.

When you’re 16 years old, the common thought of the future is going to college, having fun with friends, graduating, obtaining your dream job, getting married, having a few kids and living happily ever after.

I went to high school with a guy that had everything going for himself. He had excellent grades and a full football scholarship to one of the best African American colleges in the nation. He wasn’t the best looking guy, but he definitely had his head on straight and probably would’ve made some lucky woman very happy one day.

He had been dating a young woman about three years older than him. She already had her own apartment. (Mind you- we’re 17 year old seniors in high school, so she’s 20 years old with 2 kids!), which automatically told me she had a different upbringing than he did and a lot more life experience.  He had been seeing her for about 6 months and approximately one month before we all were supposed to depart for our respective colleges he was brutally killed by his girlfriend’s baby father!  

The story was that he was totally blind sided by the fact that this woman had a boyfriend who has in jail. All that knew him knew that if he knew about the boyfriend in jail, he wouldn’t have started a relationship with her. And she didn’t even have the decency to share this information with him either. He was caught at her apartment at the wrong time; her boyfriend went into a jealous rage and stabbed him numerous times, killing him. I’m sure he felt he was doing nothing wrong at the time by dating this woman… in his mind he was there simply spending time with his girlfriend… her baby father saw it differently and the rest is tragic history.

Everyone in this situation had choices. My high school friend didn’t have to date this woman with 2 kids and an angry baby daddy and stuck to girls his own age and caliber. He made the choice to date her.

His girlfriend could’ve told him what he was getting involved with and given him an opportunity to make an educated decision on his involvement with her. She chose not tell him that she had a man in jail and he was coming out soon.

Her baby daddy didn’t have to kill him. He chose to take someone’s life because of his cheating girlfriend and go right back to the place that would keep him away from her and his kids.

The list of choices goes on. But someone made the wrong one… an unchanging choice. The repercussions are endless, not only for the family of the victim, but for the criminal and the woman and children involved. I wonder what ever happened to them. Did this event define their lives? Did they learn and grow or did they suppress and fester? Was his innocent life sacrificed for some greater good that the killer, woman or children would benefit from? We’ll never know.

To this day, the death of my friend pops up in my head every now and again, especially in the summer. Every summer, without fail there is a heart wrenching story about a promising college bound student who needlessly lost their life in some urban area in NYC.

No matter what kind of situation you find yourself in, choices are always present and the smallest choice can have the biggest repercussions.

Long Time No Blog....

New Blog posts coming soon......

Book Review: The Kid, by Sapphire

I recently finished reading The Kid by Sapphire, which is the continuation to PUSH.  The Kid picks up about nine years later.  Precious is raising her son Abdul, Mongo her daughter seems to have died? Not sure, that was never clarified.

Precious’ HIV got the best of her, leaving Abdul orphaned and thrusted into the foster care system.  The nine years that Precious did have with her son, she showered him with love and affection that she never received. She did an awesome job about teaching him life lessons, the importance of education and self reliance and she provided a strong foundation which made him very ambitious and goal oriented. At first, I was having difficulty understanding Abdul’s speech, but after a while, I got used to his ebonics.  Thankfully, his speech improved as her got older.

This book is chock full of messages surrounding social issues, psychological issues and identity issues.  The social services system for children in NYC is extremely flawed and we get a first hand depiction of how this flawed system can impact and destroy an innocent child’s life.  As a jaded and sheltered nine year old he got caught up in a cycle of abuse. Abdul was neglected and abused in a foster home, hospitalized for being brutally beaten by another child, and he lost his identity.  He then was placed in a catholic boarding school for boys where he was again abused. Abuse became such a major part of his life that he came to think it was normal; he then became an abuser, not taking responsibility for his actions. 

After being kicked out of the catholic school, he was placed in his great grandmother’s care. By then Abdul, was already old enough to make his own moves and come and go as he pleased. Not embracing life with his great grandmother, he eventually left and found himself homeless and navigating through the streets of life trying to follow his dreams of professional dancing.

At times, the book did get confusing, because Abdul was a daydreamer. It was hard to tell what was really happening and what was a dream.

Basically, I did like the story that Sapphire told about Abdul, but I wasn’t expecting it at all. After reading Push and watching the movie Precious, I didn’t think that life would get any worse for them, but The Kid continued the legacy of sorrow in a way I never would have imagined.

I wasn’t pleased with the ending at all. I would’ve liked to see Abdul get to the peaceful place he’d been longing for. Sapphire did leave the story open for that to eventually happen, but it’s not known whether or not she will continue a third installment. If she does, I would certainly read it, not because I enjoy reading about other people’s sorrows, but because I’m completely invested now.  I have to know how this young man’s story ends!

Unconditional Love is UnRealistic

There used to be a time that whenever I heard the term unconditional love I would romanticize it and think “Wow… he said he loves her unconditionally… That must feel  amazing.”  That was the much younger and naïve version of me, that really didn’t think about the implications of that statement.

Honestly, I find it very hard to love someone unconditionally.  If we are to set standards for ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to those standards as well as our partners, how can anything be unconditional?  There have to be conditions, otherwise you will fall for everything that is served up to you.  Our partners are a clear reflection of how we see and feel about ourselves.

In my twenties, I took pride in the fact that I loved first and asked questions later. Gave love freely no matter what.  I claimed to be an unconditional lover; loving infinitely, beyond measure.  I was being reckless and naïve. That had more to do with low-self esteem rather than unconditional love. A lot of people fail to make that differentiation.

Are you claiming to love unconditionally OR are you just loving the idea of love?

I’m certainly not trying to take the romance out of love nor am I purposely trying to be a cynic. But let’s face it, in this day and age love and relationships have become very risky.  I find nothing wrong with setting standards and a threshold for bullshit.  I find nothing wrong with stating at the very beginning of the relationship “I expect this, that and the third and if those things are not met or if I get to a point that I realize that you’ve misrepresented yourself to me, I’m going to have to end our relationship.”

Standards vary from woman to woman and even vary from culture to culture.  For me, there are basic standards.  I expect my man to treat me and my daughter right. I expect for him NOT to physically and emotionally abuse me.  I expect him to be faithful to me.  I expect for him to be gainfully employed.  I expect for him to have some moral fibers running through him and I expect him to take his health and wellness seriously.  Again, these are basic.  Keeping in mind that I wouldn’t put expectations on someone that I wouldn’t be able to live up to myself. 

I know that there are some people that feel that they do love their mates unconditionally regardless of what I’m saying in this post, which is commendable.   Then that means you will love them through the good, obviously, and the bad; and I’m not talking about them losing a job or some financial hardship, I’m talking about the REAL bad. Will you love them even if they started to treat you poorly? If they cheated? If they committed a crime and got sent to prison, would you still be there loving them?  Having no conditions puts you in danger of facing those very things or worse.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as unconditional love. Love is earned.  How?  By meeting the conditions of your partner.  And even after 10, 20 years together those conditions should still hold true.  Unconditional love is reserved for your children.