In a random sample
of 100 suicide notes
researchers have not found
the word “suicide.”
In a more simple sample
of people who have sampled
suicide, and lived to tell about it
researchers found
and lost
the word “suicide.”
In an inconvenient sample
of friends who let friends drunk text
it was discovered
that 81% of them disapproved of e-mails
that were too long.
Screw spelling,
give me a hammer
to my head.
Fingernails instead of foreplay.
Cut to the chase.
In fact, cut the chase.
Cut to the cortège and motorcade.
In the age of unread fine prints
and even finer princesses
Where one’s literacy is no longer big enough
and neither is anything else.
Where time is short
and e-mails are no longer novel…
Where this poem
should have been done by now.
Where a serious conversation
consists of,
at least two people
sitting next to one another
looking
each other
in the phone.
Wouldn’t you rather be a letter
than just a l.e.t.t.e.r.?
Wouldn’t you rather be a song
than a scream?
Would you rather be a pie
than a piece a….
Our circle of conversation
has become the finish line
of a transaction,
We used to be whole.
There use to be a person
on the other side of that phone.
There used to be a person,
on the other side of that note.
And if you read this far
you’d know
there used to be some one.
on the other side
of this poem.
I like to believe that
my poems, are a string
of receipts.
Documenting
my time spent
on this planet.
Part paper trail
of my net worth,
part net
between me and the cement
as I ponder out the window
of everything I’ve built
myself to be.
In a natural selection
of random people
dying alone…
75% percent of suicides
are unaccompanied
by a note.
Unassisted.
So long.
Solo.
And I tried to borrow her pen
to write this,
so she wouldn’t write that.
But she did anyways…
In hopes
that we wouldn’t be
too busy.
In hopes
that we wouldn’t be
too fast.
In hopes
that it wouldn’t be
received…
as a life too long
did not
read.
(c) August 13th, 2015 Hakim Bellamy
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Ulcers. Something I have never endured but I find that the effect will show in my writing as I have one now due to many a thing. Worry and stress, tooth pain, no money, single motherhood and a constant guilt that stems from no absolute place all play a part in the pain. However, I feel it has led me to pondering and action and may be only a smaller hurdle in the face of all that is happening in life.
I am left wondering just how things have gotten so stressful, though I know the process well for I have been working on it for the last fourish years. It began with a simple decision… moving to New Mexico. Some think my decision was a selfish one because being in love was involved. My oldest two children, living with their father after the divorce due to me being poor on my own, lived in Washington as did I before my move. They didnt understand and neither did I if I am to be honest, but we are very much still close and share the deep love only mother and child can understand.
That is how it began. After my lament of leaving and the following excitement, i had no idea what would happen. The ensuing roller coaster ride was still a secret to me when first I rolled into town in my uhaul and my independence. I was happy and found a place I love with such deepness that I know I will never call any other city “home”. This dusty, dry, windy place that is full of weirdos, scholars, freaks, hippies and the occasional businessy human won me over instantly.
Life Changing
Why does any of this matter? It matters because if you have ever been a throw away kid, a person of no kind reputation, an easily forgotten human, you will see that this tiny portion of my life is also the most important. I write to give the depressed hope for it is in every eye I look into. It offers a transparent view of how the mistakes we believe we make and can never recover from can actually change your life forever in a beautiful way.
I was raised in an oppressed environment and shown that I was, in fact, an adopted child. “Adopted” is not accurate even because they never saw fit to go through with that action. I was ignored as were huge and evil events that occurred in my life, brushed off and used. I never knew what it was like to make my own decisions or even to do the normal things rebellious teenagers do because my mom scared me every day of my life.
Then, at 19, I married a man who I loved so mightily and even took on his Christianity until I believed it was my own choice. I didn’t want to believe that he would ever show me anything but a strong Christian man, but by year two I found much of what I believed was false and my love misplaced. But I am stubborn and pig headed and stayed beyond my usefulness and his love.
I divorced him after ten years of marriage and two beautiful children and found myself in a place of happiness. That was, until I finished college and tried to get a job and found out that my seven years as a stay at home mother rendered me almost useless to society despite my intelligence and degree I earned at night. I also found myself at a loss for the children went to live with him.
I stood at a precipice. My life was shaken to the core because of my own actions, but I had a sense of bliss that stuck to me no matter how much I sobbed when I couldn’t tuck my children in, or how angry I became when my ex husband referred to me as Gomer from the Bible (if you don’t know the reference, I will be vulgar here and say she was the biggest whore in the good book), or even how disturbed I was when I realized my devotion to Christianity amounted to nothing more than a false sense of hope. I was stripped raw and had no idea what to do next.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
I met a man in the modern way (Facebook) and he taught me so much about the world I had hidden from so diligently. He was sweet and beautiful and no one would ever dare question his talent as a musician. He taught me how to think for myself, how to see beauty in the mundane and how love could feel when given with no filters. So I visited New Mexico, knowing nothing about it but for Bugs Bunny always wishing he had turned left at Albuquerque.
And in Albuquerque I was warmly and most lovingly welcomed. The man I met I fell in love with, I had crazy adventures and wild sex and found that henna is something I am passionate about even if I am only mediocre. It was the best week I had ever experienced- which we know would not be hard to accomplish for me up to then. I came back a second time and in October, I moved here.
I immediately had guilt over leaving my children and even now I still have leavings of that emotion. Within six months I was pregnant and this was the point at which my family chose to finally cut me out of their lives. I almost died before I could have my sweet new baby and no- that is not an exaggeration. I obviously made it through and was left with a premature, tiny MonChiChi of a daughter who I dote on.
Then I had to leave the man who drew me to my true home. I am no picky woman but I could not continue in the face of the reality of the relationship and spent the following year relying on my friends to offer me a place for my child and I to sleep, food for us to eat and money for gas so I could find a job. I am crying as I type this, because to say that life, though not detailed on any real way here, dealt me depressive darkness and resentment as the main theme of my hand of life poker would be understating by many a mile.
Whew. Are you still with me? That was a lot of vague sadness for which I apologize for, but you don’t want to hear about the paedophiles who groomed me, the mother who forgot to stop hitting me, or the detailed ways in which love can lead to hate and my sexual non importance. There is a point to this, I promise.
Persevere
All of the hate, lust, violence, disappointment, self loathing and deep depressive states of mind have actually done me more good than harm. I am scarred, mangled, chewed up and digested. I am a pile of human goo that few care about in any deep way. But I am thankful for such things. In my current state, I am pliable, I flow with less restriction, I am strong minded and self confident. I now live with my wee moon girl, am about to go get my oldest children for a fun time in my favorite town, I have my first teaching job and my own car. I found the independence I have always craved and though it is scary, I find it the most refreshing took in my so-called belt.
I did it. I survived the darkness, my evil and selfish thoughts about the breath I felt I wasted. I survived love and have found it again. I am goo. I gross and slippery and hard to hold in your hand. I am resilient and have been beautifully tortured. I have found that family is truly what you choose for yourself, that to be in love I must love me, that no amount of piled and stinking manure can truly crush me and I somehow have become a warrior goddess in a world where it is not cherished to be one.
Fight
So to all of you throw away children, waifs that society has forgotten, all you who are about to slice the life from your flesh or drink another sorrow down with malice, I only have this to say to you:
I love you, though I do not know you. If you are in that dark place you have already survived and won. You just don’t know it. You and I share a constant struggle- an endless wave of reality that we have not signed up for. Our lives parallel no matter where you live and for this we are connected like mushrooms- deep and wide spread across the entire earth. I am you and you are me. We rock. We are beautiful because of our scars . We made it. Don’t you dare give up on me now…keep going as I did and you, too, will find your wounds and heal them.
*****
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Acey May is an Educator and Henna artist. She was born in Yakima, Washington and lives in Albuquerque, NM. Acey is the illustrator on the forthcoming multimedia book, Bella the Caterpillar. Acey is also contributing illustrator on Fiona the Funkadelic Freckle Fairy multimedia children’s book. Read more about Acey here.
Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus…
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there…
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands
“There is no depth to education without art.” – Amiri Baraka
*****
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Amiri Baraka
“The dramatist, novelist and poet, Amiri Baraka is one of the most respected and widely published African-American writers…Amiri Baraka’s writing career spans over nearly fifty years and has mostly focused on the subjects of Black Liberation and White Racism. Today, a number of well known poems, short stories, plays and commentaries on society, music and literature are associated with his name…The literary world respects the playwright and poet, Amiri Baraka as one of the revolutionary provocateurs of African-American poetry.” Read More
Community Publishing brings local artists of all mediums together in creative collaborations for distribution as multimedia eBooks while promoting literacy in our communities.
Welcome to another exciting and informative installment of BlogBomb. The focus of this week is about the need for empathy in society and how music and art allow for this emotion to spread rapidly. Also I explore the notion of responsibility and obligation for use of this immense power.
Empathy is an emotion that is intrinsically embedded in our DNA and has allowed the human race to flourish and grow. Empathy nourishes the mind body and soul and is a super emotion with super powers that have an immense impact on ourselves and those around us. Think imagine the concept of paying it forward. Think of how it works, how it permeates outward like a bubble that wants to pop but just keeps on stretching. Yet, for some unknown reason, empathy is severely undervalued, overlooked and misunderstood. Empathy is a necessary and vital aspect of human growth and interaction and has actually been proven to be infectious.
According to Patrick Groneman “Empathy is a skill that experts from many disciplines have deemed important for personal, relationship and career success. People who are empathic tend to have better social interactions, academic performance and accomplishments at work than others. A strong sense of empathy allows children to make decisions that are right for them without hurting others or seeking approval or acceptance. This may strengthen them against negative peer pressure and a range of maladaptive behaviors such as substance abuse, bullying, narcissism, aggression or violence against others. Although some children are remarkably resilient despite abuse, neglect or other forms of mistreatment, studies suggest that “these early trauma experiences significantly increase the risk of emotional and behavioral problems later in life.”
Being a musical artist is the most satisfying thing that I do in my life. I get to create content using words and musical notes and then I get to record and perform it for people. I get to explore
emotions and feelings, deep concepts and engage in the world around me. I would even argue that musicians and artists are possibly the last bastion of the real super heroes that exist in this world. If you consider it, artists are given the unique opportunity to engage large amounts of people how clutch to your words and empathize with your emotions and stories. The real distinction is between musical artists and artists of other kinds are the way in which they connect and impact the public and shape perceptions. The true superheroes of today work with super powers creating a super world using empathy.
Artists Are Superheroes
“The artist has an important role in the world. He literally paints the future. Want something new? Want the world to go in a new direction? The only person capable of this is an artist. Whether you call him a writer, inventor, engineer, architect, illustrator, composer, or photographer, the ideas and inventions that progress mankind forward are all dreamt up into reality by some artist somewhere, whether he even thinks to call himself one or not. The Wright Brothers were artists. So were Steve Jobs, Nicola Tesla, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson and pretty much anybody else you can think of that had a positive impact on the world. You want to be an artist? You are in some excellent company.” – David Carus, from the book Super Artist – How To Take Flight As A Creator
It’s not like I run into a phone booth before every performance and emerge wearing a cape, but it does mean that a great power and great responsibility have been bestowed upon me. Art is the quintessential embodiment of our super selves and that is why empathy is so important. In order to create art that someone subjectively identifies with it is necessary to channel the empath inside of us and reach out beyond our physical self with energies. Music has been the way that I use my super powers to effect change in my community every day and empathy is the single biggest emotional component of my super skills. The thing that sets apart the artists community is the deep and honest empathy we feel for other fellow artists and also our fans and supporters. If one of my songs can directly improve and alter some person’s life in any way then I feel like I have done my ditty duties.
Empathy and Art
Artists of the world use your powers of creation for good. Make your cause a just one and always be willing to help another. People gravitate towards that positive energetic glow of sound and shapes. Harnessing them unto others should be the one true aim of an artist. Paying empathy forward to those around you will actually improve your mental health and physical well-being as well as the people you contact. I am writing this now as a reminder to myself to be more aware of being empathic too. Sometimes we let our ego get the best of us and that is not acceptable. As a final note I wanted include a track by bandwidthnoname.com about bullying. Take a moment to empathize with others and not hurt them…
FOREVER (a tribute to Amanda Todd): http://youtu.be/DaC4bee3i0U is our premix version of a song that has a great deal of meaning to us. It is a tribute about the perils of cyber bullying and the harmful the effects it has. We wrote this song to honor those who have remained silent in their suffering. BNN does NOT stand for bullying of ANY kind and we want to end the suffering.. Please help us by continuing to SHARE this link and song so we can get the word out and END CYBER BULLYING for good. Thanks for all of your help.
Nick “Furious” Meyers
Nick “Furious” Meyers is a longtime veteran of the New Mexico Music scene. Nick has worked with Community Publishing in the past, having served as the Audio Engineer on the multimedia children’s book, Fiona the Funkadelic Freckile Fairy. Nick is currently working working as the Audio Engineer on the Animated multimedia book, Bella the Caterpillar (written by 7yr old Marisol Paramo) to be published in the late Fall by Community Publishing: From the Community For the Community!
Curated by Mary Ann Gilbreth, Ed.D., Department of Teacher Education, Educational Leadership and Policy, at the University of New Mexico. This collections includes the work of her students from several of her Reading Methods Classes, promoting cultural diversity in the classroom.
