Blessed & Curvy

A Sister's Love Growing up I was the youngest of 13 siblings. I had one in particular who took the role at the age of 11 to be the Second Momma. She would babysit me, as she got older her job was to make sure I ate, bathe and did my homework. She was a teenager and I did everything that she did. She applied Noxzema to her face for teenage acne well here I am right behind her when she went to school putting it on my face. She would put ketchup on her collard greens well here I go doing the same thing again. When she started dating her boyfriend who is now her husband I was scared that our relationship would change. On her wedding day my nose was bleeding because I was afraid my sister was going to leave me forever. Our relationship didn't change if anything I was calling her to talk on the phone like she was next store, when I could I was taking the bus to spend weekends with her until I learned to drive. She later moved to California and when I was in my ...

I am asked all the time once someone knows that I am a writer. How did you publish your book? I tell everyone that I started writing in my journal and once I had enough content I started taking pieces and putting them into the outline. I challenged myself to write poetry and nonfiction with the outcome that the reader would find motivation. I wanted the reader to take what I had wrote and relate in some parts to the topics. Then I started doing my research with other writers on what they were doing. I also used Google to find self published publishers over traditional. Once I felt that there was a relationship I read all of the contract before signing on the dotted line. I uploaded my manuscript and the work began. I was contacted to give a synopsis of what the book was about, where did I want it to be sold, how many pages was the book. What type of formatting did I want to use, the color of the pages and lastly help in selecting the book cover. Again resea...

Not Needing Your Acceptance Powerful words Letting them roll off of my lips like dew drops As a child we do everything to appease our parents Then it become peer pressure when we are teenagers Then it's someone else that we are trying to please At some point it stops! When I was younger I was told I was beautiful That all that matters is that you're beautiful So as I aged, life challenges presented itself ,  as most men and women I found  myself with a few extra pounds Now I was still beautiful but society had labels  I had family members who love me say " You dress cute for a big girl" It would sting because why wasn't I thought of as someone who dressed nice I hit 50 years old and there was a feeling of liberation. I was letting friends go who were negative I was letting relationships go that were toxic I was letting jobs go that were killing me Again the same family member would say " You know companies won't ...

Valiant Voices-Kimberly Lee We’ve all had something that could potentially silence the sound of our soul. Even as you read this the corridors of your memory could be opened to a memory, a scent, a day or time that you’d rather not remember. Or perhaps you’re the vigilante that that has snatched their life’s vocal chords back from a traumatic experience.   You could even be the doula that helps the injured survivor process the pain of circumstances in order to birth purpose. No matter which you may be one thing is for sure, trauma on any level is just that; trauma. Trauma is a deeply distressing event that changes the trajectory of an existence that you deem as normal into a reality that can range in emotions from sullen numbness, trickery, deceit, rage and chaos on any given day. This doesn’t even include the time it takes to heal and eventually come to a place of wholeness. Trauma that people have experienced over time comes in all different shapes and sizes rangi...

Me Too She comes forth Taking all the courage to tell her story She is made to feel ashamed Mocked by others Jokes about her looks She names witnesses They’re afraid to share what they saw Me Too Women are standing in support Sharing their stories 10 years ago 20 years ago The memories are flooding the internet Men are coming forward Thinking this could happen to their sisters, daughter or worse their Mothers Me Too There are marches formed Some men are fired from their positions Some men are tried before a jury Some go to jail One becomes a Supreme Court Judge Submitted by Poet, Author, Blogger Patricia A. Saunders www.patriciaAsaunders.com

Years ago I wrote my first poem about crimes against African Americans. As I am getting older it's becoming more and more the norm in today's society. From Trayon, Mike, Oscar, Sandra and now Nia. You can't turn on the news and not see that someone in some state, some city, some town has been killed. Its has little kids scared of police officers because a family member was killed by a cop. You have black on black crime where we are killing each other over territory.  Here is the reality we don't own the block. No matter how many kilos are sold the truth is the city , the state , and the government owns the block. You can't drive on the highway even because a rival might recognize you, it was part of an initiation, or you happen to cut them off and the road rage had them pull out a glock to even the score. I write about injustice and even how a college educated woman could be pulled over, asked about the car she is driving if it is hers, ask her to d...

It was in the year 2013 and I was going through a storm. I had taken a demotion at work , transferred closer  to home and was trying to take care of myself. I had started symptoms for high blood pressure, was prediabetic , and my arm couldn’t go above my head. In my dream one morning I was saying I need to do something to wake  the old me back up. I wanted to get back into taken care of myself. I was awaken by a notification on my phone that I felt was a sign. It was an invitation to come to Saint George, Utah to visit a resort called Red Mountain. I responded back that I was interested to take the travel agent rate and explore the experience. Within minutes they responded back and I knew then it was real, not a dream, and the beginning . Within weeks flight is booked , it will be a work trip since I am going to write about the whole experience.  I arrived into Las Vegas and took a shuttle van to Saint George, being stuck between strangers, and I am...

Mixed emotions bottled up about what is showing up in the media about this wall. Let me paint the picture for you. You are on a mission to make a better life for your family . You might have been running away from someone trying to kill you so your family pays to get you here . You're seeking to get away from whatever it is that we might never know.  Only thing they separate you from your young children, your wife, and your family trying to break you. Land of the free doesn't want you to come to the United States you're labeled a murder, rapist, and unfit to come here. We don't want you to take jobs away that even the low income don't want but we don't want you to have it. What resonates with everyone hearing this on the news, reading it in the newspapers and hearing on the radio is that higher up sitting in a oval office justified the treatment. I can only share from my perspective from my ancestors that were  brought over in slaves ships...

Book Excerpt I’ll never forget the day my mother said to me, “Everybody is not your friend.” I don’t remember my age. I was relatively young and quite impressionable. Her words haunted me for a while and stuck inside my head like chewing gum on a shoe. I remember telling myself, she had to be wrong. My friends were really my friends. They liked me just as much as I liked them. Over time I’d find myself in these one-sided friendships. Friendships that were harmful, negative, catty, and downright a waste of my time and energy. Whenever a friendship would end I could still hear my mother’s words replaying in my mind. I’d find myself often in between trying to repair the friendship in some way or filling a void of regret in my heart. Often in my younger years I found myself being a people pleaser/friendship resolver. I wanted people to like me. I desperately wanted my friendships to last forever. I wanted to be a part of the conversation, share a laugh, a secre...