Category: Uncategorized

Life in Motion

Published on by Tosha Michelle62 Comments


The encyclopedia of my life
dwells inside my mind.
Home is found in my personal history.
My world is located here.
The trajectory of a moonlight
path. The sun upon my face.
My mother’s embrace. The
voices of friends. Love lost
Love found The purr of my cat.
My daughters’ laughter. My
Father’s smile. These things
give me purpose.

My life has been a slow
awakening. With the passing
of each year, I become more
aware, more alive. Time has
a way of opening eyes. It’s
midday and the mist never
clears completely.
I’m still struggling in a dimly
lit room. Trying to understand
where my place is in the
swirling of seasons, places
and things. I yawn and stretch,
hungry for the unknown, the unborn poem,
the next adventure, to exist wholly,
before the fadeout begins.

-Tosha Michelle

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And We Write

Published on by Tosha Michelle60 Comments

Poetry is all about perception.
It’s what we perceive, not what
we see.

It’s all in the rhythm.
The arrangement of the poetic
notes.

It’s about loosening those
syllables until they roll off our pens
in a dance of self.

We release our whimper and watch
it turn into a roar on paper

We write for preservation.
We write to empty the emptiness.
We write like we eat, to live

We spend our nights out on a limb                                                      so we can fall into the melody of our craft

Our souls writing on.                                                                            Finding salvation in verse

-Tosha Michelle

Love

Published on by Tosha Michelle30 Comments

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She tries it on,
like a dress
She twirls
in the mirror.

It’s beautiful and
compliments her form.
Gloved fit
She knows this is the one

She can’t wait to take
it home, but then
she notices the hem
unraveling.

And how restrictive
it is around the chest.

The way the color
seems to mock her cool tones.

She sighs.
So much for
the right fit.

She rips it off.
Her skin comes too.

-Tosha Michelle

Something Else?

Published on by Tosha Michelle19 Comments

Life is an imperfect story
And the poet leaves things out
My poem is telling.
But is it telling me?
Is my wordsmithing soulsmithing?
My pen taps on wood, in hopes of getting somewhere.

My mind uses words, as grapes uses wine
Glass by glass I pour myself
into the narrative
Endrunken wishes and longing,
secrets and half truth spill
red on the pages. revealing my broken
rain song, my ink crazed brains

-Tosha Michelle

Guest Blog Post by Stephanae McCoy.

Published on by Tosha Michelle15 Comments

 

 

I asked the lovely and inspirational Stephanae McCoy if she would be so gracious as to write a guest blog post She said yes almost immediately, because she’s lovely like that :). For those of you who don’t know this dynamic lady ” (Steph) McCoy is a successful businesswoman, style setter, blogger and abilities crusader who breaks the myth that “blind people can’t be fashionable.” As a blind woman who happens to love fashion and style, Ms. McCoy founded boldblindbeauty.com, a successful website that brings women together to share in the beauty of fashion and style, provides a community that encourages empowerment and camaraderie, and makes a connection between the sighted and non-sighted worlds eradicating misconceptions and long-held stereotypes about people with vision lost”. You can find out more here. Be sure to follow.She’s one of my heroes.

About Steph

And do check out the amazing things she’s doing through her on-line store Abigail Style.

From the site:

Breaking down barriers, and giving back are the most important messages of Abigail Style. Empowering blind women to love themselves through the promotion of self-confidence enables them to walk through life on their own terms.

Independent living is achieved through focusing on individual talents and abilities. By supporting Abigail Style’s mission of improving the world, you are also aiding the Blind and Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh (BVRS) as 10% of all profits are given to the Employment Services Division of the agency. BVRS, known for its outstanding programs, has served people from around the US.

Abigail Style

And now Stephanae’s inspiring piece.

“Shame was the reason I decided to describe myself as ‘blind’ versus ‘visually impaired’ because it was important for me to accept the word ‘blind’. Once I did this I was able to get a grip on my fear and move forward.”

I’m not sure why I felt shame when I lost my eyesight but I think it was closely tied to my personal biases and lack of understanding where blindness was concerned. In walking through the process of sight loss and facing my shame/fear head-on I was able to move forward.
Do you Face Everything And Run? Or Face Everything And Rise? Fear can motivate or repress and your response is a matter of choice.

Choosing To Rise:
The first step is doing an honest self-assessment. Like following a map, unless you know yourself, you will get lost.
The next step is to set short and long-term goals. Goals should always be written, periodically reviewed, revised and once they are met, new ones should be set.
The third and final step is to stay the course. When you get derailed, get back on track and keep pursuing your dreams. Do not let anyone, tell you that you cannot succeed.

When it gets down to it the choice is up to you. You decide how to navigate your path to success.

Tick Tock

Published on by Tosha Michelle25 Comments

Outside of her was history.
A shroud to the past
The living beneath a life.
beyond the open door
an engraved coin, the swell
of violins, conjured spirits,
the echos of and
etching of yesterday
The yearning for a new day.

Inside of her, dwindling reason
An endless ticking watch
The watch was her mind.

-Tosha Michelle

https://m.soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/time-after-time-rawvery-raw

The Past

Published on by Tosha Michelle25 Comments

The past slips forward
under the door.
Slithering around on the
floor, tangled with our
muted perceptions and half
recalled facts. It’s dines
on our regrets, our annual
if only breakfast of crow.
We study it like math,
figures, we can’t quite grasp
We equate in retrospect.
under a ghost light
We ponder its multiplicity.
We survive on a broken
calculator and flashcards
that read don’t let go.

-Tosha Michelle 

Poetry

Published on by Tosha Michelle84 Comments

It feels safe to reside inside poetry. It’s my escape route.
Real and imagined.
Here I can live multiple lives
My feelings are diverse, if I tire of one emotion, there’s always another close as the ink on my hand.
Poetry holds my heart, and understands like water, I’m perpetually in transition. My words take on many forms. Some are steeped in reality. Others, solely fantasy, perhaps, live perceived in a parallel universe.

My soul never grows static in verse. My poet self, helps me gain confidence to live life as my real self, to have the courage to balance monotony and forgive the world its drudgery.

-Tosha Michelle 

Some Years 

Published on by Tosha Michelle31 Comments


Some years we peel
open like a fruit.
This year an orange.
We devour the nectar
or, feeling badly for the
naked fruit, we handle
it with care.

Other years are fruitless.
We search through our
refrigerators until we find
a carton of large white.
Cracking the years open
like an egg, until the yolk
break, running through our
fingers and onto time.

-Tosha Michelle 

Imperfections

Published on by Tosha Michelle66 Comments

My life is a Morse code of
scars and happenstance.
Do you want to know me?
I’ll sing you my blue notes.
Let you lick salt and sugar
in equal measure from my
skin. Give me your hands.
Under this silk dress lies
the vernacular of a heart
scarred and crisscrossed
into meaning.

-Tosha Michelle