Dear Diary,

No one listened when I was a fatherless kid. I suffered from a plethora of verbal,
emotional and extreme abuse in Goulds, Florida...
Who will listen now...?

Goulds...is a census-designated place (CDP) in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The area developed originally as a stop on the Florida East Coast Railroad...

The railroad depot was located near today's Southwest 216th Street. The community
was named after its operator, Lyman Gould, who cut trees for railroad ties.

The downtown area had a post office, a grocery store and an apartment building.

Most of this former downtown area is now a part of the Cauley Square shops.

The area that became Goulds was settled in 1900 by homesteaders. It received its name when the Florida East Coast Railway built a siding in 1903, operated by an employee of the railroad named Goulds.

It was first known as Gould's Siding,
and later shortened to Goulds. Many packing houses were built along Old Dixie Highway.

Early on Goulds had a reputation as
a rough town, with several saloons serving itinerant field workers.

Most of the packing houses were destroyed by a tornado in 1919, or the 1926 Miami Hurricane, but were rebuilt.

♥️

When I looked in the mirror this morning, what reflected back weren't images of Langston Hughes. When I smiled, what radiated wasn't Alice Walker.

I scarcely looked around and I didn't see The Color Purple but the Color Black called the epidermis of my skin has been cursed, shamed and tortured, well...at least that was what white folk want you to believe.

I may no thave Oprah Winfrey's money nor have an estate built next door to Bill Gates.

I may still catch the Metro Bus and walk
around broke; I may not be the heir to the Gateses or the Hiltons or the Lucas's or phone ET after Vietnam and now Star
Wars are in the VA Hospitals.

But I was a bestselling author. I was blessed with that. You see...I didn't ask for much and what I did ask for I couldn't live without.

I may be looking for a job so I have something to do outside of writing (I'm currently employed); but then again writing was my job and I loved it.

I may have gone to prison twenty-three years ago. I may have a past. I may not be what Mama preferred. I may not drive a flashy car and on my fingers the brilliance of materialistic jewelry doesn't gleam, shine, tinkle or bling.

I may be a lot of things in your mind. I may not live up to your expectations. I may have done some things that disappointed you.

Half of the people I know say I'm out of control because I'm out of their control.

I may sleep late into the day and bump Janet Jackson from my SONY walk man at night writing these books (The Velvet Rope is on repeat). Eye may not be perfect. My shit may stink. But there's one thing no one can take from me.

I'm the first one in my generation of
people to be a successful multi-published author. Those that follow behind me I'm very proud of. But only I write like me, period and in that there is no competition. 

To say that I arrived as an author/poet on crystal stairs would be to deny all the hell I endured to make it there. The road less taken was a fabled one.

Traveling down that road left me mentally fucked, soulfully constipated and crazily different.

So I never traveled that road again.
Some members of my family stood in my way. Some of my cousins bashed and talked about me so badly I distanced
myself and hadn't lost any sleep.

I never verbally let them know hings that were whispered about me. Friends turned on me because eye don't talk or act the way they want me to.

Others cling to me, hoping my books take off. Little do they know eye am aware of the sharks in my waters.

I didn't let that stop me.

Before my books were published the niggahs on the block denounced me.

"Boy pick up a basketball or slang some weed. Niggahs in the 'Hood don't write. We survive."

And I took a look at his living situation and shook my head at his little small bedroom in his sister's house and she was even his half sister.

She was a good friend turned sister, niggah ain't 'bout shit and he a freeloader so eye looked at ole boy and said, "You survive?"

"I survive."

I laughed, holding my stomach. "Barely. Pauline ain't your sister, boy and we all know it."

He fell dangerously quiet, raising the bottom of his shirt and revealed his dusty, dry ass Smith and Wesson...