"July is a blind date with summer"

I hope this July is treating you all well, despite all of the "adulting" and watching the world around us slowly fall apart. No big deal (very hard satire here). I’ve spent my July stepping out of a comfort zone that I had long dreamed and talked about. It was talked about so much, with hardly any fruitful action, that I had kept it a secret that I’d no longer share. Why? Because I didn’t want to be questioned or held accountable for the project that never seemed to have a finale.

I was speaking to my best friend a few weeks ago, and we were talking about the things we’d hope to hone in on and achieve throughout the rest of the year. We spoke about helping to keep each other accountable in some way, starting with writing and planning our goals out. I told her that the project I had intended to finish in October had nothing left to be planned or written about. The only thing left on my part was to execute what needed to be done. This conversation led to an internal and very tight deadline that would leave no room for further procrastination on the finale of my project.

Often, I’d be re-energized to finish it, only to psych myself out with all the negative self-talk bullshit. The what-if bullshit. The never-ending “you-aren’t-good-enough bullshit”. So, unlike any time before, I set a date and committed to doing all things necessary to finally release this project—my poetry book.

This actually came about sometime after I finished grad school and had felt “ready” to finally share my hidden talent with the world. I had been writing poetry since around 2016 and had pitched the idea to a few of my closest girlfriends around 2018. It was a sunny summer day in Brooklyn; we overlooked Rockaway Parkway from my balcony on the 21st floor. What a time of my life that was. The name of the book at the time would be called "Poetry: A Love Language," and then it would switch to "The Diary of a Young Black Queen." LOL. Please see the first prototype below:

I was there on the balcony, pitching my idea about my poetry book to the girls. I explained how each poem would be preceded by a story, detailing the reason and inspiration behind each poem. It was the poetry book of my dreams, like the ones I had been reading all my life, specifically those written by women of color. The first poem would be "Queen." I read it out loud to the girls, sharing with them something I had never shared outwardly before.

Her brown melanin dripping like honey

Sun-kissed, no bronzer

Lips plumped, no fillers

Hips swinging,

waist whining to the sweet tunes bumping through the windows of drivers and passengers tryna holla

And her friends,

gold dripping off their sleeves

Chocolate colored girls, “Melanin Dreams”

Mouths that can get them into trouble,

but got necks breaking at every corner

They hold me down in any and every corner

Melanin beauties, my melanin stoners

They have goals and dreams

And while they study in class and hustle in the part-time job scheme,

I feel for their frustrations and growing feelings of stagnancy

Watching some of their friends and these artists,

blow up on the Instagram scene

My melanin queens, goals and dreams within reach

The strength of a beast, in and out of sheets

Book smart, street smart

Please don’t give up before your dreams start

Dark skin queen

Brown skin queen

Light skin queen

SUN-KISSED,

one of God’s greatest gifts

“Squadddddd OKURRRRRRRR!”

They cheered me on after this poem, surprised that I had shared my gift with them. Over the next few years, I would share some of my deepest and most vulnerable thoughts and emotions through poems, in an attempt to feel validated enough to finally release something. After the conversation with my best friend this month, I was set to publish my book a week later. There were still bumps I had to get over, as always when working towards achieving a goal—bumps that pull you back into reality and out of your delusion of success. These bumps pull us right back to where we started, stagnant and scared, fearful of the critics, worried about lack of support, and failure. Despite the bumps and the reminder from my husband (as always) that no one is rushing me but me, I kept pushing through.

The thing was, this poetry book I was now releasing was nothing like the book I had first envisioned back in 2018. Or even back in October 2023, when I was sure it would finally be released that month. Shit happens, and life happened. I fell into a huge depression about the genocide happening in Palestine, then finding out more about the crisis in Haiti, the Congo, Sudan, Tigray, and all over the world. There was no way I could focus on releasing my poetry book. How classless, unempathetic, and guilty I’d feel.

This time, the urgency was to release a poetry book by the end of the ninth month that my life changed once again, forever. It was to be released in memory of the ninth month that my country has been funding a full-fledged genocide of the Palestinians through an Israeli proxy war. There indeed was a rush, and I needed that rush to achieve the finale I longed for. This time was the right time as an artist to share my personal contributions of art during a period where so many of us are looking for community.

I released my first poetry book on 7/19. My E-book can be found here through Lulus Bookstore. And because of popular demand, it can now be purchased through hardcover here. A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to causes in Palestine, Congo, Haiti, and Sudan, supporting those who fight for justice and relief in the face of adversity. This was not the book I envisioned releasing to the world as my first project finale. But is life ever what we expect? What I do know is that once you do something one time, it becomes easier the next time you do it. Also, when you do something you're passionate about, the support doesn't matter because it's not about the money. I had a blind date this summer with July, and it turned out that I became a published author thereafter <3.

As always, till next time with love. RidethaVibe with Dee ❤️