Essay Revision 1/2

The Scientific Observation of Scraping My Knee

Nothing is worse than not realizing that there is something underneath this thing called skin that looks like fresh turkey meat but it’s called tissue, but you don’t wipe your nose with it, and then some liquid coming out of it that seeps out to slow, but way too fast for comprehension, and you have to sop it up like thanksgiving bread on gravy, all in 8.5 seconds.

            At the age of eight was when I got my first scrape on my body. I was rushing to get home from a long drawn out day at school, but the ground was too big and fast under my little feet ; I missed a concrete step and fell straight to the ground. When I was a little kid this seemed like the worst thing in the world; scraping my knee and looking at this strange stuff coming out of me. But, I appreciate how I paid more attention to the process my knee was going through aside from the fact that I just scraped myself. I understood that there was something underneath my skin and there was something that kept all of this stuff inside. It was kind of scary; the fact that there was something underneath. I don’t know if it was more scary that something was underneath my skin or the fact that my skin was scraped off and the inside was coming out

The Skin        

I’ve lived with my mom for most of my life, so it was at a very young age that I realized my mom and dad were two separate people. Most kids that have parents that have been together throughout their entire lives almost think of their parents as one entity; but I knew different. They were separated since I can remember so it was just me and my mom at the hospital the day I was born.

            I wanted my parents to be together; what kid doesn’t. But as I got older I appreciated them not being together, but until then I was forced to understand why they weren’t. One day I was sitting in the living room with two pigtails in my hair fixed to the television playing a video game and it reminded me of my dad, because whenever I would go over to his house that’s one thing we enjoyed doing with each other- well- one thing that we could do without him getting emotional on me. But anyway my mom had on a swishy sweat suit and was swishing around the living room doing some straightening up that she never accomplished, and I unfolded myself from sitting Indian style and thought why not see if she wants to be with daddy and play video games. I totally ignored the fact that she just got married a year ago. I tilted my head to the side and asked, “Mom, why don’t you like daddy? He likes playing video games and so do you.” She replied with a hesitant and a comfortable uncomfortable slight chuckle, “I know Nashira, but there are other things.” I sadly fixed my face back to the television and kept playing the video game while still thinking of other things I could ask her that had to do with her and my dad; I was not satisfied. I did this often. I would come to my mom crying asking her why she didn’t love daddy anymore, but this time was the last.

 After not getting the responses that I wanted from her, I kind of gave up after three years and a half and forced myself to understand why they weren’t together. It was time to grow up. Besides, she was married already.

            When I didn’t live with him, my sister and I would go to his house every other weekend. We dreaded it; at least that’s the front I would put on. One weekend my sister and I were getting ready to go to his house and we met up with him at the usual place. My mom drove us there, and when we would get close enough it’s almost like she could smell his stench. That’s what it seemed like because her face would scrunch up around her nose like she smelled something disgusting. There me and my sister were in the back of the car exchanging smacking of the teeth and “man I don’t wanna go”. But, as soon as we got out of the car and saw my dad my eyebrows didn’t look so evil anymore and I even smiled. This time we had to go to the store with him and my stepmother before we got to his house. When we got into the store I offered to push the cart and I did it with a smile. As soon as my sister could steal a second to grab my face with hers behind my dad’s back she said, “I thought you didn’t want to be here.” I pretended almost like I didn’t hear her and kept pushing the cart hoping my dad would look back so it would help out my act to ignore my sister. Half the time I sat up underneath my dad watching boxing and asking him questions about the house because I was interested in what he was interested in what he was interested in; knowledge. My sister stayed in the room most of that weekend although she did come downstairs to eat. When we sat at the dinner table he would say a prayer in Arabic and it made me a bit uncomfortable. The dinner conversation was mostly between me and my dad; I didn’t like the awkward silence. Before I knew it the weekend was over and when it was time to leave I thought I was going to be alright. My sister made a b line to the door as soon as my mom beeped the horn. But me, I dragged my feet like they were full of metal and when he hugged me I didn’t let go. He didn’t either so he picked me up and once his heart was against mine I cried like a baby coming out of a mother’s womb that was about to be disconnected from the umbilical cord. I couldn’t help it. Just the thought of leaving him and him giving me that last hug and sealing kiss on my forehead before we left made me cry so hard.

The older I got the more I saw how I wasn’t like my mother. We were two different people. We were a part of the same autocracy but we were a dichotomy. I shared her physical features but not her personality or traits. I was connected to my creative side than she. I read for my own sake, sang for relief from my problems, and wrote to clear my mind. I had a love for music and everyone knew it. I left traces of my creativity all over scraps of paper or napkins and it was evident that I was in touch with myself because of I did what I loved and enjoyed doing. I never really saw this side of my mother. In her spare time she would be working on work, and when it wasn’t her spare time she was doing work. If she did have a journal of some sort, it was in private because she never mentioned it or had any pieces of paper or napkins with notes on it about herself until recently. In this respect she played the mom role; she would work so that we had a roof over our heads and go to sleep. Occasionally my mind would reach out to see where I got this love of art from and it had to be my dad, but that’s as far as it would go; no farther than thinking about him or sending out a text, because I didn’t have the right things to say.

Layers of Tissue

            Living with my mom, of course I got her side of everything and I didn’t know anything else, but I did have a mind of my own. My dad would always call me or reach out to me in some way asking me if I got the money he sent me and my sister, and I would say no. Then he would tell me about how “someone” must have been taking the money because he sent it to me and it was not in the mailbox. I didn’t know what to think. My mom would tell me that there was no money in the mail for me from my father.

            My mom was married to my stepfather since I was five, so he was the father figure in my life, if you want to call a man who came in the house every day from work, walked upstairs, spoke because it was the right thing to do, went into him and my mother’s room, and closed the door a father figure, then that’s what he was. My dad wasn’t around too much so my stepfather was the closest and fastest thing that came. I started to call him dad and everything, but my sister knew better and snapped me back into place. She may not have liked our dad but as soon as she heard me call him that she snatched me up and said, “ Don’t call him dad, he is not your dad so do not call him dad!” From them on I called him by his first name, Kelvin.

What was there to say? Hey dad, I know you’ve been absent for a while but I think I take after you more than I do my mom. It gets on my nerves that you weren’t here like you should have been and I have to find other people that are father figures even though you’re alive. I’m alright saying this to you. No ordinary 13 year old could say something like this to their father they were terrified of even though they never touched them to hurt them a day in their life. Yup; that’s what I did. I wrote him a letter.

The Blood Coming Out.      

I had a conversation with my dad, and he told me that he moved. It was news to me, because evidently he had been there for a while. When I got there it didn’t seem to matter too much because I made myself feel right at home as if it were his old house that I made memories in. I didn’t know that they had two new dogs and that my two dogs that I grew up with were sold. Neither did I know that the little that boy that was “adopted” was my blood little brother born out of his marriage. But that’s beside the point.

            I was watching the movie The Soloist that starred Jamie Foxx, and it got me more emotional than usual from watching movies; it was probably because it got in touch with a side I’m close to; expression through the arts. He was attached to his violin and it was the only thing he had that kept him calm. I tried not to cry because my dad was sitting to the left of me and I knew he would make me cry even more, or start to ask questions. I was going through a lot with my boyfriend and when the movie got through he looked at me as if he could feel I had pain behind my eyes and said in the most relaxing voice, “If you know that certain things keep you sane and relax you, why would you atop doing them Nashira?” I couldn’t give him a straight answer. We sat at the edge of the wooden table and this feeling I had was all so familiar. He stared at me with my eyes while telling me, “ You are a beautiful intelligent young lady and you deserve the best. You know who you are. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are.” I am you, I thought. His eyes pierced a hole in my two water balloons and tears started rolling down my face. I tried to cover them up by not looking at him as if he couldn’t see me, but regardless he knew what I was doing. I was eight years old again and this was the concrete scraping my knee. Absence was the cure of my life. Being away from him brought me closer to him. He was there all along. He ran through my blood; I just couldn’t see it until I got scraped. My grandmother used to correct him and his siblings whenever they spoke grammatically incorrectly and she would make them wake up in the morning reciting the eight parts of speech; I’m an English major. My aunt Mickey is a lawyer and lived in New York; that’s what I want to be. Things made sense.

It Healed and Scabbed

After the talk I had with my dad, I felt more whole than I had ever been. I had another part of me that filled in the emptiness. My mom taught me how to survive and to be independent, and my dad taught me how to deal with things when that part of life wasn’t working out. My mom taught me how to work and my dad taught me how to use the brains I have to make that work, work. Even though things weren’t perfect, they made sense.

 I felt like a child that went through the adoption process, looked for, and found her real parents.

Like all soars, I am fine and have a mark; my art. My art, my feelings, my emotions, my creativity, my writing is my mark, and it reminds me daily of who I am. My dad, he’s here more than he was before and I appreciate it. My mom is still here like she was before and I appreciate her. The only difference is what I knew then and what I know now. I like my scab.

Essay Revision 3/4

To Trust or Not to Trust? That is the Question

It was the sweet smell of October in the year 2008. The leaves had began to fall on the ground and get crushed by the people walking over them making that crisp crackling sound that reminded everyone that the summer was over and the chill was coming back. The wind blew from the parking lot and quickly whirled over the bridge, slowed down a bit and glided over the small rivers and across the surface of the cool long path that led to the older college residence halls. The people would carry the wind in with them as they rushed in to close the door to get into the warmth. However, there was still a little chill that followed them to their rooms. It got smaller but the thrill was still in the smallness. They brought it into their sleeping place where their friends would be. The friend’s face would scrounge up and they’d say, “Woooh it’s cold outside huh?” There, in one of these old hall rooms, was I, a young lady that commuted and really wanted to see what the hype was about living on campus. I wanted the independency of living on my own during my sophomore year of college since my whole freshman year passed so fast. Everyone had been telling me how much fun it was and I wanted to check it out for myself.  I really didn’t want to stay at home and continue to live the same life I was living in high school. I had nothing to lose but all to gain. On campus there weren’t the responsibilities that my mom had me doing and there were guys so why not? I stayed on campus with someone before but that was on the couch and it was a little bitter because it was in my guy friend’s room. His girlfriend at the time thought that I wanted her man which I did, but I never gave evidence for her to back it up and I wasn’t a home-wrecker so she had nothing to worry about.  So I had fun besides the loud dramatized arguing and slamming doors that in the next room. So this next time I stayed in my good girl friend’s room. There was four, two sets of two girls and one from each set that met in the middle, and we had all just came from a club for college students. Three of us came back to the school and we talked about how fun the club was and looked over the pictures we took. It was all so exciting because this was pretty much our first college clubbing experience.

Asia, my best friend, just started dating someone after going through a bad break up; his name was Glen. They eventually became official and still are together now. I had fin at the club and was having a good time hanging out with my friends, but then when I saw how they were hugged up and cuddling I wanted someone for me. So I asked my friend’s new man, “Do you have someone that can come chill with us over here for me?” He replied too quickly, “Oh yeah I do.” Not knowing that he was serious, within five minutes there was a knock on the door and when it was opened in the doorway stood a light skinned young-man, nicely built with a cute face and whose eyes told all that was on his mind; at the moment it had to me. I had asked for him, and presto, there he was. Be careful what you wish for. He came into the room with a soft step and I followed him with my eyes.  I couldn’t help but giggle because I didn’t think he was serious about inviting this guy over. He came with another friend that was walking behind him, but all eyes were on tall dark and handsome so no one noticed his friend. He walked in like he knew everybody but I was sure he didn’t know anyone in the room yet. When my face showed this his face became a little shy.  He looked like he had it all going for himself. It was hard to see otherwise because couldn’t get passed the strong stench of handsome he had on. Later on in the night he introduced himself as Ryan.

We all had a little to drink, but I didn’t have as much as everyone else; I wasn’t much of a drinker.  We all surrounded the table with chairs and our bodies. Because of the wine we opened up more comfortably to each other. We just came from the club and I had something on my mind so I figured why not bring it up for conversation. I opened up the floor about how men at the club go for girls that have nice bodies and show it off by wearing belly-shirts and show their breast, but they don’t go for females that go to the club wearing shirts that don’t show anything or pants that aren’t low or tight enough like her like me. My exact words were, “I’m a Christian young lady and I conduct myself accordingly. Guys don’t go for girls like me.” Confident, Ryan says , “Well I’m a Christian too and from the time I walked in, I’ve been thinking you’re beautiful. I’m dark-skinned but everyone could tell that I was blushing. I tried to laugh it off without showing too many teeth of course, and I said thank you to him. We had to keep up the entertainment so we put some music on. Ryan grasped me from behind like he knew what he was doing and made his way to my face so our breasts were face to face. The he shocked me and asked me a question like he’s known me for years. “Do you trust me?” I wasn’t sure if I heard him over the music, or if the liquor was saying something to me, so I asked him to repeat himself and I heard him correctly. I hesitantly but willingly from the rush of spontaneity responded, “Yeah.” He took my hands, flipped me over a full 360 degrees, and caught me on his two legs in a squatting position with resting my legs on his, and then started dancing again while I was still on him. Drunk, but aware I thought this was the best night of my life.

At the end of that night I got his number and he rushed out of the room what seemed to be for something urgent. We rarely talked on the phone and I started to get aggravated because he was my cup of tea and he thought I was cute but that’s all we knew about each other. Here was this guy I had never seen in my life but now I was thinking about him whenever I had a chance. My virgin mind was more full of imagination than those with minds of experience. Whenever I saw him walking by my heart raced faster than I could handle and I could barely look at him. The only time I was free without being so nervous was over the phone.  I started to have questions, and I would ask them because mentally, I had nothing to lose. Words were nothing but words.  But, I wasn’t thinking about the actions that usually back up those words.

One night on the phone there was one question I wish I wish I never asked and would have paid more attention to the response he gave. “Why don’t you ever want to chill? I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.” “I’m not good for you. You don’t want somebody like me. You’re a good Christian girl and I would be nothing but a bad influence on you.” Of course I didn’t listen and ended up hanging out with him sooner than later to find out for myself; the definition of a female.

Two weeks after the night I met Ryan, Residence Life gave me an exciting call informing me that they had a room for me on campus and I moved in as soon as I could get her stuff into my mom’s car. I got acquainted with my roommates and was finally in the land of learning.

Ryan and Glen invited Asia and I over to hang out. But little did I know that that meant spending the night. So we dressed up all cute and put on smell goods that would drag people’s noses with them until the sent faded away. We were nervous but tried to hide it. We had girl pep talk before and during that walk over to the other building. We must have done a good job getting cute because as soon as we got into the room two sets of eyes caught onto our bodies. Glen didn’t care, but Ryan seemed to manage some type of control that would let someone with experience know that he’s done this before. Both pairs had their small talk. Soon after, the guys, being somewhat on one accord, made comments suggesting that we were too dressed up to stay over and that the clothes we had on weren’t night clothes. Of course now me and Asia wanted to go back and change, because this was what the guys wanted us to do, and it wasn’t so hard of a task. When I went back to my room to change I was as nervous as ever. I met back up with Asia and trembled back to their room. By the time we got back Glen was in his room A and Ryan was in his room C; so me and Asia parted. Ryan and I talked for an hour about nothing and it was good. Soon after, Ryan had to go to bed because he had to get up in the morning to handle some business. When we went to sleep the first time together it was uncomfortable for me because this wasn’t my kind of thing, staying the night with a guy I’ve only had conversation with several times and saw only once in person. So I stayed up the entire night staring at him until he felt my eyes burning through him. He woke up and we talked some more. I found out some things that made me even more uncomfortable and harder for me to keep up my front that I was cool with all of this. The next time we went to sleep together it was a little less uncomfortable until he started touching me in his sleep. He tried to hold me and I didn’t know what to do, so I just let him do that because I didn’t think it was that bad. The third night we stayed together he started doing other things. I was intrigued because he was a little older but a little scared at the same time. I didn’t know if I should let him touch me. All I could think about was the fact that I was in his blow up bed and how I was the one that came over to his room. How awkward was that?

Time flew by and absolutely nothing was happening between him and me.

 A month passed by and instead of keeping him on my mind I went dorm hopping with a few of my friends. I couldn’t help but think of him for some time of the day; how he asked to her to come to his room at such specific times of the day, how it was a little annoying to not be able to say his name in public while we were on the phone , how he went around secretly finding out information about me without people knowing that we were dating, how he called when he wanted and responded to texts when he saw fit in his busy life, how he would disappear for seven to ten days at a time, but how I still wanted to see him. I was a little tipsy and happened to be in his building and on his floor while dorm hopping. He opened the door because he heard us in the hallway. Of course I acted oblivious like I didn’t know I was on his floor, but went in his room anyway. Why not? A few of us girls and some guys danced and laughed until me and him ended up in a bedroom. He laid me down on the bed but wasn’t stupid. A girl came into the room that we both knew and said, “Oops my bad I’m sorry,” while standing there in awe. He shouted, “We’re just talking!”  I just laughed because I thought it was funny how he had to make an effort to explain to someone else his own business; I was catching onto his game. After whispering some sweet nothings in my ear to try to make me forget that someone just entered the room, he revealed a piece of meaty skin on my body that I was self-conscious about. I tried to stop him but he was quick with his slickness and smooth with his touch and graceful with his movements and smart with his words. He started to caress my pocketbook with his hands, and then like a little kid with no hands. I yelped, “Ryan no!”

He replied, “Shhh, I wouldn’t do that to you. You told me that you don’t want to do that and I wouldn’t do that until you’re ready.”

His words came out so quick to me and I relaxed. His hands went up my stomach passed my belly button and to my breasts. He teased them as he pleased me with no hands. By the end of the night I gained some sort of trust for him and slept comfortably with him that night.

Another month passed by and he really wanted to see me. Despite his busy schedule and all, he managed to come to my room and spend the night with me until the next afternoon. I wish this afternoon never happened. We woke up and all was well. I trusted him. He told me he wanted to please me by showing me through his actions, but now I trusted him so it was ok.  I trusted him. He massaged my middle and said, “Let me try something new. Turn over to your side.” So I followed instructions… I felt his fingers more widely and wildly today. I was a little uncomfortable but not in pain so I let him continue trying something new. All I could keep my mind on was that I trusted him. He turned me back over to where he was on top of me. She trusted him. We had a talk about how I wanted things to happen when it did. I wanted to be in love, she wanted to be with the guy for more than a year, I wanted to be comfortable; I wanted it to be real. I felt his fingers again but something was different. He put his hands on mine and looked at me in my eyes. I still felt his fingers. I felt his hands grabbing my hands. He grasped my hands tighter. I grasped his hands as if I was reading brail to understand that they were hands. They were… I covered my face as he tried his hardest to beg and plea. I could barely feel my life. Everything was nothing.

“Baby, baby, look at me please.”

I looked at him with the rest of the life I had left and said, “I trusted you.” One tear came out of my right eye. I felt like shit.

Reflective Essay

In the beginning of this course I thought that I was not going to succeed in it because of the title. The things we wrote in this class had to be real and true. I knew I wrote well in the area of fiction because my imagination sprouts in all different directions, but writing about things that were true, and doing it creatively, seemed like it was not going to be an easy task. Now that I have taken this course I found that I write this material a lot more easy than I do in other English classes. I now have a process I go through when I am writing that helps me to go deeper than what is on the surface and everything flows a lot smoother. The conferences with the professor have helped as well. The fact that it is one on one gives both the teacher and the student a closer look into what he/she is trying to say and helps to bring it out as well as push the writer in the right direction by using the material they have already written, which feels great to know that you are writing the right things, now you just have to write them in the right way with your right hand.

            During this course the professor took us through numerous activities that brought us to another place that helped us be where we need to be in order for our writing to flow. One example she gave in class was for us to close our eyes and try to remember a place that we went to often when we were young. The next step was to walk around this place and try to remember any sounds we might have heard or smells that were familiar, and imagine some items that were in this place that can make the place appear to be more vivid. Then, were to try to remember the good things and/or the bad things that came with this place. Then we were to write about it. This helped to put me in a place I wouldn’t have gone by just writing if she said just write about a place you used to go to often when you were from the age 4-8. In other words sometimes you have to walk mentally to find things or to dig deeper. This is one of the processes I go through while writing; literally taking myself to that place. Another thing that has helped me a lot was reading journal entries aloud in class. Sometimes I would be stuck, or would think that my idea was not relevant to the subject matter, but by hearing other people’s entries, this helped me identify what I was doing well, right, and what I could do differently. One more thing I found useful, which is similar to reading aloud in class, are the blogs. By reading other people’s blog entries, we can see the use of other student’s ideas and how we can improve on our own. Also, the professor provided us with a text book that looked at things from an “I” perspective and an “eye” perspective. Initially I did not understand the difference, but now not only do I understand the difference but I can portray two different forms of Creative Non-fiction writing that before I did not know.

            By using the techniques that I have learned in class, my writing is more effective. I remember while talking in class the professor asked if I was the one that told most of the stories in the family during family functions, and I replied yes. Now I can do this and make my stories effective on paper.

JMWW

Nashira Jackson

JMWW is an online quarterly accepting fiction, nonfiction poetry, art, and essays. This company publishes Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall issues in early January, April, July, and October, or thereabouts. They accept simultaneous work, but please notify them that your work has been accepted elsewhere. JMWW tries to respond to submissions within1-3 months, but they ask that the author does not send any more submissions than they have already sent until they get a response to the first submission; they read work year round. They ask that you please proofread your work before submitting it; note: sometimes getting someone else to do it for you is betterà” fresh eye”

-  JMWW is a great starting place to send your work for publication because they accept work written for just about anything!

- Published Work

Flash Fiction-He Her Heck By: Alexandra Chasin, Keep it Supple By: James Hannaham

Poetry-The Wings Inside Our Stomachs By: Nicelle Davis

Poetry- A Soap Opera Critic By: SL Corsua

Specific Requirements and Important Information

• Poetry: The author can submit up to 3 poems with no limit in length. They enjoy all types of poetry but they have a preference for free-verse poetry. They also prefer poems, at this time, to highlight topics that are not often written about (I.e. 9/11, unrequited love, politics) although they are sure there is wonderful work written on these topics.
• Fiction, Essays, Nonfiction: JMWW accepts works up to 25 pages double spaced, although 3000 words or less catches their eye. They like strong characters whose motivations are not always known but can be explained with common sense. In other words, let the reader’s mind be the judge of what this character illuminates by your writing.
• Flash Fiction: They like their flash fiction to be under 1000 words. Suggestion: Look at Smokelong Quarterly. If they would like it, chances are they will too.
• Artwork: Please ASK
• Failure to comply by submission guidelines automatically results in you submission being deleted. “We hate to be hard asses, but we have spent too much time over the years asking authors which three poems of eight they would like us to consider or for a shorter fiction submission, time that could be spent reading writers who took time to read our guidelines.”
• They do not pay for accepted works at this time
•  THERE ARE NO DEADLINES, THEY READ YEAR ROUND!!!
• http://jmww.150m.com/