Tamara G. Saliva has been writing poetry for as long as she can remember. She is a native New Yorker. She once read and won 2nd place at a poetry slam at The Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan, which was her first open mic/poetry slam, reading until she lived in South Florida. She was recently featured in a show Called Verses hosted By Helena D Lewis at The Nuyorican Poet’s Café, a dream come true for her.  She is presently aspiring to publish her first book of poetry, which at the present time is at 165 pages and is in the process of being edited. She is also attempting to memorize her poetry for performance purposes and has currently taken on the challenge of writing her memoir.

She is currently a Co-host for a Blogtalk radio Show called “What’s in your ink? Pillow poetry & Inspiration”, she is also co-administrator of the http://www.pillowpoets.ning.com site that is directly linked to the “What’s in your ink? Pillow poetry & Inspiration”.

Before you judge

Before you judge, the cover of the book that is me,
pick it up,
dust it off.
Read the pages as I reveal myself through them.
I want any of you who cast stones to put on my shoes, take the first step.
Can you get through, to get to, the second step?
Not many could survive the life I have lived.
My first steps lead into a downward spiral of unfortunate events.
I was the lil’ girl interrupted by early on-set womanhood.
Black sheep by the birth of right of the woman gave birth to me.
Talented by the passage of my fathers’ genes.
What of the third step?
In those shoes of mine, you wear?
Can you manage?
I don’t think you can handle the next set of damages
Deprived of my father,
pushed into the conformity of a stepfather,
left in the predatory misuse of my childhood;
combined by the mishandling of my six year old body.
Grape jelly mornings on my lips.
What could you know of the life I lived to create me?
Take the next step in those shoes,it’s not even quarter of a mile.
Your feet ache, don’t they?
Your shoulders weigh too.
I can tell, by the change in your posture.
Your walk slouches as you step.
Step into the following pages tread lightly, survival is key.
In all your judgment you fail to see, all the things that tried to break me!
See while I laid there she embraced me and he erased me.
As her hand interlocked his intrusion on my innocence
Her allowance deprives me of yet another parent.
Tangling me in the web of lies I learned and lies I told.
leaving strangers behind in the rooms and cars of where my dignity laid and fell to her knees.
To rise out of to many rooms where wombs filled with father figure seeds were flushed.
This next step bares a glimpse of happiness,
where blue demons lurked in a desolate place,
where the skeletons of my past may spill through me,
afraid that they’re evils, were my evils too.
So I let go, of the most beautiful thing that could ever happen to me, out of the fear of destroying all the goodness he possesses.
I deprived me, of a beautiful son, in order to secure his happiness sealing it with a life opposite of my own.

I was bare

I was bare fist bruised, belt buckle beat and open hand slapped.
I was wide mouth reprimanded, with broom stick hits that left self-esteem welts across the self-image reflected in mirrors.
Put down in corners kneeled on cans of Goya lined with Canilla.
I didn’t ask for this existence punished in persistence slowly removing my innocence as if being a child was a virulent disease and its vaccine filled with a dose of rape, batter, and verbal deceits from drunken tongues.
My shame, they’re personal defeats to have fallen from human to deviant.
They’re evil spilled on sheets, it wrapped me in secrets.
A spirit enslaved by the shackles of silence, imprisoned on the plantation of secrecy, working in the fields of darkness.
This heart barely beats.
I was cured of child hood disease, pubescent disorder, with a vaccine so strong it removed adolescent years. Its biological preparation improved my immunity to smiles and childlike behavior. Each dose slowly administered by a fill in father, brutally injected by mothers’ rejection.
This soul barely speaks.
They called it life, its side effects;
A false pretense on love, shyness, anger, self-destruction, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, abortions, gilet split skin behind closed doors, depression, rage, heavy shoulders, sad eyes, mistaken notions of father, silent cries, blurred visions of mother, alcohol induced vomiting, fear, suicide attempts, adulthood, a list of disorders, dissociative, attention-deficits, post-traumatic stress, reactive attachment, even some obsessive compulsions, to many phobias to mention, the fitting of survival with the gain of wisdom, strength, faith, sacrifice, patience, and resilience.

©Tamara G. Saliva “Before you judge” and “I was bare”. All rights reserved.

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