Fifty to Sixty years from now...a girl will exist. Having Grown into a woman, actually. Perhaps with children of her own with children of THEIR own. She will be wise and well learned. Time will have worn her down. The violence she viewed as a child will have scarred her, but failed to have crippled the beauty within. I can not speak of the color of her hair. Maybe it will be jet black and breathing like the night. Maybe she has been feeling sassy and it is erratic...a green or a blue hue, fading softly as the reward of aging well comes; a gentle crown of gray, as Father Time softly caresses her head. Her children will lovingly mock her crown as it pushes away the current tint; they will laugh, speaking of when the first jewel of gray came forward at the age of thirty-five...and laughing as well, she will respond that they gave it to her early, for their grandparents...her parents gained gray at fifty. She will smile as her child departs and the new generation comes to bury their heads in her lap. They will crawl upon her meaning no ill will, and they will do so with zeal and authority as the fight for the lap of their grandmother...the mountain of ages, knowing once they reach the peak that lies within her warming bosom, they will be cradled by her gentle hands...soft wrinkles that fold warmly as a fresh block of potter's clay, another sign of time passing properly. They will tap the mountain, wishing not to hear tales of dragons and princesses or knights and sorcerers....but of her own being. They will wish to seek the knowledge of many moons ago, knowing that this age would not have come without some perilous tales. Some beautiful stories. Some Tragicomic legacy...and she will have to choose a tale for the day....very carefully.

Many moons indeed. She will taste the cup of nostalgia and as she does such, she will lose fifty-five years in age. Maybe she was mugged...attacked...raped...certainly this is not a tale for the youth. What of the proms she's danced in? Failures in class? The highest moments where she roared in life? What of the lowest peeks? There is the time she spoke for women's rights. The crowning glory of holding an executive position only filled by preening, posturing, boastful males...or the mental reclusive ness due to the mental abuse from a former love?

She will place the cup down upon the saucer, take her eyes from the sky that she views even through the roof above her...and lock into the eyes of the youth before her.

She can see that while they do not yearn for Merlin or Orcs, they yearn for something...a hero...and she will smile.

She will recall being trapped in a town, flooded and impoverished. Through her eyes the world will appear a murky, muddy clay color. This is the day, she faces her greatest fear: She drowns. She waits. She dies. Something no nine-year-old should have to do. Her blonde curls will become tainted with the mud of the Earth; the curls will dance before her eyes and entangle the sun...and there will be nothing she can do about it; her Easter dress, the only thing she had to wear not water-logged or damaged, will slowly hover above her undeveloped chest...and as much as she would like to die decent, she can not, for her arms and legs are pinned by wooden beams; she is bound and there is nothing to do but close her eyes and wait...her mother said the storm...this...Katrina...was God doing His work...

...and although she can not kneel to pray as she was taught, she prays softly...

..and a Chuck Taylor lands near her head. It lifts off to continue forward before stopping it's journey. It then is followed by the foot a step back behind the wooden beam. A pair of hands push the beams apart and she finds herself lifted as limber as a rag doll; she can not speak to the ebon-colored male before her, but makes an attempt to hug him...and fails as she falls unconscious in his warm grasp.

The children will gasp in horror at her tale as tears fall; Indeed, nostalgia is bitter and biting at times, even more so now as she recalls the taste of death before the youth of her own child, and they hate to see their mountain of strength weep. She will smile, collect herself and continue.


She recalls how she awakens in his embrace; she recalls her eyes sweeping around the room; another ebon-colored child her age smiles and pushes the small mound of muscle that confines them to his grasp...and as he stirs from his slumber to glare at her with kind yet aged eyes, she looks upon him. She will turn to hug him and his contagions smile will turn to that of twisted horror as he lets out a deafening howl of agony. Her eyes will dart as she stares for the source of discomfort for her knight; she will find her lace has entrapped and torn one of his piercing embedded in his chest. Once they were simply known as nipple piercing; However, in this day's aging society, a new form of slang will have taken over. Unsure of how to appropriately elaborate on this piercing as to draw minds into a level of maturity they might not comprehend, she will continue onward. The youth upon her will stare in fear and amazement as her tone changes to one that might speak of an individual that dangles from a cliff's peak. She hoists the youth closest to her upwards with the little strength she has as the ebon-colored man did. He will grow a deranged smile and she will fear him...perhaps beneath the water was not so bad...

The youths will fidget in impatience to know what the hero turned beast had to say. She will smile wide...and say "nothing."

Puzzled, the children will want to what causes her smile to beam so...and she will speak of him with a chuckle...

...she will say "He meowed"

She then will attempt the meow so perfect, but her frail lungs will not draw in sufficient air. She will only let out a scraggily wheeze of a mew and the children will bawl with laughter, just as she did to the man while elevated above the air before she hugged him...she will see herself within their blushing faces; the chalice of nostalgia returning from the taste of turpentine to its proper flavor of chamomile tea and honey...and as she sees the satisfied gleaming in their eyes, she knows she has done what that man asked her to do when her mother asked if she could ever repay the man...

"Live a long and Beautiful Life"....and a meow, joined with butterfly kisses as the sun shined brighter than it had before.

I have begun my legacy. This is where I belong. I am a cowboy. I love, I laugh, I fight, I cry. Signora Byther said it best...


"La Boheme Negrita"...the Dark Bohemian. I am THE Romantic. I'm the higher echelon of a nigh defunct genre. I believe when others won't. I see beauty where most see nothing...and I have put a great amount of fear and restrain to rest.

I am not a soldier. I am not a warrior...and for the longest time, I was not my own person...and now I am....and it is the most beautiful thing in the world. I no longer need to follow requests to protect others. I need not fear. I have love for the weary world...I buckle...who doesn't? However, even as I am in the twenties, I hold dreams as well as goals, and I know the difference. I will never give up on my dreams...nor will I give up on yours...so don't you do it either. Turn dreams into goals. Goals into Achievement...

..never give up.

I leave you now. There will not be a return for me. Hopefully I have touched with words in some way...hopefully I sing to you at night...at any age...if you have fallen short in the past, retry; The journey there is seventy-five percent of the joy. Don't lament it if you fall short. You are never too old to dream, nor are you too old to pursue...unless you are eighty and wish to become an acrobat...and hey...if we have a pill for sexual enhancement, I'm sure we can find something for you. =]

My friends will not speak for me ever again. My parents will not. My family will not. Only my actions.

I begin my Legacy here...I've secured fifty years...there's more to it than just a name...Jelani...there is the hope, MY hope and dream that someone will continue the legacy. Will continue to love. To hope. To pursue dreams...to take time out to sleep beneath the stars...

I never know until I try.

I begin my legacy...now.

I love you all. If you all need me for anything, you know how to reach me.

For one last time, signing out...



Once again, my love stated, my peace with self made, my overly long sentences ending, I leave you with what I always honestly wish for all of you inside and out: ...may whatever cosmic muffin you place your faith and tax dollars in bless you, may you do well to others who are worth it...(and at time, those who don't)...and remember to love yourselves and treat yourself right. No one can do for you if you won't do for yourself.

Peace be with you all, may love forever abide within you, and may you keep a calm soul...(but never stop it from soaring)...

Love You All,
La Boheme Negrita

Jelani.


(Amordien is Dead)

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