There’s a loud uproar on a Friday afternoon in the break room on the 2nd floor of a busy corporate building..it’s lunchtime for most, while others are there on unofficial lunch breaks for the free food provided by the company for “Employee Appreciation Day.”  Most of the employees that are anxiously grabbing paper plates & piling more than adequate amounts of food onto their plates are making selfish comments of disdain towards the way that the company decided to recognize the hard work they’ve put in. One employee in particular, hovers over one specific dish like a starving stray dog that has found remains of a restaurant to-go plate that’s been trashed carelessly by an unsatisfied customer. Everyone slowly looks up from their side conversations as the employee holds up the food line. A woman who might as well have been a man due to her broad shoulders, large round face with a stout pout that seemed to have been the one look she was born with makes a loud proclamation, “I put up the money for this food, so if you want to eat from this dish you have to pay me.”  She covers the dish, which was a steaming platter of smothered brown-stewed turkey wings and stood by it like an English guard protecting the gates of Buckingham Palace.  Everyone stands their grounds and the room becomes reverently calm in awe at this bold unexptected request. Judgmental thoughts begin to flood the minds of the employees who were greedily piling their plates up with food that they them-self probably couldn’t fully consume, but this was Employee Appreciation Day…so who is this woman to make a claim of what they can and cannot partake of? Isn’t she not one of us? Is it our fault that she decided to assist a company that barely pays her bills on an event that the company should have been able to afford on their own? As the thoughts flood the room like a ruptured dam releasing water full force downstream into a devastating frenzy, one woman cuts the silence like a freshly sharpened knife on the surface of smooth swiss cheese and says, “I didn’t know that this lunch was sponsored by individuals who couldn’t afford to do so.” The eyebrows on the big burly woman transitioned inward into two 45 degree symmetrical arches as she began to rant and rage about everything she has done for this company and how cheap everyone is. As the woman began to make a spectacle of herself, the rest of the employees walked around her and chose other food options omitting her dish and continued to pile food unto their already crowded plates.  I am the woman that cuts the silence.

I don’t speak in terms of just being heard, I speak to be felt. My feelings are just important as the next person, so to add urgency to my selfish need of wanting more than just to be heard…I write.  I write poetry, songs, short stories, letters, I owe yous, text messages, facebook status updates, tweets, and anything that can aid in turning the volume up on my voice. I don’t just want to be heard, I want YOU to feel me.

Every single day I find out another piece of my story…it surprises me because that’s the way life works..it never really prepares you for the journey..but somehow, like a new mother’s instinct, you know just what to do.  I dream..I use dreams as a template to safeguard my journey, nothing more..

~The Lyricist