The Other Fifteen

Grace Dunkley-Asphall is a poet and writer who I happened to work with a few years ago.  Since we both run our own blogs, we decided to do a swap in which we would post on each other’s sites.  Here is Grace’s entry for TOF.  Stay tuned for part II when I post a rebuttal on her website From Here to There with Grace

Somewhere In Brooklyn

Big Apple

November 2009

Dearest AR:

¿Como esta usted?  Where are you?  The Baseball season is over.  Your team won…to be exact, their 27^th World Series Title. The celebration has ended.  Your locker is empty.  The field is silenced and so is my mood.   How else can I explain that I am missing you?   Inasmuch as you have physically remained out of my reach throughout the season, seeing you on TV was just as good even though I cussed at you and throw napkins at the TV, if your performance wasn’t up to par in my sight.  I have to admit that that was an intense action on my part.   I should have cherished every moment that you had appeared on TV because now I won’t be able to see you until the next season.  Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but in my situation I will be tormented by your absence unless for some unknown reason you should make the news.  You, my darling, are full of surprises so I will leave it up to the gods to decide.

Sweetie, it’s now dusk as I sit around my dining table on this November day, the first  day after the ticker tape parade, savoring a bowl of delicious Caribbean style red-peas soup with some of its popular ingredients…cornmeal dumpling, carrots, cho-cho and Jamaican yellow yam which has been dubbed the most famous performance enhancing food.  This yellow yam strikes like a lightning bolt.  Hence it would be awry of me not to mention that I am in my athletic prowess and if by chance you should walk through the door of my amorous world, you would hit a home run on the first pitch followed by lots of teeny RBIs (smile).

My sugar dumpling, I have noticed that you have become quite vulnerable among the female species, young and old alike.   As for me, I will not tell you the category that I am in.  Let’s say that age is just a number.   However, I can make you privy to the fact that I am like good wine, I improve with age.  The taste lingers.   Darling, if I could only have my way with you I would not let you go anywhere at night because that’s when your eyes shine the brightest, making you susceptible to lingering arms.  If you were a ball I would catch you as often as I can and squeeze you long enough to make you speak forgettable promises.

Honey, I must confess that most of my friends are in cahoots against you, in the same way they did when they found out that I had a crush on BB.  My friends have made it clear to me that I have a tendency to gravitate towards rude boys or boys who have had their names dragged through mud because of their alleged affair with some sort of pharmaceutical stuff, maybe cough syrup.  There is no doubt in my mind that my friends’ strong principles over-powered me and because of that I walked away from BB.  Leaving BB was not of my own free will.  Sugar, I know you will detest hearing this but less you forget a strong relationship requires honesty.  I am no paragon of virtue.  We have had past relationships if not marriages.  On the other hand this doesn’t mean that I should divulge everything about my past to you.  Life is peculiar and perhaps one day we might get into an argument and throw the past in each others face.  My Granny taught me well, she would sum it up by saying “Eat some and keep some.” Baby, if BB had done wrong there is forgiveness furthermore I do believe in second chance.  To the accusers, If ye be without sin cast the first stone.

Honey, in all that’s fair, my friends have a right to free speech but one thing I know they are not going to stop me from giving you is my heart.  Akon, in one of his songs, has it down to a “T”…Nobody wanna see us together…   Boo, my love for you is unconditional.  I am staying with you in my fantasy world.   I am not walking away like I did with BB.  I know a good thing when I see it.   There are days when I imagine you and I sitting against a rock at the Dunns River Falls in Jamaica while the cool water heaves over our bodies.  At another time I imagine taking you to a reggae filled dance hall where we would rub a dub to Beenie Man’s Yes nyah cool nuh Iyah, who am I, just the girls’ dem sugar...  After leaving that spot we would go to our hotel and mellow-out to Bob Marley’s One love one heart let’s get together and feel alright…

Baby love, the fun in this tropical would have you doing double takes and repeating the 23^rd Psalm in a different way…The Lord is my shepherd, I have what I want.  You would become my favorite coconut tree.   I would climb you on starry nights and moonlit nights.  Furthermore our trip wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t take you to my home-town which was one of the first free villages in Jamaica.  I would take you to see all the relics and branding tools from the slave era.  I would take you to Trial Hill the place where the slaves were tried for their supposedly ill deeds.  While you look on in wonder and lament at the history, in my heart I would be secretly wishing that you would become my slave.

What joy…what bliss…you are my seventh heaven.  Mucho hugs and kisses.

Your fantasy girl from a distance,

GMADA

Tah-tah!  The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Copyright © 2009 Grace Dunkley-Asphall