Day: March 24, 2019

Featured Poem of the Week.

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Mitul Bhat is one of Medium’s newest users, but his words prove that he has been writing for a long time. Recently added to A Cornered Gurl, Mitul shared a poignant and emotional piece of poetry where he personifies a bullet in hopes of inspiring it to not kill him. Please make him feel welcome, beautiful people. And now, the piece in question:

Bullet, I Need Your Help!

Photo by Art by Lønfeldt on Unsplash

Bullet, discriminate

I beg you, miss your target

We have lost our ability to love

You ‘miss’ and teach us now and how!

Hit the wall by my side

And let my heart beat, for some more time.

I have promised my son

I’ll be there for the school play in the evening

And that’s where I so want to be.

But, I need your help in making it happen.

If you hit your mark,

I’ll fall here, where I had only come to pray.

One more body to clean

yet another number flashing on the screen.

A topic of another debate

A condolence remark

And some mail forwards.

My son will still be on stage

A tear hidden, he will play the part

Fully aware,

in the audience somewhere

is but one empty chair.

Bullet, whether your shooter likes it or not,

The show must go on…

I know you have a job to do

A target to hit and a place to be

All I ask is, do a sloppy job.

The man behind the trigger can no longer think

He won’t even notice

So ashamed are you of him,

You chose to miss me

and hide your face in the wall instead.

You will still have your freedom

from the gun and me one more chance

to spread the love.

Heart beating still alive,

I might be able to change the man, save the race.

But I need that one chance!

To bring love back into the heart

where only hate remains.

For when I do,

I’ll remember

It all started with you.

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium. Thank you for reading, beautiful people.

Going Mobile

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Lenovolaptop
Lenovo Chromebook|Jernee as my wallpaper/Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt

The 39th birthday is coming up in April and with the success and growth of A Cornered Gurl via Medium, it was high time that I purchased a companion to accompany me while doing work when I am mobile. I have a lot of trips scheduled, the first will be next Thursday as I will go home to Savannah, Georgia for a few days. With the addition of new contributors to the publication, stats’ numbers rising, and multiple drafts submitted for review and publishing, this is going to be my new best friend. I am thinking of ways to keep the pub current and a place for growth and an embracing environment for those who feel as though they are not being heard or they are not loud enough on Medium.

A Cornered Gurl is a read-for-all community, meaning that I do not allow locked or metered paywall pieces to be published in this publication. Since Medium has transitioned to a member/subscription platform, more and more of the work that is curated is locked or paywalled and you have to be a subscribing user to read them or you have to wait to use your freebies each month in order to be able to enjoy the paywalled pieces. I wanted this publication to give readers what they’re paying for to read for free–the same quality work, by most of the Writers they are used to reading. Writers are already noticing the benefits of contributing to the publication and just recently, I implemented a new way of showing my appreciation to those who exceed 1,000 claps on Medium. For Writers who reach this milestone, I will issue $10.00 to them via PayPal or via an Amazon e-gift card. So far, there have been two contributors to meet and exceed 1K claps in A Cornered Gurl. Another one is quite close to this milestone.

I think it is important to show people who are helping you grow that you appreciate them, that you want to invest in their talents. Here via the WordPress site, I am featuring various Writers from the Medium pub each month and so far, both featured Writers have been quite pleased with the results of their work. I want A Cornered Gurl to continue to grow and I want to continue to reach people and touch their hearts. Going mobile and branching out a bit more is just two of the most recent visions that I have for ACG. In my heart of hearts, this feels like work that I am supposed to do, that I am meant to do and I LOVE IT!

Coming up in April, there will be a call for submissions for the Young Minds of Medium (ages 15-25) to submit their work for the entire month to be published on Mondays and Fridays. The theme has not been chosen yet, but I am narrowing it down to my top three topics. I am hoping to get the young ones to write their hearts out about the theme and possibly attract a little more eyes to their work. I am not just shooting for the stars here folks, I am trying to pull those babies outta the sky.

If you want to help us out in any way that you can or fund our journey with the smallest gift, I have implemented a PayPal button (in the social media section of the sidebar) for you to be able to donate whatever you like to A Cornered Gurl. Please know that I appreciate your time, eyes, hard-earned money and all proceeds received will go to honoring these contributors the best way that I can and eventually, send their voices out into the ether where they can be their loudest.

Peace and blessings.