R.S.V.P. How a Detroit Girl Made Love's A - List is an invitation. I invite my readers to attend the most anticipated event of the season: the love life of Tia DeShay. R.S.V.P. tells the story of my on again, off again affair with this thing called love. R.S.V.P. exposes me and puts me in an emotionally transparent space that I needed to occupy in order to heal. It is my hope that in my healing, you discover your healing. In my words I want you to hear your voice. I want my poetry to inspire you and instill in you the confidence to love fearlessly and without regret. Decide today that when Love sends you an invitation, you will not mark the envelope, "Return to Sender" but instead, you will ask yourself, "What am I going to wear"

R.S.V.P.

How a Detroit Girl Made Love's A-ListBy Tia DeShay

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Tia DeShay
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-9964-9

Contents

Event: The Love Life of Tia DeShay.........................................9Time: Don't Try This at Home Without Adult Supervision.....................10My Life....................................................................11Black Girl Moment..........................................................14The Shero Myth.............................................................17Date: The Clock is Ticking.................................................19Editor's Note..............................................................20My Love....................................................................21Who is Poetry?.............................................................23Poetry.....................................................................24Soldier of Love............................................................25Place: Space is Limited....................................................27Star Light, Star Bright....................................................28The Peach Room with the White Trim.........................................30Rape.......................................................................34R.S.V.P.: For a Good Time, Call ...........................................36Flip Side..................................................................37Page Me....................................................................39I Dig My Brotha's..........................................................41Phone Tag..................................................................44The Side Chick Soliloquy...................................................47The Betrayal...............................................................50Epilogue: The After Party..................................................52A Place Called Us..........................................................53He Is......................................................................55Genesis 2:23...............................................................57Guest List: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due..............................60Such A Name Dropper........................................................61

Chapter One

The Love Life of Tia DeShay

I was invited to the most anticipated event of the season: the love life of Tia DeShay. The date was January 4, 1975. The time was 8:47 am. The doctors said that I was four months early to my own soiree. But since God doesn't operate on CP time, and since events don't happen on His timetable before their scheduled release date, I arrived, according to His marketing plan, exactly, specifically, on time.

My guest list was impressive. I mean the brothers who R.S.V.P. for my love life were fine. We danced and we flirted and we did what love does after hours, you dig? But in the dawn, I kept hearing that we were just ordinary people who met at the wrong time and who tried to occupy the wrong space. Eventually, I no longer was the center of attention, no longer the life of my own party. I was no longer V.I.P. status.

I had granted permission to guests who were not worthy of my most prized possession: my heart. I was Cinderella missing her glass slipper and there was no Prince Charming chasing me down checking for my shoe size.

Eventually, I grew tired of the party crashers and the early morning love hangovers. So I decided to have a party of one and R.S.V.P. myself. I chose to become the center of my own attention and inquire within. It was time for my pretend self to exit stage right and for my real self to take center stage.

I am still in the process of being where I need to be, but then again, who isn't. If you are reading this, count it a privilege to have been formally invited to: R.S.V.P. How a Detroit Girl Made Love's A—List. Don't take for granted your V.I.P. status.

Don't Try This at Home Without Adult Supervision

"Pray continually ... do not put out the Spirit's fire." —1 Thessalonians 5:17, 19 (NIV Bible)

My Life

—what I've been through to get through

Prologue: I have a story to tell. It ain't easy, but it's been in me for 30 years now. I've been searching and although I ain't been quite found as the old heads would say, I've had to take a step back, back to where it all started. Yeah, it hurts me to remember but I have to remember in order to heal. So for everybody out there who has been crying all night, I've been crying with you; but remember, it's always darkest before the dawn. Here's my story.

You see I've been cryin' all night eyes slightly swollen, heart chambers raped and pillaged. Searching for an angel in two ply commercial softness not sure if I could get through this 'cause these self—imposed bars continue to suffocate me and bury me deeper into a casket of self doubt. Wonderin' if I'm good enough or just e-nough. Am I tall enough to reach beyond the horizon or just tall enough to keep my head above water? Hating this portrait of a convict's daughter. Am I courageous enough to build a nation or do I got enough ovaries just to make due on this woman's work? Am I pretty enough or just easy on the eyes? Am I smart enough or know just enough to pass? Trapped in this glass house emotionally transparent for all the world to see; but everybody's too busy looking on the outside to see the messed up little girl on the inside. Too transfixed on the clothes and the shine never mind the tears that I cry. So I blame God thinking He made the wrong choice got me wonderin' whether I should finish what wasn't started not understandin' why I've been marked. Why I gotta cry tears for that little girl whose body is being molested by unfamiliar hand me down of neglect a ghetto rag doll that nobody wants to love. So I cry tears that rain bullet holes in my self—esteem deemed unworthy by men who polluted my fountain of youth and then they wonder why I'm still thirsty. Maybe it's because I keep drinkin' my salt water tears. But even after I've been crying all night, I'll drink an entire ocean of my tears, part the Black Sea of my soul, let my truth unfold for every child left in the ghetto. And if it means that I gotta keep my head up for every ghetto child that can't then I'll wear the fitted caps and do rags of 10,000 hustlers 'cause this ghetto daughter gotta muster the strength to realize that no matter how far I travel I must always return home. Home to the streets that raised me that baptized me and offered me as a sacrifice so that I can tell you in order to go forward I gotta take a look back otherwise I'll get off track.

I gotta know I gotta understand I gotta appreciate I gotta realize I gotta be thankful I gotta admit that I wasn't a mistake, that I was planned to do great things that everybody who tries to sing my song other than me will sound off key. That I got the spirit of hustlers beneath my wings and that makes me okay, no, scratch that, that makes me worthy and deserving of your respect. I gotta know that I had to struggle that I had to be rejected in order to be protected that I had to be used and abused to let you know that we've all come that I've come too far to hang my head down so that you can feel good about yourself.

So when I get ready to fix my lips and have the audacity to question God and tell Him that I've had enough that I can't take another let down, I stop and thank Him for choosing me for this struggle and not someone else. And I listen to that voice inside me the voice of 60 million Black people sayin' It ain't easy but look at me look at where I've come from. It ain't easy but I'm still standing even after I've been cryin' all night I'm still standin' and that in real life y'all really ain't ready for what's about to take place.

2.21.2005

    Black Girl Moment

    Who does she think she is?
    No he didn't just do that!
    In real life?!
    See, now I gotta call the Boys in Blue
    Roger That!
    This is not what's up
    taking no prisoners
    breaking dishes
    shattering windshields and cracking heads.

    No eyewitness accounts
    just beauty shop
    conversations and Waiting to Exhale moments
    in real life,
    high definition,
    go get your popcorn,
    'cause I'm really about to Set It Off!

    Sike ...
    In real life I just needed a release
    'cause my Black Girl Moment
    ain't about slashing tires
    it's about slashing the barb wires of my own insecurity.
    I may be having a Black Girl Moment
    but this Black Girl Moment
    won't have me
    even when I'm
    keying up candy coated
    paint jobs
    uh oh better get Maaco
    I mean 'cause I'm real serious
    about this Black Girl Moment.

    But don't get it twisted
    I'm still a queen
    it's just in this moment my crown is a little crooked 'cause balancing a
      crown in six inch stilettos can be quite overwhelming.

    I may be stirred but never really shook,
    sometimes I allow my value to be misplaced, but never took
    just needed a release from the burden of being misunderstood
    wanted the spotlight instead of being the background.

    For one moment, I wanted to be the only woman in the room.

    My Black Girl Moment ain't about attitude,
    it's about moving beyond the moment and having dialogue instead of
      monologue
    so I can change my altitude.

    It's about turning down the white noise long enough to hear that small
      still voice say:

    I am a woman on purpose. To love me is to comprehend God.
    I am not a choice but a decision.
    I am not an option nor a priority, I am the blueprint.
    I am not the thought but the consequence.
    Without my flaws, I am simply just mediocre.
    Without my strengths I am just pretending to be something I'm not.
    Without vision I lose focus,
    without battles, I can't surrender
    without my questions, you can't be answered.

    Without tears, I am a lie, 'cause in my crying I find space to tell my truth.
    My mind is a womb that can't be still birthed, abortioned, miscarried or
      birth controlled.
    I am the test in your testimony that God keeps telling you to study for.
    I am insomnia in a world full of dreamers.
    I break the glass ceiling while you just leave finger prints.

    The reason I make sense to him is because I am a complete thought in a
      world of fragments and abbreviations.
    I mean, sista girl don't hate 'cause he comprehends me and cliff notes you.
    I am a speech not an ad lib, a quote, not a one liner.
    I am like a Psalm, you have to
    selah, pause and think about me.
    I am a gospel that brings good news.
    I am Paul's shadow and the faith of Genesis chapter one.
    I am the wisdom of Solomon,
    the testimony of Job.
    I am a BET's Sunday's Best experience with God.

    I am a Baptist, COGIC, Pentecostal,
    dance like David praise dance
    a fire shut up in your bones,
    prophetic word from the Lord,
    custom fitted miracle
    who you try to tame with question marks
    'cause my exclamation points are just too loud for you.

    I am all that and more even in my Black Girl Moments.

    I just had to calm down long enough to see it.

2.12.2011

The Shero Myth

—dedicated to everybody who knew I was just actin' brand new

The Disease: I am suffering from a severe case of I-am-a-strong-Blackwoman-and-can-do-everything-my-self-thank-you-very-much-itis.

The Cause: Believing that I am the nipple of the world when the `cow' has really been giving the milk away for free, you dig?

Believing that I am the Black Mary of the African community when the only Immaculate Conception I've conceived is learning how to pay Visa with MasterCard.

The Cure: Admitting that I have, as one sista so cleverly phrased it, 'chicken head envy.' Can I get a brotha to pay my bills, 'cause eventually if I keep robbing Patrice to pay Pauline, Patrice may resort to activity resulting in indecent exposure.

The Solution: Happily relinquishing all characteristics and fallacies of 'The Shero Myth' and admitting that I am a weak, vulnerable, scared about my future and the future of my people, sometimes just as confused and messed up in the head as the next person, situation just as raggedy as yours on some days, and don't always have my stuff together although it may appear to be, beautiful Black woman.

For those who believed in my Super Black Woman powers, sorry, but the Mother Ship can't save you this time. For those who knew I was just actin' brand new to save face, thanks for keepin' it real.

7.27.1999

Love's Hangover

"My Life," "Black Girl Moment," and "The Shero Myth" are about the facade I've maintained to protect my heart. Through my brokenness and heartache I realized that my heart is worth fighting for. Assuming the strong black woman role and enduring my many black girl moments were my defense mechanisms to protect the one item that cannot be wholesaled, discounted, or auctioned off: my heart.

Eventually, I had to recognize my own value if I expected others to value me. As the saying goes, 'you can't expect what you don't inspect.' Until I inspected the cause of my black girl moments and the reasons behind my need to always appear like I had everything together, I could only anticipate heartbreak.

Heartbreak that led to sleepless nights and sleeping alone, yet sleeping with the enemy: me. I had to surrender my black girl moments and my 'I-can-do-bad-all-by-myself' attitude for a space where I could be the woman that I was intended to be.

In the end, I would suggest to not engage in any black girl moments without adult supervision. The results could be life threatening: an attack of the heart.

The Clock is Ticking

"For God's gifts and his call are irrevocable."—Romans 11:29 (NIV Bible)

Editor's Note

I don't make sense to you because you use periods instead of commas. You try to reduce me to 140 characters, abbreviate me, squeeze me into the parentheses of your ego, tame me with question marks because my exclamation points make too much noise for you.

You try to make me dependent with your semicolons but I'm an independent clause. I make sense standing on my own two feet. You try to plagiarize me and use your own set of quotation marks but I'm copyrighted check my Reference Page Psalm 139 KJV documented.

I don't make sense to you 'cause you want to end me with an ellipses but I'm too much information to be shortened into a fragment, an incomplete thought. I make sense to you in paragraphs but I think in dissertations.

You try to condense me to text message status but I communicate in long hand complete with salutation and closing kinda like this conversation.

Sincerely, Me.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from R.S.V.P.by Tia DeShay Copyright © 2011 by Tia DeShay. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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