An excerpt (the Preface) from my book…
(Let me know what you think; Preordering available soon.)

“You don’t eat pussy?”

“No.”

“You stopped eating pussy.”

“No. I’ve never ate it. I don’t do that.”

“With them lips? Boy, I know you eat pussy.”

“I don’t.”

“How you don’t eat pussy? I know some of the hoes you done fucked on. Them hoes get they pussy ate.”

“They ain’t got it ate by me.”

“You like getting cheated on.”

—-

I was about 30 years old when I had that conversation with a woman that I was dating. Not really dating, we had a sexual relationship. We had, per my assumption, a great sexual relationship. It was consensual. It was convenient. It was consistent. I enjoyed it. She was a “free spirit” sexually. She was not afraid of her body or ashamed of anything that she decided to do with it. And I got to enjoy every bit of that! She was open and vulnerable with her sexual likes and proclivity. Not ashamed one bit. I’d been having sex since I was a child but she was the first woman that I’d been with that was so vocal and expressive with how she achieved and administered pleasure. It was dope.
We had an understanding, and that made it even doper! There were no attachments, no titles, and no expectations other than we enjoyed doing what we were doing.

She was very good at what she was doing. With whatever part she was doing it. And that comfort that I mentioned, mercy, to watch and hear her doing it was incredible. I felt like “The Man”. She was submissively assertive and confident. She was flexible and impulsive and mature. She was tender and soft and gentle. She was vocal, very vocal. She was naked. Not just physically. She was exposed. She bore her inhibitions and hang-ups like the clothes she took off. Sometimes she took them off, sometimes she allowed me to. Same with her feelings and concerns, she allowed me to undress and address them accordingly. Sometimes during sex. Talking about insecurity while being naked in front of someone that you are intent on satisfying is a mind-blowing experience. And we did that. A lot. We did everything, a lot.

Except for that one thing. Because I didn’t do that.

One afternoon while we were smack dab in the middle of enjoying the spectacular of a summer day, naked, in the middle of doing us, she had her arms around my shoulders and her hands on the back of my head. I’m feeling every bit of the vibration that is our bodies and the bed and even the sweat that seemed to be rumbling down my back, pooling about my waistline. I’m going up and down into this pressure or resistance that is not natural to us. I felt heavy or like I was getting tired. But I wasn’t and then I noticed that I was feeling more pressure or a push downward. Not a “get off” or a “stop” but a “go this way” thrust. It was in rhythm with my stroke at first so it wasn’t brash, but it was obvious enough that I could feel it. Then I noticed the hands that were around my head were less on the back of my head/neck and were more cuffing the crown and she was maneuvering me towards an unfamiliar position. It was different, but I went with it because every other different with her had been magnificently so. My mind attempted to meet her expectations where I assumed that she was silently, but adamantly, instructing me towards.
“She wants me to kiss her chest… and her neck and her shoulders.” Is what I thought. So I did that. And she did that purring thing that she could do. I thought to myself, “Okay, she wanted me to kiss her body more” as I began my ascent back to the altitude that I was accustomed to.
But her hands were still on my head and they were not allowing me clearance back up. She was pushing me down.

“Oh, her stomach. She loves me to play with her navel piercing. She wants me to play with that in my mouth” was my thought as I traced a line from the left side of her neck, around her breasts, both nipples, around and under and then to her belly button. With my tongue.
I was doing a good job! She was thrusting her vagina into my chest and I could feel all the excitement dripping out of her. I wasn’t inside of her anymore but the way that she was responding and the way I was rubbing against the bed created a sensation and stimulation that was going to be explosive! I needed to re-enter her before I let myself go all over the bed so I tried to raise myself up to get back in but now her grip was tighter and she was shoving-albeit with care- me down further. So I kissed her thigh.

This was no longer a shove or a push or a motion. She was guiding my head.

She wanted me to eat her out.

I raised my head and looked her way. She was in the middle of what I can only imagine was about to be an intense orgasm. At least the prelude to one. She had no problem achieving vaginal orgasms. She was so in tune with her body that she could release herself with just as much intensity while performing oral sex.
For the entire duration of our trysts, I had never witnessed her unsatisfied. Whether it was by my doing or hers.

But I could not help her with this. Wherever she was trying to go with my face between her legs, I wasn’t going to be able to get her there. No matter how good this all felt. No matter how turned on I was. No matter how amazing her entire body looked butt-ass-naked, sweaty, and gyrating. No matter how intoxicating the combo of Bath & Body Works Cucumber Melon and pheromones were. No matter how close I was to climax.

I waited until she had realized that I’d stopped kissing/licking/sucking on her skin as she began to open her eyes. She looked at me. I can only imagine what she was thinking.

“I don’t eat pussy.”

THAT’S NOT THE WAY THAT IS SUPPOSED TO GO.

For the next hour or so, she and I had one of the most difficult conversations that I had ever had with a naked woman. I opened up about what I have always recognized as my first trauma. Even though it wasn’t until I was in my early twenties when I started to acknowledge it as such. Because for so long I had only seen it as something that happened to me. I had never put much energy in trying to figure out why or the significance. I just remembered it as I always had. Something that I know was not supposed to happen.

But it did, and there was an effect of it.

It is crazy the way the brain works. There is something called “Olfactory Memory” that to the best way that I can explain it is the process of smell memory. I didn’t know there was a term for it. I’ve had a long history with my olfactory recollection though. Especially the smells associated with my trauma.

“I can still smell her.”

“That’s not the way that is supposed to go.”

“I can. Sometimes, just out of the blue, it’ll hit me. Then I will remember being over my grandmas house and us being in the living room. We used to make pallets on the floor. When grandma went to sleep, we’d play this game. I don’t know what the game was called, but it always ended up with her rubbing my face in her coochie.”

“I believe you. I’m saying that its not the way you should have been introduced to sex. You should not have been molested.”

“I wasn’t molested. They were girls. They didn’t stick anything in me. It was just hunching. I didn’t stick my thing in them. It was all wrong, but the part I really hated was her sticking my face down there. That’s why I don’t eat pussy. I can’t think of anything else when my face gets close to a woman’s vagina. I see and smell my cousin.”

“That is molestation.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. And it happens in black families far too often. In families far too often. But black families don’t say anything about it. And it destroys us. I am so sorry that happened to you.”

“i will be okay.”

“I’m sure. But that is a lot. Did you ever tell anyone?”

“I used to think that my mother knew. Or my uncle. I don’t know why I used to feel like they had an idea.”

“Did someone ask you about it?”

“No, it was just this feeling I had that someone knew. Not too far after that, probably at around 9-10 years old, I started having my first sexual relationship. It was inappropriate as well. I used to think my mother knew about that one. She was my age, a friend of the family.”

“That’s why you’re like that.”

“Like what?”

“Here, but not here. Sex is like a job for you. A job you’re trying to prove you’re good at. But its a job. You’re not connected. A job that you feel guilty about too.
There is touch and feeling and a bunch of other stuff. But there is no connection. It’s like you’ve separated your upper half from your bottom half. Your body is committed, your mind and heart aren’t available.”

“Damn.”

“I thought it was me. I thought that you were just getting your nut out. I thought maybe you didn’t really like me, that you were just fucking because you’re good at fucking. I definitely have experienced moments where I didn’t feel like you wanted me here at all. Even with you on top of me, or in me. It’s like you were really not there. I get it now.”

“I’m Sorry. I never meant to…”

“You don’t have to apologize. You know that I love you. I love you even more now. But…”

“We aren’t going to do this again are we?”

“No.”

“Can we finish today though?”

“No. It’ll be too hard.”

“it’s already hard!”

We both laughed. Then there was an awkward moment of silence. She pulled the sheet over and covered her body. She laid down and turned towards the wall. I thought she might be crying. I laid behind her, but on top of the covers. I knew that was the last time for us.

THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED THOUGH.

This isn’t a romance novel. I can imagine how the first few lines of this preface will read to some. This is a help-my-self manual that I have written in order to get me and anyone that may be in a similar life predicament the help they may need. This is about my victory. I could have lost the battle against my traumas. I probably should have lost the battle against my traumas. That I am not in jail or dead or in a far worse-off position than what my situation could have allowed for me is not just a miracle of what I believe as God’s grace and mercy, but also incredible favor, unrealistic patience, uncommon resilience, and an unrelenting consistency. I keep going. The lesson in just that is enough to produce a majority of the results that most of us seek to discover.
It been a long road to get here.

I did finally get over the not-eating-pussy part of my life. It’s been almost 15 years since the conversation with me and that woman. I am grateful for that moment. I wasn’t prepared to process the information from our talk in that season, but I did receive it. The relationships that I had after ultimately benefited from the lesson I learned that afternoon. It was rough hearing those facts. Even more difficult of a thing to have to deal with the me that I learned about that day.
I paid a heavy price for that. For not being healed in the places that my life needed to be healed in. That cost me a lot of relationships and opportunities to grow and mature.

I’m writing this book because it was time for me to do the things that needed to be done in order to satisfy my own desire for the life that I want to live. It is time for me to live! The things that have happened to me, that I have been part of, that I have experienced, are all real. For so long I tried to pretend that they weren’t. I didn’t want to face that stuff. I didn’t want to accept that all of the things that took place actually did take place and that my feelings are valid.
Not that I am any expert on trauma, but I’ve been trough a lot. My experiences give me the evidence and example that I can use to help others. After I help me.

Trauma is one of the most significant factors when considering what may be the reason that a person has not attained or attracted a certain success for him or herself. Trauma, especially when experienced in childhood, can dramatically and drastically alter everything that is an individual. Not just what that individual sees or thinks or feels, but more importantly, if and how that individual may feel. Influence of the “If” and “how” having the power to corrupt the brain function and development in such a way that can physically, psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally disrupt a persons entire life.
And they may never know it.

It took a long time for me to get comfortable with performing oral sex on a woman. My first sexual experiences had a disastrous effect on how i engaged puberty, sex education, and what I felt and thought about sex itself. I didn’t know it either. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to. Even early on.

I have been cutting hair since i was about 14 years old. I have spoken to hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals over the years who have shared stories of molestation/rape- at the hands of family members- in their own past. It is way more common than I ever thought it to be. I know that I was not alone in my experiences. For so many years I was ignorant to that. I thought that no one knew what I had gone through and surely no one could understand. So I remained silent and tried to “keep going” my way through it.

There are some things that you just can’t be silent about. Not when your voice depends on it.
And my voice depends on the things that happened to me. Because my gift, my purpose, my talent, is my ability to endure and encourage. I am most proud of that. The fact that I have been able to speak life and hope- even during the midst of my most ardent trials- into so many people, is amazing. Through my poetry, my community service, my barbering, my friendships/relationships, my performances, or just my presence in some instances, I’ve been able to help so many people.

I will continue to do that. Even more now. Now that I know that I am responsible for my voice and that I have chosen to not function in a state of victimhood.

I am not a victim. I survived.

I survived molestation. I survived severe depression. I survived poverty. I survived peer pressure. I survived abandonment. I survived insecurity. I survived homelessness. I survived a heart attack. I survived multiple tragedies. I survived peer pressure. I survived compromised health. I survived discrimination. I survived extreme odds against me. I survived being lied to. I survived many broken hearts. I survived so many secrets. I survived generational curses. I survived it all.

I survived because I decided to. Long ago, I made a choice not to give up. Even when things did not look like they were going to permit my escape, I have always found a way. A way made possible because of this perpetual optimism and hope that I possess. I have this relentless belief that I am going to be okay; That things get better, that I will succeed eventually, that I ultimately win.
This book is about that. About how and why I believe that I have gotten this far. About what I believe is my real power, my greatest gift… ME. Even when I don’t understand things, when I don’t know much, when I can’t think of what to do, I still believe in me. And I will speak to myself. I will encourage me. I will empower me. I will energize me.

That’s what you are supposed to do. To find the power in you. To create a strategy to effectively use your power in order to do more than survive. To succeed. To excel. To be the greatest version of yourself. Because that is why you are here. To be your best you. And no one is going to do a better job at or be more instrumental in making sure that you accomplish that goal, more than you!
There is only a “this” in between you and where you want to be. A “this” that is more than likely temporary, and not as big or as strong or as impossible as you might have thought it was. Because you haven’t been using the you that can get you pass it.
It is time to. You have this book. That means you’re ready.

So let’s get through this.