Sprouting From Contaminated Soil (Paperback)

To be a black woman and a college student in her early 20s, is to be in some sort of an identity crisis in itself. I am not only doubly marginalized in society due to my skin color and gender, but I am also young and still learning about myself as I experience various aspects of life that are consistently revealed while pursuing a higher education. I have found myself trying to figure out who I am, who my true friends are, what I deserve in intimate relationships or friendships, what I am willing to put up with, what I believe in, what societal or worldly views and actions I stand by or oppose, how I will let society affect me, what I want out of life and what steps are necessary to take for me to get there. In addition, to be a 22-year-old hopeless romantic, who is wise beyond her years and much more mature than her male counterparts at this age (in most cases), is to know heartbreak, pain, hurt and disloyalty all too well. In many instances, in my position, you may be ready to build or merge with someone once you have found yourself and learned to love yourself, but that person may not be in a space to take that step in their life. You may find that you are "too much" or "too serious" for people in your generation because you are mentally beyond where they are, at the moment. This book discusses my experiences in these various areas of my life, how they made me feel, how they have shaped me, and how I have overcome. I believe nothing is more relieving than to read the words of another person that encompass every feeling you have felt when confronted with similar circumstances, without ever having met or spoke to that person. The realization that you are not alone and someone else can relate to your perspectives, your feelings, and your experiences can be comforting, heartwarming, and uplifting. It is even more powerful if that person's articulation of their emotions and experiences put into words the very thoughts and feelings you have had, that you have struggled to verbalize, convey, or express, outside of their existence within you. I can promise that this book will be that piece of work that young adults and young adult women specifically, who enjoy deep poems and have experienced tough relationships, losing the ones they love, feeling pain, and being negatively affected by societal views and times, can relate to. This book will be one that anyone who indulges in it can genuinely feel because of its rawness and honesty. The vulnerability shown throughout each piece and the vivid details used will even allow someone who has not been through the situations discussed to still feel my pain, or empathize with whoever the poem is about. The reader will feel as if they know me or the subject of the poem personally, as if they have had these same experiences, and as if they are currently going through it with me or with that person, as their eyes glance across each word. The title of this book is Sprouting From Contaminated Soil. This title alone promises that this book will send the reader on a brutally honest but intimate journey, that one will embrace as their own, while feeling a sense of inadequacy, heartache, pain, frustration and anger, but ultimately, consolation. Any doubt, uncertainty, fear, struggle, loss, or hurt that I have been through, I wrote about throughout the poems in this book. Writing has helped pull me through my sufferings and has given me an outlet to positively channel my pain. This book is me giving the readers a first-hand look into my life, my experiences and how they have shaped me. It is me opening up and allowing them to feel, cry, fight, cuss, grieve, mourn, hurt, or laugh with me, while also encouraging them to keep going and to keep living life, fearlessly. Even though I endured some of these troubling experiences, I was determined to persevere. Instead of allowing my troubles to defeat me or change the loving person I am, I used them to achieve a greater purpose by writing about them.