Seven Days, Twelve Months, and a Year – guest post by Brynda Mara

It’s gay pride month, and here I’m publishing a love story between a transgender person and I. It never crossed my mind that I would write an LGBTQ oriented POETRY collection, just like it never crossed my mind I would ever be in a relationship with a transgender person. There are a lot of stigmas around dating someone who is transgender. Many of my lesbian friends criticized my choice. Despite the fact that this book is mostly about my frustrations from being with someone who was not ready to commit to a relationship, them being trans, except for the way I was judged by others, was no different than being in a straight or lesbian relationship. In this collection, I attempt to share with my readers a story that shows common feelings that happen in most relationships in order to try to break the social stigma that exists against transgender people.

Seven Days, Twelve Months, and a Year takes place in New York City where I met a Brazilian transgender artist in 2018 via a dating site. We had already met a year before at Cubbyhole, where upon our introduction; I got an intense feeling of already knowing them. Black came across as a serious Casanova who would most likely rip your heart out to add to their torn heart collection. A collection that included their own heart as the top center of the display. Nevertheless, they were Brazilian like me, and a unique artist. This drove my curiosity towards wanting to meet them, so we scheduled a date. Three days before our date I had a dream. A dream with Black! At the end of the dream, it was revealed to me by an angel that Black was the one and that I would know this once I looked deep into their eyes. I almost had a heart attack when I woke up. HELL NO! Not the Casanova! I arrived at the restaurant where we planned to meet, a few minutes late as usual, as not to show much interest on the date. I never have a first date at a restaurant because it makes me feel trapped. Nevertheless, this was supposed to be a let’s become friends date, so I should have felt more at ease. Yet, something changed; now I had the dream in my head. What if it was true? What if I did feel they are the one once I looked in their eyes? Not a chance! I had a plan, and if I kept my eyes away and did not look into their eyes I would be safe, I would not have to figure out if the dream was true. I kept my eyes from theirs all night, until; they placed their hands on my hips. In that moment, I looked in their eyes. A quick, instinctive reflex, that left me no time for questioning the action. As our eyes met, all I saw was a bright light. Two stars looking at me from their unfathomable brown eyes. I recalled the same previous feeling of knowing them, but this time the feeling came accompanied with millions of butterflies crushing and twisting in my stomach. I was hit by the lightning that came from their touch. All I could do was smile. A welcome back sort of smile. I knew at that moment they were going to get the trophy they were after. I placed my heart on a silver plate. They didn’t take it. Instead, they slowly played with it. A grim fate was inevitable. In awe, I stayed, observing the intermezzos of mauling and soothing on my soul, wondering when it would end. I didn’t have the strength to run or defend myself. My frustration, love and pain gave birth to this collection. And unlike any previous relationships, this was the most intense feeling of love I ever felt in my life.

The book is being offered free of charge at Manifold in order to provide access to this trans inclined literature to as many people as possible. Manifold offers a creative away to bring your writing to life by adding videos and any other links and sources that can connect with your writing in order to bring it to life at its full potential.

CANTO XVI
DECEMBER

On Manifold, when reading the excerpt above, you will be able to listen to the songs that are part of this poem. The book, beyond a book, is an art piece that is worth having as part of your book collection. Hard copies are available on amazon for only $6.95. My goal is to send all profits to a transgender institution in order to help our transgender communities that are very much in need of our support.

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Brynda Mara is a poet and writer based in NYC, she started to write at the age of 12 as an escape from the physical and emotional abuse she received from members of her community while growing up in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For many years, she didn’t trust her words. She sensed a great lack of perfection because she didn’t have a language of her own! She had to quit school during fifth grade to live in the streets of Rio after being thrown out of home. This affected greatly her confidence in her ability to write. At the age of twenty-one, she started to attend college and through her writing classes, she rediscovered her passion for writing. However, the need for an immediate income pulled her towards a business degree followed by another in Economics and Italian Language and Literature. It was not until 2007, at the age of twenty-nine, after finishing her second college degree and traveling the world for a year to discover herself that she finally decided to make writing a priority in her life. Since then, she has become an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and then an English Literature high school teacher in order to better the only language that she feels confident when expressing herself, English. She has written myriad types of poems throughout the years about nature, people, places, politics and love. Now, she has decided to work on collections and publish them in hope of sharing the same beauty she found in the world of words with others. Brynda Mara is the author of Marshal Sea, The Modeling Guide for Everybody and now Seven Days, Twelve Months and a Year. She is also in the process of writing three others books.