February 14th, 1948

February 14th, 1948
Lakeland-FL                                                              To: Jamal Bankfort, New Orleans

It was no longer infatuation. The feeling of missing you was eating me inside. Louis Armstrong´s newest song was on my record player, and the phrase

"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans, 
when that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more I miss the one I care for 
More than I miss New Orleans",

could not stay away from echoing in my otherwise empty head.

Only way to fill up my head was by drinking spirits that wrenched my pumps as I coughed after each sip. At least the bottle was at an arms length of reach. At least I could depend on the liquid kick, to give me a push. All I have been lately is a ghost of the past. Trying to grasp on the memories, to see if I can still catch a hold.
Or then there was the other way to engage my mind. And that was thinking about you. How much I missed you, how much you cared.

You were my Orleans. You were my scotch on the rocks I indulged now and then. You were the sanctuary I once frowned on seeking into, but now seldom am seeking for.

I miss you Orleans.

love, Tabitha

Love is a mountain of Jambalaya

There was a new sheriff in town.
If my life were a wild West movie, he would be the sheriff and I the outlaw. Guns would be blazing by every glance I'd take at him. I surely know, that yesterday when my right hand was forking Jambalaya, the other hand was going through his private parts under the dinner table. And we did it good. Nobody could have ever suspected anything.
So here I was getting ready to meet him at 'Madam Saxx' Jazz Club' and I was nervous, which is pretty unusual for a grown man my age. I slicked back my hair in the mirror and took one last look at the tall, dark and handsome negro that my mother always used to call me. I added a deep purple handkerchief to my tuxedo and then left my apartment to meet "the sheriff".
The atmosphere was alert, until the people at the club got a round of whiskey on the house. I was so lucky to have met Bobby Jones. He always had a way to distract the people in the club, and take the heat off my back. Some would say that Bobby held all the cards. Though he was only a humble bartender, and a slave to a well mixed cocktail, he seemed to have more control over the club than the new owner: Lady Soul. Who uses her stage name more than her real one because 'Linda' does not describe who she really is; a free-spirited woman in her mid 40´s.
After getting our local African Americans intoxicated, I sat at the bar, waiting for my 'sheriff' to come. I waited for a long minute or two, and he seemed to have recognized me. A hand went across my back, as he sat right next to me.
With the soothing live jazz music playing in the background, I had to ask him: "What is your real name sheriff?" He gave a big laugh and finished it off with a sharp move of his right arm shooting at me, we shook hands as he introduced himself: "Zeke West is the name, and hitting on guys is my 2nd game!" He waited for some kind of a response from me, even a facial expression. A slight movement of an eye. I had nothing, as he continued: "I do poetry as well", I couldn't keep it in anymore and I laughed at him.
As the pleasant evening turned in to night and the night morphed in to dimmed lights, we decided not to have an exchange of phone numbers, but to meet each other at the club every Thursday around the time, when the lighthouse would shine its' spotlight for the lost sailors at sea.

I guess what Bobby said about 'Madam Saxx' Jazz Club' was true: "This place has a special magic to it, it keeps you coming back" 

stars under the chandelier

...I blew on that golden horn like a professional. "Rita hasn't forgotten me", I thought to myself. And didn't find myself rusty at all, when handling her.
It was our 10th anniversary and I could still see her dancing in her deep red wedding gown from the day we got married. Flashbacks rushed in my brain and overflew my sense of being present anymore. I lost touch in the present and dove in the past.
The smell of her hair. The smoothness in her skin; like slowly stroking a red rose pedal with your thumb. She loved roses, evidently grew a bench full of them. So she always smelled like roses, with deep red color in them. She was humming to the song like always, and you could feel the warmth of the sunlight falling down the windows, as the sun was setting. As the daylight came to and end we fell deeper and in deeper concentration towards each other and shut the world out. In our world, we were both under the stars, dancing to the saxophone playing in the backround.
When the notes in my sheets of paper ended, my reminiscing stopped and I saw myself once again in 'Madam Saxx' Jazz Club' . Playing that same song in the same exact The Smiths band. Rita disappeared with the light and the only thing left sparkling above, was the crystal chandelier. No more stars, no more Rita.
Our 10th anniversary without her...


xoxo, TheGirlWithCurls



inspirational song: Louis Armstrong - When You're Smiling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOH_mioL3TU

soulful afro

..She smiled with her eyes as she looked through the audience. A spotlight from the projector in the back made her afro glimmer in the light. The band was waiting impatiently behind her, for her queue. She sang with the opening phrase: "You need to pick yo afro daddy, because it's flat on one side". She elongated every last word of a sentence with a vibration in her voice. There was a certain soul to not only her style of singing, but with the charm she performed her songs. No matter how cloudy the room was with tobacco smoke, it didn't make any difference to her, because seeing the audience was not key. She made everybody feel her presence even just by standing behind the microphone stand. She delivered every act with a certain kind of intimacy, even if you heard her voice on vinyl, you could still see her in your mind performing on that same exact stage in Madame Saxx' Jazz Club .
The stuffy sound from the saxophone was a perfect match with her raspy, liquid voice.
Guests in the audience sipped some more of their cognac and whiskey on the rocks -red wine was not inappropriate either. Because people paid respect to Lady Soul by drinking two of her favorite drinks, while she was performing. That's how you could tell the regulars. Some customers kept on coming to the club, just to hear her sing. Even if it was every week on Thursdays. Because Lady Soul was not only a woman of class and soul, but an amazing humble singer. One of the greats. And spending her time singing was the only way of life she had come accustomed to. Even if she was meant to spend her retirement at Las Palmas or somewhere else warm with sand and palm trees, she stubbornly got her way and got to sing at the club down South, once a week.
"Wow, Lady Soul is just breathtaking!" a man at the bar told the bartender.
"Yeah she is, isn't she? We sure are lucky to have her as one of our acts!"
"What made her buy this club from Madame Saxx ?" the man continued.
The bartender stopped what he was doing, set the towel and glass on the counter and said: "This place has a special magic to it," he rubbed the back of his neck and continued "it keeps you coming back."
By the look of the bartenders face, the man at the bar dropped the conversation and enjoyed the rest of the show.


-xoxo, TheGirlWithCurls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7z7tjzrp0Q

another night at the club 2.

..My heart was beating fast. I could feel his Adam's apple pressed against my sweaty skin, with pores the size of nostrils. Sweat dripped down my back, and I was pushed against the wall, with my right inner thigh in his tender grip. The air felt humid and I could hear people in the other stalls making noise. -We had to hurry.
I felt as if he already knew what he was doing. As if my body was a map, and he already knew where the hidden treasures were..oh, indeed he did. All I needed to do was follow, and let him take the lead. He must have skipped through the first steps in the 'Making Love' manual, and didn't bother even unbuttoning my blouse. It was a sexy deep red blouse, so I guess he didn't want to accidentally rip a button off. He skipped all the virginal "look at each other in the eyes and mentally prepare yourselves for love making" steps. As if he had been looking at me the whole night and drew all the bad things he wanted to do to me that night, in his mind. There was not that much space, but there was enough to make him sigh, and moan, and sigh and moan. I didn't do much, but it was enough for him. This was everything but virginal. We did not look each other in the eyes. We were not 16-years-old, we were just two mature, sexually active adults seeking for one night lust. No strings attached.
But I couldn't help but let my mind wonder to the beginning of the night, asking myself how did I end up here. The same bathroom stall, with the same "M♥S were here" writing on the wall. I remembered walking in the club alone, again. And hearing yet again Mr.Brown on the piano and the Smiths playing sax and exotic drums on stage. The smooth aboriginal rhythm had me walk across the room with my hand caressing my curves. Apparently it did the trick, because by the time I had walked to the bar, a dark and handsome honey started to observe my every move. From the way I sipped my cocktail, to the way I liked to slide the green olive back and forth between my slightly opened lips. Eventually he took his powerful, broad shoulders over to where I was sitting by the bar and said hi.
And then I ended up in a bathroom stall, breathing heavily on his neck as he found my lace underwear and let them drop on the floor. He lifted my hips higher against the wall with his strong arms, and pressed his pelvis against mine. Sigh. I was looking at the sealing. Sigh. My left hand was stroking his neck. Sigh. My pencil skirt was now up to my breasts. Sigh. I could even feel the blood streaming in his muscle. Sigh. His muscle moved back and forth inside of me. Sigh. My right arm squeezed his butt cheeks as he put more force into it. And it felt good...
When our moaning turned into gasping of air, he gave me the 70bucks and left.
Yet another night at the club.



-xoxo TheGirlWithCurls


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znbXY1VoRRc&feature=related

another night at the club

..They burn out cigarettes as if there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Everybody who appears to go to 'Madame Saxx' Jazz Club' , seems to be rather melancholy and dramatic. They smoke just out of the boredom of not smoking. And run out of cigarettes before the first act appears on stage.
She stumbles with her feet when walking on stage, because of all the smoke that has gathered around her ankles. The mixture of tobacco and herbs that is smoked at the club, is so heavy that it acts like an imaginary chain on her feet. Every step she takes toward the stage weighs down on her. Her shoulders begin to press down her collarbone and yet, with smoke chains around her bare feet, she tries to hold onto her notebook. That notebook has all kinds of secrets hidden between the two leathery covers. Only a single thin leather strap holds all those pages of secrets together, as she adds pressure onto the notebook pressed against her bustier.
She chose to wear a bustier that morning, under all those layers of material.
She has so many guards built up. Not only does the bustier work as a metal armor, but the layers she puts on every day push back all the bullshit she has to put up with from the men she works with -or for.
The poems she writes in her notebook's pages are mostly about her job.
She goes on about the physical pain she has to tolerate with in her job. The notebook has seen it all.
-So, she continued her death march on stage. Knowing that somewhere in the audience, there'd be at least one of her clients. She glanced over the smoke that swam across the fresh air in the room, and saw nothing. The spotlight from the projector, over the back, was too bright.
When she got to the stage, cleared her throat, and put off pressure from the clasp which she was holding on the notebook. She began reading her poem, called 'My body is a Temple' . By every word she recited, the smoke cleared off her ankles, and so did the anxiety of getting up on stage. The smoke chains were just imaginary, but enough to make her heart race twice its speed.
A wave of rhythmically snapping fingers broke some of the smoke in the air. And she was smiling through it all, at the end of her poem.

SNAP.

(to be continued..)
-thegirlwithcurls

Jazzz me up

"There's something beautiful, watching the sun rise while hearing the soothing whispers of a smooth sax playing in an old jazz song...mmm, heaven."

Now that is all the creativity that I could think of when posting up my new status.

Facebook is just one of the addictions I should cut loose.

The other is me and my new smoking habit I've taken upon. Now, not just some old Lucky Strike cigarettes from the 80´s, but the special kind. The one's that get you buzzed. I'm talking about the kind that middle-aged men with rastas smoke -as stereotypical as that may sound.

If only there would be a Jazz café, here where I live. A place where smoking cigarettes from pipes, and tobacco from elongated sticks that Audrey Hepburn smoked at Breakfast at Tiffany's, would be unheard of. We'd smoke herbs. The special kind of smoke, that puts the SMOKE to smoking. The one that has a thicker cloud than what normal cigarettes would cause. And the smoke would be so heavy, that it would weigh down on the stage, while one of the spectators from the audience would hop on to perform at the Open-Mic night. The audience would simmer down to a silence. The kind of silence where all you can hear is inhale and exhale.

After the poem would come to an end, people would snap their fingers as applause to the performer. 

The saxophone would play all night. The raspy voice would burst out the sax´s mouth in flaming color. Of course this is just one of the mirages that we'd see under the influence of the exotic herbal mixture. But there's just something about smoke clouds that allure me. Fire, of course is a different matter. Once uncontrolled it can cause serious damage. 

But smoke, is just a cloud. A moving cloud that gets inhaled out the pipe like a genie from a bottle, and trapped in your lungs like a prisoner. Until you release your hold, that smoke won't come out.

And when you do eventually exhale, the poetical flow of the smoke allures you to carry on.

Intake by intake, you get the hang of it. Flying isn't so bad after all. Dry jokes have never felt so funny. Cheap 5 dollar wine has never tasted so fruity. And the strangers in the room have never made you feel so at home.

Marlboro kills, but so do other people. 

-I hope this made you hungry for more! Feel free to follow! (I'm new to this)

You guys have a nice day.

Keep them curls natural and your smiles wide ;)

xo, TheGirlWithCurls

(Song that inspired me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2EQfVtk-dk&feature=related )