Coffee & Cats: Episode 5

Announcements:

AEC Stellar Publishing has signed a cover artist for Death Before Daylight, and if you’ve been following my progress bar on the right side of my website, then you know I’ve hit 60,000 words in the content edits. (Eeeee!)

The Timely Death Trilogy is still moving forward! And, today, The Other Side of Paradise reviewed, book 2, Seconds Before Sunrise: “Jess and Eric’s love was ever so prevalent and I became obsessed. I felt an emotional pull and fell in love with the couple’s journey. I’m not even ashamed to say that I shed a few tears. Believe me, you will become a part of this book. It is an epic story with unforgettable characters and moments that make you hold your breath.” Read her full review here, but it does include the ending of book 1, Minutes Before Sunset.

Speaking of book 1, Written Art reviewed Minutes Before Sunset, and you can read the full review by clicking here, but here’s a small excerpt, “Just enough romance mixed with danger to make me look forward to the next book in the trilogy.”

Thank you to all the wonderful readers who take the time to read and post their reviews up! I truly appreciate it. 😀

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Coffee & Cats: Episode 5

The day has come. After four Fridays, you have voted for your favorite poems on my Wattpad, and today, you can watch a reading of the winning poem – To the thunderstorm I used to love – but that’s not all. Below the video, I have explanations and short stories for each poem that I released as well as a link to the writings in case you missed them. I know it’s rather taboo to explain your poems, but – what can I say? – I am a taboo, so check out the behind-the-scenes if you want. (Just to clarify, even if you read what the meaning was for me, please allow the poem to still have the meaning you read it as.) I hope this also allows everyone to get to know me as a person better because most of my poems are based very much in reality.

This month – I thanked Marcia_94 for voting – and you can be mentioned next month. Just remember to vote, comment, and share every Friday when I release a new poem.

To the thunderstorm I used to love,

Opening line: you pounded me, beat the windows with your fists,

This poem is more literal than what readers would probably think. I wrote it during a thunderstorm because – to be quite frank – I have damage in my back from various car wrecks, and I’m in severe pain during rainstorms. I own a conversion table, which helps, but I still get very sad and angry during the rain, because I also love the rain, so rain and I have a hate-love relationship. I first fell in love with the rain when I lived in Georgia, but I truly did try to save butterflies from thunderstorms, and yes – they did suffocate in the cages I put them in. (I was seven. Give me a break.) But that doesn’t mean this poem doesn’t have other meanings for me. It does. But even I have meanings behind particular writings that I don’t feel comfortable sharing, and this is one of those instances.

Fukushima Daiichi

Opening line: You told us about the samurai crabs that day,

You might recognize the title, but you might not, so I would first like to clarify that Fukushima Daiichi is the nuclear power plant that had a meltdown in 2011 after a tsunami hit Japan. I was, in fact, in a Japanese history class that semester, and the day after the meltdown, my professor attempted to recruit students to go over and help. But no one signed up. And he seemed very upset over the whole ordeal. That being said, I referred to him as my “Kasa Professor” because he used to wear one of the traditional hats, and the story of the samurai crabs is actually a real legend he told us about that day, but no – no one pulled out a blunt and smoked in the middle of a lecture.

The French (History) Teacher

Opening line: You’re not actually French. You just brought in a French textbook,

This one almost won. It only lost by one comment. That being said, this is an exaggerated version of two stories mixed together. I was in high school, and I was enrolled in AP European History. My teacher collected old World War I memorabilia, and he mentioned that he would’ve loved to bring in an old gun to show us for educational purposes (it was broken, of course) and he tried to get permission to show it to us, but the school didn’t allow it. He did bring in a gas mask, and he did let us put it on, but he also tried to bring in an old history book from France, but the office wouldn’t allow that either, so he simply told us about it. After that, I was in psychology class, and we viewed a video from France that asked various citizens about World War II, and a few really did say that it hadn’t happened, so I mixed those two moments together and added a bit of Bogart. I do want to thank Antonin Tabard, my friend from France, for being so encouraging of this poem.

How She Loved Me

Opening line: After she broke her neck, the diagnosis advised her to

Again, a true story. When I was living in Georgia, my mother broke her neck in a car wreck. Yes, you can live through a broken neck, but she had to get three vertebrae fused together, and the surgery was really hard on her. This is actually one of the main reasons she was on the painkillers that later killed her. She wasn’t able to do much – like go on rollercoasters – but she took me once anyway, and it is honestly one of my fondest memories of her. I was also huge into gymnastics, and she showed me a few tricks on the trampolines. Again, despite her injuries. Of course, she shouldn’t have done this, and it’s controversial for me to say how thankful I am that she did anyway. But those are the moments I saw her laugh, and those are the few times that she truly seemed alive. Now that she’s gone, I love those memories even more. Even though I had two moments with her, they are precious instances.

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I hope you enjoyed the short explanations as both an opportunity to see behind-the-scenes and maybe a way to get to know me a little bit better! I look forward to sharing more poems every Friday on my Wattpad page, and I cannot wait to create another post like this next month.

Happy reading,

~SAT