Remember Me Always: Poetry Written Posthumously by a Loving Daughter

By Ayanna Jenelle Guyhto

Remember ME Always is a poetry collection that permits a peek inside the window of Ayanna Guyhtos world of words. Yanas life experiences worked to inspire her and inform. Her writing presents a fervent, vivacious view of life. Sometimes sympatheticother times, amusingshe offers something for everyone via her many flavors of prose.

During her life, Yana wrote with sheer excitement, attempting to inspire and motivate. Her words aim to uplift and give hope. She possessed the ability to connect with people, so Remember ME Always portrays that connection and her love for life, people, and animals. Daily, she nurtured her capacity to find love all around her and inspire that love in others, as well.

Her poems bridge the mind of a child through to adulthood. These compiled works introduce the early writings of a seven-year-old through to the discoveries of a young woman. Her poems are sprinkled with perception, free of inhibition, and offer delight and pleasure. Remember ME Always takes readers on a journeya journey to revisit again and again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781480850927

Ayanna Jenelle Guyhto

Ayanna Guyhto saturated herself with the many God-given talents bestowed her. Each gift had equal distribution of her labor.  She slighted none.  Ayanna took pride in perfection of her singing, art, playing her instruments and her writing abilities. This poetry anthology, Remember ME Always, exhibits her adeptness at writing. The compilation of her work introduces you to early writings in addition to those she published at the age of seven and into adulthood. Later, she wrote articles for different online websites: Yahoo!, Associated Content, Examiner.com, and others.

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Copyright © 2017 Ayanna Jenelle Guyhto.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-5090-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-5091-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-5092-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017917822

Archway Publishing rev. date: 11/16/2017

In memory of my daughter, Ayanna: a gift written by her for you.

Ayanna in Swahili means beautiful flower.

The late William James Guyhto (her father)

My late parents. Cecil A. and Marie B. Murray, Sr.

PHOTO1.jpg

A Kindred Spirit Has Returned

A yanna J. Guyhto was born in Glen Cove, New York, on September 6, 1972. Her life was taken by heart disease. Too sudden. Too soon.

This is a compilation of Ayanna’s writing journey from age four through adulthood. Her mother called herself a hoarder of good things. She saved most of her short stories, poems, and artwork from a very early age. Barbara Guyhto even kept a cassette tape (from yesteryear), of four-year-old Ayanna reciting nursery rhymes she learned at Parkway Private School in the Bronx.

Remember Me Always depicts her transformation from a young girl to more in-depth expressions of her beliefs and feelings, from world and social issues to relationships. A serious side is displayed as well as humor and wit to hold your interest.

Ayanna honed her writing skills as time passed. She published articles regularly for Yahoo!, Examiner.com, and other websites. She attended Kennesaw State College University, in Kennesaw, Georgia. Some of her work appeared in their publications.

Her talents did not stop at writing. She also sang and produced her music (self-taught with electric keyboard and electric and acoustic guitars). She performed at various venues in and around Atlanta, Georgia. She picked up a sketch pad and put her pencil to creations that floated from mind to paper; her drawings were quite impressive.

Ayanna Jenelle Guyhto: A woman who had so much to offer. An imperfect heart motivated and inspired her to share the love of the talents she was given, with those left behind.

Remember ME Always

Poetry Written Posthumously by a Loving Daughter

Contents

A Kindred Spirit Has Returned

Preface

Afterword

Introduction

In Her Own Words

The Virgo

Part 1. Childhood (’70s–’80s)

Writing

Love

Chopping the Family Tree

Land beyond Time

Death

My Window

My World

The Sky

Going for a Stroll

Summer Again

A Tea Party at the Lake

Oh, Baby Brother

Roses

Just for You on Mother’s Day

Nature

The Bunny Trail

City Lights

Exercise

A School Mother

Blind

Time

Journey through Eternity

A Mind

Doors and Keys

Someday

Grandmother Far Away

Cold

The Wind

Grandmother of mine…

Rose

Magic in the Sky

The Best of Friends

Diamonds in the Grass

Pictures

Grandmother: My Friend

There Are All Kinds of Pictures

Memories

Silver Sunshine

Grandmother

An Apple

Tears

God

Love

Skipping on a Green Carpet

Don’t

Rainfall

Father

Outside

Ol’ Granny

Who Am I?

Trees

The Rain Has Fallen

Raindrops

School

Thanksgiving Day

A Mother

A Piece of the Future

Bible School Teacher:

A Shining Star

Brown Girl

External Asthma Attack

God’s Creation

Grandma’s Knee

Pink

Happy Birthday

If I Were a Star

Jumping Rope

Me, Myself, and I

Medicine

Morning

Moving

My Holy Writings of God

The Promise

Questions of God

Advice

The 82 Ride

Night

Roller Coaster

Weather

Sail Away

Snowflake’s Secret

Springtime

Springtime Flowers

The Life of One Cent

The Sea

The Tiger

The World

What Do You Like?

Untitled

A Land

Meaning of Grandmother

When the World Has Awakened

Marcus

Gambling

Unsuccessfully, Arnold

Winter Sparkle

Autumn Wind

Have You Noticed?

Easter

Brighter Days

A Flying Surprise

From a Long Distance

Halloween Scares

Water

The Walking Anybody

The Drunk Driver

Door of the Future, Window of the Past

Christmas

The Road of Life

The Specter

Letter from the Sinner

Animals in the Woods

The Jungle

Lives

My Careless Mistake

Boys

Living

Children

Love

Grandma’s Birthday

Time

At the Beach

Flowers

My Friend

Blessings

Rain

I Wonder Why

Helpful Tips

I Hate

Rain Water

Christmas in the Woods

Crispy Winds

Christmas Dreams

Stepfather

Mist and Fall

Mother, I Love You

Wild Autumn

Healthy, Healthy

Jell-O

Untitled

My Face

Only Me

Memories

Roses and Skunks

Think Before You Do

People

Couple Christmas

Holiday Season

A Time of Laughter

A Silent Friend

Grandmother’s Love

For Grandma on Her Birthday

Giving

To Grandma on Mother’s Day

Grandmother

Grandma: Just for You on Mother’s Day

Me

Father

Beginning … End

Nature

A Rainy Day

Children’s Christmas Eve Prayer

For Someone Special: Wishing You Happiness

The Cat

Christmas

Believe in Yourself

There Is

Night

We’ve Come a Long Way

Time

Garbage

Black Snow

What Is a Grandmother?

Cold Fire

Land

Superstition

He Say, She Say

Come to the Zoo

The Pessimist

Optimist

Doors and Keys

The Sparrow’s Song

Night Stalker

Suicidal Divinity

The Decision

What’s Wrong with the Alphabet?

The Times that I Had

Dreams

To My Friend

Surgery

Standing Fear of Darkness

Plight of an Angel

Never Told You

My Name Is Evil

Make a Great New World

Love

Life Without a Goal

Life Without Life

Life

Life is a Child

Let There Be Love

Land of Opportunity

I Have a Dream

Just Me, All Alone

Four Years

Chopping the Family Tree

Father Number Two

But Now I’m Dead

Breakfast at Stephanie’s

Black Night

A Friend

My Mother

Letter to Grandma

A Birthday Poem Especially for You

Marathon

Where Things Come From

Make a Wish

Holy Flower

Grandma: Christmas Dreams

The Flu

Living Dangerous

Everlasting Prime

Battlefield

The Seasons

Part 2 Teens (1990s)

The Many Tomorrows

Deepest Sympathy

Monkey in the Glass

To Be Sad

Us

Through the Cast

Sand and Satin

Watermelon Luv

The Price of Falling in Love

Crazy Time

Coming of Age

The Child

With This Ring, I Thee Bled

When There Seemed

Birthday

The Best of Friends

Ripe Apples

The Gift

Slow Song

Being Dad

Often

Under the Grass

Clean

The Middle of Spring

To Catch a Butterfly

Intoxication

Almost Candidly

Internally Yours

At 7,000 Feet

The Hidden Valley

Everybody Loves Music

Kept Confidential

On the Edge

Fast

Nature

Blue

A Piece Left Over

A Place in the Heart

What Anger Is

The House that God Built

New Year’s Card

Barbershop

Choosing the Words

Ungrateful Satisfaction

Deuteronomy 4

Bootleg Dreams

Yankee Street

Welcome to Planet Earth

Nostalgia

Loveburn

Beauty

Dear Mr. Wrong

Some Place Else

The Ways of the World

The Strength of a Woman

This One Day

AIDS (By Definition)

Lucky

Poem

Models Sell Their Souls

Follow the Song

Clean versus Empty

The Promise

Where Merry Went

Anticipation

Youth for Sale

In Your Dreams

Free

The Mona Lisa

September Morning

The Story of You

The Promise to Love

This One Day

That Part of My Brain

Affair of Love

New Joy

Tween

Bazaar

Young Central Park Skater

Stuff I’m Thinking

Noise

Monotony

Long Live the Jazz

Part 3 Adulthood (2000s)

Heartbeats

What Happened to the Real Parties?

When Summer Breaks

Quietly

Solitary

Gossip

Disease

What Is Lust?

It’s Friday

Keep Her Down

Cry

Hanging On

Indulge

The Next Time

After I’m Gone

Writing

Sign of the Times

Reborn

On Mother’s Day

ABCs of Inspiration

Formula for the Daily Journal

Haul-Over

Aisle Five

Still

The Wedding Day

Each Night before I Go to Bed

It’s Happening Again

Sticky

Beware of the Heart Monsters

A Walk in the Park

This Is How It Begins

Dance with You

I Never Loved This Deep and Wide

Playa Hatresses

Inside Out

Singing My Soul in Three Minutes

Eighteen

Happy Sweet Eighteenth, Secret

Hot Day in December

Picking Fruit

Becoming

In the Meantime

Sympathy

The Power of Love

Untitled

Stage Fright

PMS

Everyman

Higher than Heaven

Midnight in Manhattan

Rubber Rules

Wicked

Skin-Emies

Lyrical Warfare

Getting Personal

Love’s Gun

The Notes

Beautifully

What Is It about You?

Dancing on the Moon

Daydream

Looking

Choices

Runaway Train

Little Boys

Keepin’ It Real

Darkest Road

Apology to the Earth

Karma

The Music that You Hear

Louder than Words

Sooner than Later

Will Sing for Food

The Handsome Fish

Temptation

Lovely

Untitled

What They Can’t Tell You

Sky Mother

Forever Starts Today

Steppin’ Out

Forgiving Flowers

Haunted Man

Funk Dust Junkies

Revelation

Nightmares

Freedom

The Sound of the Still

Make-Up Christmas

Rainchile

Those Things

For Myra

The Lie Detector Test

Education

Before I Get to Heaven

Part 4 Mom’s Poems

Five Reasons Why Scorpio Moms Are Terrific

Just a Girl

Note to Mother

To My Friend

Dear Mom,

The Times That I Had

Dear Mother,

A Touch of Christmas

My Gift

What Dreams Are Made Of

You Get to Have Two Birthdays this Year

Gift of a Child

Dear Mom,

Surprise!

A Birthday Together

Golden Anniversary

Mother

A Mother’s Love

Tomorrow

Shades of You

Time

Blessings for the Holidays

God Is a Woman

A Mother

Definition: Mother

Little Movie

Before I Get to Heaven

About the Author

Preface

M y late daughter, Ayanna J. Guyhto, had a dream she wished to fulfill: to share her love of words with the masses. As her mother, I carry the torch in hopes the wish would come to fruition.

Much appreciation and a thank you to those presenting endearing love, inspiration, and infinite belief in my quest to fulfill Ayanna’s pursuit of her writing journey. There were others who offered support and motivation; to them, I am most grateful.

The late Betty Boegehold (author of Pippa Mouse and other children’s books)

Sandra Wilson

Blanche Anchrum

Lovetta Cox

Alice Gilner

Judy Sojourner

Cheryl Chambers

Michele Jones

Lenora Cordell

Gail Carrington

Cheryl Nixon

Lola Crawford

SheRon Andrews

Frances Craig

Joan Eastmond

Barbara Wilson

Beatrice M. Lewis

Cecil A. Murray, Jr.

Afterword

Keeping Ayanna’s Memory ALIVE!

My promise to my daughter was to bring life to her writing she so skillfully crafted from childhood through adulthood. Poetry was a part of her existence.

Introduction

Amazing. Devoted. Mind-blowing. Uplifting. Delightful. Funny. Determined. Loving. Intellectual. Articulate. Clever. Encouraging. Intuitive. Ingenious. Venturous. Respectful. Powerful. Effervescent. Spirited. Phenomenal. Tenacious. Bright. Observant. Unconventional. Enthusiastic. Debonair. Analytical. Committed. Thoughtful. Friendly. Kind. Creative. Focused. Communicative. Eloquent. Vivacious. Social. Loving. Caring. Giving. Romantic. Versatile. Open-minded. Highly blessed.

—A Bereaved Mother

T he summer of 2009, Ayanna was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy (problems with the heart muscle and an abnormally enlarged heart). It was hereditary. (Her late father as well as his parents suffered with various heart ailments.) She was sustained by daily medications. In the summer of 2009, she had to remove herself from the work world. At the early age of thirty-seven, she was given what I’d like to call a medical stamp.

On Monday morning, August 18, 2013, life as I once knew it changed drastically. I received a telephone call informing me of my only child, Ayanna Jenelle Guyhto, had gone into cardiac arrest and was being rushed by ambulance to the nearest hospital.

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013, I received yet another call. I was told that my precious one had passed away at 5:20 a.m. She had departed this earth eight days prior to her forty-first birthday.

Thus, my life had taken on still another heart-wrenching twist and turn. It charted toward a downhill spiral. This time, I was focused on permanently walking life’s road, lonely without my beloved Ayanna, my Mini Me. I now live for and through my child.

Yana (as I called her) left a legacy of art in many forms. She was a writer: her daily source of energy and pick-me-up; a singer/producer (also self-taught with the electric and acoustic guitars and electric keyboard); a musician (she loved strumming her guitars and using her silky-smooth voice to accompany her songs); an artist (ink and paper were her passion); an avid reader (any bookstore was like her second home); a lover of independent movies (artfully impersonating foreign accents); a positive, warm, loving, and caring person; and an animal lover. In fact, many months prior to her demise, she found a skeletal of a puppy roaming the streets of Atlanta. He followed her every step. She picked him up and brought him home, rescuing him (she made a before-and-after poster using his photos).

But the most germane thing in her life was being a Christian.

They tell me prior to departing this earth, we should leave behind something that may