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THE VILLAGES - By day, Tahia O'Neal is an employee in the human resources department of the town of Lady Lake. But every free minute within her workday, and every moment thereafter, Tahia trades in her business mind for a pen and paper.

"I don't have any rhyme or reason to when I write or what I write," O'Neal said. "I write it on the back of a receipt. I've been known to pull over to the side of the road and have to write something down. I'll write it on a Post-It Note, whatever, whenever it pops into my brain, that's when it comes out."

It all started as child's play for the now 22-year-old O'Neal. As a child, she and her older brother used to make up song lyrics. Little did she know, that rhyme had reason.

"It was kind of a release for me," O'Neal said. "A lot of times, you have things that you don't want to tell people, so that was kind of a way for me to release the things I had inside without actually having to tell another individual."

Now, after 10 years of organizing her thoughts into carefully constructed poetry, O'Neal is sharing those feelings with the world. Her first book, "Epics of a Black Beauty," was published this year. For O'Neal, the bound collection is a mirror of herself and the life she has lived.

"I write real-life stories," she said. "If I haven't witnessed it, or if I haven't experienced it personally, I can't really write about it. I'm a very emotional writer, so everything that I write has to do with real human emotions - love, fear, anger."

O'Neal's title poem, "Black Beauty," is a perfect example. In it, the young poet describes the women in her life and how their personalities have influenced her, making her a "Black Beauty," too.

"I'm saying that I'm all of those things wrapped up into one - where I'm my mother's humor, my aunt's good advice, all those things wrapped up into one," she said.

O'Neal's work doesn't shy away from life's challenges, either. In her poem "Still Black," she points an angry finger at racism of all forms, hoping her readers will understand that people are people, no matter their color or ethnicity.

"There's a part in there that goes, 'No matter how far I go, no matter the awards, medals, or plaques, won't ever change the fact that everyday I'm STILL BLACK.' No matter what I do in life or where I go in this world, I can never escape being African American. It's not something I want to escape, but that's just the way it is."

O'Neal's book currently is available at the Lady Lake Library, All Booked Up in The Villages, Amazon.com, and Rainbowtree.com. With one book under her belt, she already is working on several others, each revealing more about the woman behind the pages and the world through her eyes.

"It's kind of like giving you a piece of me," O'Neal said. "So I hope the piece of me I'm giving you, you very much appreciate it and that you like it."

Meghan Burke is a reporter for VNN. She can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9239.