Lifetimes

Every corner will only lead you back to the beginning.
The lines start to melt, hot wax chasing you
to face
scream after scream
of faces you want to believe-
Tell say that you are wrong.

You always are.
At some point, you might even
let the voices crawl closer,
let the scorching wax run over you.

I fought for years,
and I want to say I still am.
Days and weeks and months and years-
A
l
i
f
e
t
i
m
e
of hearing that I am
worthless.

          A lifetime
          of being told I am a sin.
                    A lifetime of knowing I will never succeed.

I fought for years,
and I want to say I still am.

Strangers will not define
my worth.
Bullies cannot know
what my God believes of me.

The only block between success
- and this person who hasn’t even lived yet- is me.

It may take a lifetime.
But, I will work for those years,
learning week in and week out
that I have power.

Day by day,
I am beginning to remember…
My soul was put on this Earth to blaze a trail with the hellfire of my Truth
to light the way for any who may need it.

A Runaway

Scuttling in the rafters,
I hear it, but don’t move
hoping to catch it by surprise.
I hold the empty page
of my worn notebook
- tattered with every thought I've ever managed to get down -
open,
ready to snap close on the idea.

This particular rascal is
running around my house
at the moment,
knocking over
meticulously stacked books and empty coffee mugs
and tearing up
every stray loose leaf
I had laying around.

“No!” I scold my poem,
her words at the tip of my tongue,
“We don’t run with knives! I repeat-”

She stops for that, but only to
wag her finger at me,
“Don’t bother writing
any words at all,
if they aren’t meant to wake someone up.”

And maybe she’s right.
If only she’d let me
write her down
on even just a napkin.

Only Some Words

“You’re sad and angry
all the time.”

“It’s what you do.”

She speaks those words
and my stomach dropped because
It might be true.

My throat swells
- my energy popped.
Where once might

have been joy,

lies only regret.

If only I could
                        count
                                 oh,
                                      just all the things
                                                                   I've heard,
that have been
said about me.

It would be quite distressing,
an awful lot of hate.

But, people, they don't know me.
It is easy to say that
and mean strangers on the street,
but you have to remember that
it just might mean your family too.

You are the only one who has
experienced all of the things,
the only one who knows of all the
stolen cookies and guilty pleasure songs,
no one can steal from you
your memories and your soul.

You are you
it is as simple as that.
They can say words,
and they will hurt,
but you are mighty
perhaps like mitochondria.