I may forget what is true
Might deny what is real
Take a selfish adventure
Focused only on you

Let all my dreams take flight
Act out the could have been
Lose myself but for a night
Weakened by my kryptonite*


©Tina Thompson

you know what i will not do?
i will never, ever pity myself again.

what is there to pity?
i have everything i need;
i have a golden body filled with fulfilled actions,
and nights to live through
to rest my tired head on
some grassy hill when darkness is fading
and know that i have lived another day
and i will live so much more.

i will
take a deep breath,
tilt my chin,
and hold myself with this strength
pirouetting within me.
and i'll feel every one of my emotions like
they are
the early dawn itself,
skimming their bodies above mine,
sinking into my growing,
stretching skin,
lighting fires inside of me,
i'll let them burn inside me like
bonfires on hills with small pieces of paper
shrinking to ashes as black as
the fingers that caress my body
on empty mountain tops.

i will create even more of a woman within myself,
filled with
everything i have ever *******
dreamed to create inside of my whirling
*******, and
erupting heart.

i will walk,
and my steps will shake this earth.

i will never pity myself again,
because i will wake up with
the ******* sun shining out my eyes;
i am everything i have set out to be.

i will not tread lightly upon
my life,
afraid.
i will step with purpose,
i will make my actions
create a masterpiece of life,
i will make being alive an
art.
i will make a dent in this atmosphere,
i will spill, contract, expand, dance, explode
because this is my life,
and i will stop cradling it,
i will grasp it
and
i
will
run.

i am the roaring of motorcycles attacking
cement,
i am paint splattered canvas, sketch grooves in paper
carved in a frenzy,
ink stained palms,
i am the blazing sun, and its wrathful heat.
i am stumbling words, creating
rivers across
sleeping faces,
i am feet racing,
in cold winter air, breath slapped with one thousand
whisking tree branches,
i am a weary spine,
bent over four in the morning pages of sloppy poetry,
heart spilled all over like clumsy sipped coffee,
i am drunken truth,
i am real,
i am whole,
i am.

STOP PITYING YOURSELF
AND BE

ALIVE

My hair was wet and
in knots. I apologized
for coming over
unannounced and
messy but you shook
your head. You said
"No, you look so
beautiful. You always
look beautiful."