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A confinement to the street,
I likened it to a bliss of pain.
Not extended like an overrun episode,
But the anxiety is sleepless,
When yesterday approaches,
I wrap myself in the ignorance,
Homeless, timeless,
It grows and defines,
Coarses through my fundamental
Lapses,
A boy becomes an atitude,
I wish i had these experiences in youthful insurgencies.

Its someday in the week,
I lose the raptured schedules,
To hunger is life.
To thirst is life.
The misled winter wraps itself
On my frozen life.
A faint emergence of time
Resumes,
There in the shadows
I once knew a man,
The visions of him asking to feed
My souless self.
Stretched by insistent graces,
In a road of certain contrasts,
Gentle into the street,
I laugh; the revolving doors,
I cry; what or who i never was,
A certain kind of grace to be
Within the containment,
the poor, the  restless,
bleeding my facades,
Shredding the faces I once knew
Destroying my world.

Once I sat upon a throne
Lost in the decimations,
I dont know who I am.

Keep walking.
Telling myself as the night freezes
I will be just fine.
Keep walking
Telling myself in minced
Thoughts as hope flutters against
Nowhere to go.
Keep walking,
The sun rises
And blisters on my feet
Calm the night as the safety
Of day lets me rest.

I will bounce back tomorrow,
And the streets become a ripened spring fruit,
Losing myself
And the art of loss
Is no disaster,
Not unlike losing my keys,
Not unlike losing places,
Not unlike losing names,
Until i reconciled myself
At the fork of the river,
Losing myself is not an art:

The beauty was in finding who I was meant to be.
No pity. I walked my path. I see what it is and i am grateful. To the end. To the beginnings. Life is and i am hapoier than i have ever been.
He is the boy from the ghetto
Who was the example
That made me set my standard
So high
That she was not ****** to death
For becoming pregnant
Inexplicably
Is a miracle
In itself
Jesus was most certainly born
Under a fortunate star
It is an important rite
Of passage
That every adult
Should read
"Oh, The Places You'll Go" out loud
To a child they love
At least once
His greatest accomplishment as a poet
Was picking out irrisistable titles
To name his poetry
The summer grasses
All that remains
Of brave soldiers dreams
 Sep 2017 Tawanda Mulalu
bea
you started out big, i think. i think you started out with big lungs and a big heart and giant thoughts, i don’t think you were like everyone else

i wasn’t there for the rest of it. i was in
los angeles, i was
playing soccer with the cousins in white dresses in grassy backyards. the sky was plummy, my shoes were wet, i remember it like an uncut gem mined from my mossy mossy memory

but imagination only goes so far. it doesn’t cover things like lost keys or atlanta, you know.
i’m good at lies, but that’s inherent. we’re fluent in
self-hate, i think,
we’re liquidy like the wavy falling sky.

sometimes my mind’s blown, i feel like an eight-year-old watching aliens land again & i feel my hands start to shake
i suppose it was the same way for you. i guess u have the same little memories, the goopy mac and cheese from elementary school, the neighbor’s cats’ names, sore arms, bad bruises
im sad about u, u know
My heart hammered in my chest,
Petrified, my vision was blurry
My body was shaking
From the reality before me.

His sharp teeth and pale lips
Pulled back into a hideous smirk,
His hollowed eyes
Filled to the brim with hunger
And his breath
Foul with every death
He had devoured.

My throat, constricted with
Anxiety
And my stomach
Screamed with uneasiness.

My living nightmare
Worse than I had ever imagined,
Feeding off of any hope left inside of me.

I could taste the bitter flavor of dread
Replacing any bit of courage inside of me.

I struggled to find air,
Terror gnawed at my heart
As he prowled closer.

I closed my eyes
Praying to whoever was out there
For a second chance.
Then cursing them
For letting this monster
Haunt me.

Everything I lived for
Would be gone within the next few moments
Tears of anxiety drenched my face
From the thoughts of losing everyone I cared for.

What did I do to deserve this?
Why have I wronged fate?
Why does fate bring this sinister creature to punish me?
Why? Why? Why?

I do not deserve this.
I will not be punished.
I will not let it end here.
I will not accept my fate.

I took in a deep breath
1…2…3

His distorted face so close to mine,
Leering at me.
My heart pounding against my chest
My mind screaming to run
But my eyes,
Stared dead straight into his vacant sockets.

With all the courage I could fathom,
I roared
“You are not me.
You’ll never be”

His stance faltered
My nerves no longer chained around me.
“You can’t control me,
You are not stronger than me.”

My bravery radiated
As he started to saunter back
Fear in his voided eyes.
His figure shrunk with every step.
“You are nothing but a monster,
A beast.
I will not let you define me.”

He fell back and squirmed under my gaze.
“I may fear you,
But that doesn’t mean I won’t fight you.
I will, and I have.
And
  I won."

With that, he crawled into the shadows
Where he belonged.
But he always lurked,
Inside my own shadow, attached to me
He was always an unwanted guest.
But he never hurt me.
He knew if I could conquer the beast inside of me
I could conquer anything.

I can. And I will.
Nothing in this entire world can stop me.
*Nothing at all.
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