Words on my skin
Tightening of my throat
The words you shouted
And the things you spoke
Through your lens I’m
An object
Dangling
Taunting
Inviting
But I am a woman
Not to be used
Or abused
I shed your words everyday
I wash them away
I am not yours to be looked at
Or yours to be swayed
So take the words you have
strangled me with
And wrap them around your own throat
Till you suffocate

And if I love I do completely
And if I hurt I do alone
And if you ask I’ll say I’m fine
And I’ll wonder if that was a mistake
But you can’t carry the contents of my heart
Without folding yourself
And that’s just the nature of your gravity
That makes it so hard to trust you completely
So I wait for the day
Where I can give my sorrows to someone strong enough to carry them
And they’ll know what to do with me.

And I vowed
She would never hold the contents of her mind behind because she felt she was less than divine
That every word that escaped the beautiful belly of the gold mine I planted in her would be expelled from the root at every moment she could
That her first words would be I know before I think
I can before I might.
And her voice would never drift off into the wind, unheard and forgotten
You would hear the harshness of her winds before you even turned around to see her because she is ten feet tall in mentality and in physicality .
Because I will teach her she is worthy.
So she doesn’t shy away into the void that is so comfortable .
So that her throat will never know a lump so large it stops the wind from blowing her music.
So that she will never doubt herself
Like her mother did.

It is when I’m alone
That I find
I really hate my own company.

Lay me on white sand
Drown my brain in waves
Fill me with music
And butterfly’s to dance the night away.
And if I laugh
And it manages to reach my eyes
Don’t let me leave.

And I ask you
Are we equal?
Can I walk the street without being questioned
Without being watched
Will they see my name and give me the job
I am so qualified for
Can I drive my car without seeing red and blue
And then red
With blue lips I ask
Can I survive in the world you are alive in

The air rises through my throat
Overcoming the lumps
Finally, I speak
A shaky word
Becomes
Stronger
My hands become dryer and my eyelids become lighter
I see a whole world where I am at the front of the room
Instead of the back
Where I am looked at with admiration
And love
And reliance
And confidence
When I look in the mirror

I had to learn
That no matter how loud my voice was
No matter how long I emptied the contents of my soul for you to understand
I would only lose my mind
And I hoped that you would hear me
Somewhere in that place your stuck In
And maybe you do
But I had to accept
That you would come out in your own time
And maybe that time will be in heaven
I need to learn to bear the patience of a life time.

I was born with a reservoir of love
Filled to the brim in my heart
Each day it grew
And so did it’s capacity for more love
The unspoken rule of this reservoir was
That every time I poured some love out
It would be poured back in
And so the reservoir could continue to exist
But it stopped growing
I was convinced that it was full enough
That it was large enough to last me awhile
Or maybe I was convinced
That someone would pour some love back in
I continued to pour and pour and pour
I poured some here
I poured some there
The reservoir had begun to get empty
It got lighter and hollower
I could hear the echoes of the spaces
The love once occupied
I don’t know at what point it got completely empty
I don’t know at what point I lost the love
But I can’t suppress the anger i feel
For the ones who took
And took
And took
And never poured back in
Leaving me hollow
Without the ability to love again

The road ahead was so long, it passed in a blink.
And how on earth could that be?
That decades worth of sorrow was truly only mere minutes
Seconds
On the travellers path
You’ve sailed ships
With dangerous waters that tugged at your limbs
And enjoyed the breeze of a new morning
Back in the waters you went
Felt it swallow you whole
But it shot you back up onto new shores
And how tired you must have felt
On the travellers path
Yet the destination pulled you forward
The road was brisk and Lonely
But occasionally the sun hit the pavement at an angle that left a rainbow
Dancing at your feet
So you danced with it
And you drowned a little less
But then the floods came back
The perfect balance
The perfect plan
when you reached the end of the road
You were no longer a traveller
You made it home
And the road you travelled seemed less long
Less sorrowful
Because the destination was so brilliant
So beautiful
And the joy you felt wiped your memory of any sorrow you have ever felt
And you would travel the road again, and again, and again
If you had known the bliss of forever cost the sorrow of a second.

She lives for the days when she could lift her arms up in peace
and feel the wind tickle her face.
She feels slight euphoria at the breeze just before she heads to the train station.
The wonder walking through the city taking in its people.
She wants nothing more than to sit with the old couple having lunch on the patio, and learn a thing or two about their love. She enjoys the simple things,
because there’s a war going on in her belly.

A cloudy mind
Is hard to shake
The clouds get bigger
And denser
And they begin to weigh you down
Suddenly
A bridge collapses
And the tears escape
With no clear reason why
Now you are awake
To watch the sun rise up
To bring light to once darkness
It’s a new day