The Awakening

Spoken word has told me things usually unheard

Sitting in a crowd at a show

Listening to poets blow

Their innermost anguish and pain into a microphone

Tales of sociopolitical turmoil

Turns the wheels in my brain like the wheels of an engine freshly oiled

I am awakened by the poetry and floetry that speaks to

my womanness, my Blackness, my me-ness

Poets conquering the weakness and sparking discussions centuries past due

I am made anew

I have been awakened