I am Poet

Poetry means the world to me;

I was struggling throughout my teenage years in finding my identity.

It feels like we are required to follow instructions.

Especially young women of color,

we are not allowed to deviate too much from the norm;

critical thinking only exists within a certain confine. A rubric.

But I find my poetic side; I saw another side of me I was unaware of in my poems.

It was like writing down music and after completing the poem it made me dance.

I found myself floating between things with a vast emptiness that spoke of lacking.

I’m happy writing my metaphorical poetries. I hold on to it tightly.

This is my 3^rd year writing and I see my old journals and I’m growing,

with rot in my ribs, with sour on my tongue, with weakness in my backbones.
I had no idea where my thoughts were taking me but I know it felt so good.

I faced my darkness. I swallowed the nights that ripped me to pieces.

I swam laps with my pen with the broken glass of my words into my poems.

Why did I choose to become a poet?

Because I was born of fire, savanna wind, of running, of sides that heave.

But tired as I’m, fallen from the sky,

I remember my pen and journal and my scars begin heal.