Who Saved Me

The biggest mouth in the room

Yet never quite heard

Not the prettiest girl on the scene so she was never quite seen

Never really did her best

Cause her best wasn’t good enough

Enough talent to make a grown man cry

But the only man in her life was God

So when it rained she just knew it was proud praise from God’s eyes

She was always number one

Yet somehow always picked last

Not the smartest kid in the class

The funniest person the world could ever know

But no one really listens when her waist is not petite

Her mama at home and her daddy at work but no one to listen to the cries when she’s hurt

Two sisters that love her

But love is just a word when there’s no one to uphold it

The best lesson her teachers ever taught her was how to hold a pen

And how to curve it in ways that was so amazing some call it sin

She learned quickly how to call her therapist her pen

Always timid to speak unless the words were pre-written

No one ever knew that a mighty lion lay inside the heart of this said weak kitten

She learned how to make the paper her audience and the pen the mic

And whenever she put two and two together it was always one hell of a night

Because emotion could be free

Her words could just fly

She didn’t have to worry about this or that or even that guy

Because when her sword and shield protected her from judgement

She realized very quickly that her tongue was more than just an organ

It was life in a movement and death with the sweep of the articulation

That pen and that paper and that tongue together

Were the only three things holding this little girl together

Because her brain moved a mile a minute and only her pen understood

Only her paper could comprehend

And only her tongue could repeat

No one ever seemed to understand her mind unless it rhymed or moved to a beat

That’s how poetry became her best friend and kept her from jumping over

Without that pen and paper that little girl’s life would have been over

So you asked me to tell you why poetry means so much to me

It means so much because that little girl is me.

That pen and that paper have set me free

No more begging to be heard or asking to be seen

Because with the help of this mighty tongue they have intervened

Allowed the lion to come out and devour any sort of doubt

That it takes more than who I am to make change come about

Now when it rains, I just smile

Because I know the Alpha and the Omega is on my side

These rhyming words

And this soft timid beat that I speak

Has helped me to grow into a mighty ME that I can see

Now I step in the room knowing I WILL be heard

I do my best because I know nothing less is deserved

When I walk into a room I AM the prettiest around

Number one and I have been picked first

Poetry saved my life I used to say but now I see,

That it’s been me all along, I am my superhero

I saved me.