San Francisco sprawled along the earth

Bathed in a fog that cloaks former glory

Glory of tender, solid oneness

Surrounded by salt dusted shores

She burns in hues of olive, caramel, chocolate, and blinding snow

Encrypted with history and exposed in the people

Once a place of history now forsaken

Abandoned in brotherhood and good faith

Dethroned, she stands unable to carry the history in her veins

This is where I found my voice

Here I opened my mouth and to my amazement lyrics bleed forth

In this city my mind broke free

The pen took control and words flowed from me

In this community, my school of late

We are reined in his claws

Surviving on competition

And gobbled in his currency of grades

My essence described as though ethereal

“Red as a cherry bomb, graceful as a gazelle”

Large owl eyes open and expecting

Ms. Terrance of petite stature

Beach sand hair and elegant aura

Spit forth the lines and illuminated my passion

Pitched into shock, my mind stood still

These words of grace entranced me

Outstretched my wings

In faucet outlets of blushed pink, down in the dumps blue and heated red

In front of my view lay the construct of reality and imagination

Mighty sword gripped in my slender excited hands

And in my heart burst forth the years of truth

In the first lines I declared myself “A great and terrible beauty”

Here my beauty is within my ugly

Dancing off the the pages

My first poem passed on a legacy

A new allegory of the cave

 

Instead of conforming myself as a strong and beautiful girl

I trended the backbone

he descendent of freedom fighters

Rants spurt forth like silk on my tongue waiting to be heard

Silent on the paper

I screamed, hacked and sawed

Criticized and desensitized to the injustice of oppression

People on people

Brother on mother

Ms. Terrance became my mother dove

And in her I care I learned to fly

But its time I leave my nest

Now, after soft spoken words about stones

Descriptions of women adorned like flowers

I metamorphosed into a phoenix

 

Reborn in the ashes of my youth

I don’t just make statements

I make transgressions

Although I can not heal with my tears

I heal with my words

As bundles of immense loads are dropped

Like stones on the bare back

Of those who cry “There is no God but God”

I pick up my load

And praise that I have what others do not

This is how I found my voice

Here is where I created my experiences

And now the world can’t hold me down