I was critical of my result,
Fearful I was deemed less
Progressive,
less inclusive,
Less open-minded,
less accepting,
less anti-racist,
Less,
Less
Than I see myself,
Than I wish to be,
What can I fix?
What can I make be
What I know is more authentically
me?
But check,
Check one,
Check one, two, three,
There’s more to the picture than I had perceived,
There’s a place I reside where I am alone,
Where shielding my differences
Is how I make this
Safe–“home”,
More comfortable than were I out bearing all,
Being me,
Being free,
I’m enclosed in the wild open,
Still a black girl in Maine,
A rare, wild specimen,
Afraid of being tracked,
Tagged,
hunted by the
Majority,
whom I’m swimming in,
Marginality makes me weary,
Getting closer to authenticity is my aim,
But duck and weave is the game,
I am no less,
Just extremely
stressed,
Identity under duress
Tag: Poetry
The Good Word
Speak the good word preacher,
To something we can relate,
Speak of hope,
And why this is as such,
The hurt, the pain in all of us,
Hold all our hearts in tender care,
Our dreams, or worries, our despair
Balance with your own self-care
Lose not yourself,
As weight load shifts,
Preach to us,
Of all of this
New “Normal”
Return to normal?
Who has that power?;
To quell disease that now eradicates?;
To bring back lives since lost?;
To restore security in most anything?
How foolish to talk of such fantastical things,
When reality has been brutally clear,
This is the new normal,
My dear.
Apocalyptic Dreams
In this apocalypse
I dream of you,
In daylight hours,
To get me through,
But a memory,
Yet long sustained,
Your touch,
Your taste,
I still maintain
I Miss the Stars
I miss the stars,
My star,
That I relied on nightly,
How time and circumstance
Has made me neglect your rays,
When it is your light
That sustains me through my days
Tainted
We are here so close,
And yet worlds apart we are,
Your touch is tainted
She of Letters 