She Follows the Birds to Freedom

The Microphone

She stepped on to the stage,
the bones in her knees jerked with fear,
longing to go back to the safety of darkness.
She walked across the platform,
her feet screaming in protest asking why they were going this way,
pleading to go back the way the came.
But she promised herself that they were not made for turning. Not today.

She stepped up to the microphone,
her heart beating like the roar of the drums of war, ready for the battle that she put herself in. Her lungs taking in its full capacity,
and exhaling shallowly.
Her body pouring sweat and the smell of fear and she drew near to the microphone.

She stood in front of the microphone,
she could never have known,
but I was watching her.
I saw her knees jerk and feet cry out for retreat, I saw her lungs expand and her heart beat,
I heard the drums of war and battle cry
as she stood there.
She could not have known,
but she was everything I wish I had
the courage to be.
The epitome of bravery,
for even when the bones in her body pleaded for the darkness,
even when the blood rushed from her heart
to feed her anxious nerves,
even when she reeked of fear,
there she was.
Standing here, at the center of the stage
with the page in hand.
I did not know what she would read,
I did not know what words
would flow from her mouth,
what pain she would share with me today,
but it did not matter.
She touched me, spoke words before they even left her mouth,
she was captivating in the way her eyes were defiant and determined to speak.
And when she finally stepped up to the mic,
I saw it.
It was a perfect picture of what this performance was to be.
For the microphone cast a shadow on her, holding itself up her her neck as if wanting to give her soul a voice,
as if pushing the words from her chest up through the tight cords in her neck,
and out into the world.
A soul was going to speak today,
it was going to empty itself with these words, whatever they would be, they would be bold and unafraid.
For what do poets have to loose,
when all they talk about is how much they have lost?
What more must we do to prove we are just like everyone else, tired, weary and burdened by what troubles we have?
She spoke words.
To be honest, I do not remember all of them, but I remember her and how she reached me before she opened her mouth,
how she talked, her soul on fire,
Alight with defiance.
Defiance to not back down, to keep moving forward, to compel her cowardly limbs to march, because this was war and there was no place for deserters.
She planted her feet firm,
and damned all that threatened to hurt her.
She could not have reached me more with spoken word than she did with her silence.
I remember to this day what it was like
for just a moment to be in the presence
of such a battle and to witness a human come out victorious against such odds.
I still aspire to be like that,
afraid but brave and courageous,
as boundless as the sky and as fierce as the sea.
She was real, and she was there.
And in the dreams that I have,
she was me.
SK