Verses of the Heart

Healing

When I was born,  
I was born in Poetry
When my mother held me and my father named me
They spoke different words of poetry to me
My grandmothers and my mother lived their lives in poetry
My father gave all his heart and soul to this world and built everything out of this hard life while living in poetry
When I fall in love I and my partner will live together in poetry
I will end in poetry,
Poetry is a part of me
————————————————————————

The day I started birthing poems
Was the day I started to find peace
The ability to write has saved me time and time again
Because on days when all I could do was think about disappearing
Writing brought me back to life.
————————————————————————

Writing made me fall in love with life
When all I could think about was death
————————————————————————

You don't have to kill the girl
For the woman to be born
————————————————————————

What is feminism to me?
Feminism was my mother going to college at a time when women were considered less
Feminism is me standing on the pain of the women that came before me
While paving a painless path for those that come after me
Feminism wears an African print dress and is a nappy headed goddess
She saw a girl that looks just like her on Tv yesterday, doing things she was told she couldn't
Feminism represents all of us African and black women who are more than enough
In a world where we are told that we are not enough.
Feminism knew what straight backs or like I like I called it when I was younger "all back" was before you even knew what it was
Feminism was my grandmother spinning gold and greatness out of this hard life
Feminism is inter-sectional
Feminism represents us all!
————————————————————————

This is for women of color
Who have been told that they were not enough
When they were more than enough
———————————————————————-

I have the strength of all the women that came before me
They were beautiful African women dripping with melanin
With thighs as thick as tree trunks
And skin as dark as the earth
They were nappy headed goddesses
Just like I am
————————————————————————

The minute you waltzed into my life
I thought I had stopped looking
Most times I would smile longingly at nothing
But the thought of you
But I didn't know you had other plans
I didn't know what I felt was one sided
I didn't know you would play me not once but twice
How stupid was I? Once bitten twice shy?
No I gave you another chance
But now I look back and I see a trend
You call me baby, and say you would do things with me
But you never follow through
Every time I see you I can't help the hope that rises in my chest
It's like I'm a fish out of water and you're the water I need to breathe
I don't get why you have this effect on me
I don't understand why I fall every time
You always start out sweet and end up bitter
Sometimes I think it's because I want love so much from a man that I think men like you are enough for me
But today I know you're not enough
And even though I still have this feeling in my chest,
the one that makes me dive into an abyss full of longing for you
I know that one day I'm going to think of you and feel nothing
Not even pain or hate because you do not deserve those feelings from me
And love does exist but this feeling I have in my chest is for someone worthy
And that someone is not you.
————————————————————————

I made a mistake when I said you complete me
I've always been whole without you