2004-10-08 - 11:23 a.m.
I got Poetry
backed up in me
like a traffic jam.
Nouns and verbs,
prepositions and adjectives
are bumper to bumper
fighting for a chance to help me
say,
feel,
be
anything but silent.
Old habits, hard to break.
Caring,
one of the most subborn of all.
Fighting to disconnect.
Especially after discovering
that self-preservation
is top priority for most.
I,
maybe more martyr than I care to admit,
always seeking to make room
for someone else's growth
and expression
at the detriment of my own.
So now,
my Poetry is choking me.
Caught up in my throat.
Clogging up my heart
like those tiny,
resistant bits of afro
in the bathtub drain.
Backing up the plumbing,
drowning me.
I'm gasping for air,
trying to pull myself out.
But, these pronouns
and adverbs
keep pulling me under.
Trying to use me as a stepping stone
to their own freedom,
their own chance to be heard.
My Poetry is kicking my ass
like I'm a teenaged
civil rights activist
and my Poetry is the police.
All I want is freedom,
all I want is peace.
But my Poetry keeps
turning the hoses on me.
Knocking me on my ass,
then beating me
until I surrender
and write.
