how it feels to be free

This is a “Poem of the Day” feature piece

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Our End
When you left the spot next to me was so full with your absence there was a sunken dip where your body used to lay
And broken urns shattered around the soil I used to grow you into a man with formidable legs and stomping feet
I cut my foot on the broken glass walking to the window this evening
Bled into the floor and the dirt
I fell asleep nursing the wounds
When I woke the next morning it was cold around me and darkness crept from the corners
Pieces of me seemed to be missing and the spot inside me was still full with your absence
My throat still hurting from where I kept my voice for years so that it grew hoarse and meek
My eyelids played the image of you over and over again and finally my body was filled with thoughts of you then the loss of you
I woke to damp misery again slept at the edge of my bed to avoid the hole you left behind when you took the branches and flowers of me
What a fool was I to think my aching heart could kid the moon

My beginning
I slept again
Fed myself and kissed the insides of my elbows
I dried my blood from the floor but couldn’t lift the shards of us
So I cleaned and sang
Held myself, tight until one day my arms were heavier and the earth you spilled the day you were gone from me/ walked out wid alla my stuff my scars and laughter/ sprouted a sprightly green thing
My feet swept through the glass and it looked like grains of sand around a mountain I was so big with myself
I could barely fit through the doors of our home
The walls you built/ the ones erected around me/ either shrunk or I was so stuffed on my own lovin I outgrew your little oppressive cottage
The shit was breaking itself to fit the newness of me the abundance of my voice and weight of my everything
The imprint of your ass lost itself to my wonder then flattened out before disappearing completely
In its place I appeared
My style of dancing my thoughts about Blackness and my open spirit which you thought was reserved just for you
I crowded the little rooms just me, myself, and I so I could live like I been longing to live
It seems, I’m way overdue
So I’ll be starting anew

Written while listening to “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)” & “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” by Nina Simone

*A lot about this poem reminds me of “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff” by Ntozake Shange

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