(“Tomorrow’s Voices Today“ is a new series curated by poet and educator Mike Sonksen.)

***

I pity my peers who feel little but speak often,
Just as I pity the puppet who knows not he has strings.
Their words grind my mind,
For they never cease to
Disappoint my foolish trust.

MY access to MY pain and love and fear constantly reveals and grows itself.
But the fogged lens of my youth
Chains me with wax cuffs.

My inner self whispers in my ear
“Sit here, stay.
Love being the victim,
And I shall guide your lips and your feet and your identity to make this true,
To live in comfort that what I say to you
And what I make the world appear to you as
Is certain. Hate me, and trust no one, and you can die in the comfort of certainty.”

Deep within my spirit is a flame,
An enlightenment,
a key to understating my feelings
And breaking this chain.
But long my search to find this has been,
And long it shall continue.

Audre Lorde,
Lord of her feelings,
Her armor, clad with emotion,
Breaks the chains holding her pride
And independence and love and fear.

Audre Lorde
mounts her feelings,
Rides them to battle
Wielding her poetry as a war horn.

Behind her rides an army she inspires.
Behind her ride people like me,
Who, through poetry,
Search their feelings
and hope to join the legions of
The loving, the forgiving, the passionate,
And the purposeful.

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