No matter where I go,
I’m asked to “tone it down,”
and then asked why I’m “lookin’ so mean”
when my smile rests in a perpetual frown.
My loquacious words and awkward sentences
never find their place…
not in public, or shared areas,
not even in my own safe, sacred space.
I have to change, an emotional carousel;
the “right” reaction always just out of range
signals crossed, just slightly, like a bad battery cell.
My regular outbursts of self-expression
interspersed with brightly colored f-bombs
and enthusiastically mismatched clothing and eclection
should not be reason for anyone to try
to quiet the way I live out loud –
Just as the clouds peacefully coexist in the vastness of sky,
so too do I want to be accepted in a world
that’s too proud.
We are encouraged to follow our hearts,
chase our dreams, accomplish goals –
do our parts.
We’re reminded to embrace who we are,
who we were or could’ve been,
who we be and who we will be.
I try, and in doing so, am “too much,”
dare I be so bold.
R.I.P. to all the pieces of me
that inadvertently die
when I squelch even more of my desire to be.
To avoid offending someone else,
I rearrange and release more pieces of myself…
The loss poignant like a phoenix’s death –
new fragments rising from the ashes
the previous body left.
And even no matter how far “downed” the tone gets –
No matter how docile I try to appear,
I still feel unwelcome in most spaces –
And maybe also, I’m just afraid
that one day someone will speak to me
as though they were listening
instead of only waiting to hear.
