Your savior

Your hope

Your god

The only one that can help you when you’re hurt

She’s invincible, she’s beautiful, she’s contagious, she’s your mother

She’s the one you pray to at night

The tranquilizer in the mad house

The first thing you say when everything’s amiss, “I want mommy”

No one can defeat her

She is your shield

You grow up to become her smile, her hair, her lips, her bodess, herself

Anything and everything is caught like an infectious sea of joy

You try to duplicate her past

In hopes that you will mimeograph every detail of her life,

I begin my journey

Down

            The

                      Same

                                    Path

Same friends, same fights, same troubles, same mistakes, same outcome, same disappointment my father felt before he left her

I sat….. And I realized, this ISNT my life

I’ve taken time to examine the shoe I’ve stepped into

 Appearing on your feet with no evidence of purchase

 And found that the sole was made of acid

I’m better than that

My potential

My education

My father

My life

I can’t afford to give that up

But what I did not notice, with every step in your shoes, they began to disintegrate

I took my own path, bare feet, clear mind

Trying to pull me off course will not work, not this time

I am stronger than I have ever imagined

Becoming my own woman

Learning to become everything you fronted to be

While you show off your plastic shoes, still dripping wet with the paint you used to cover your tracks

I’ll be walking past you in my well-earned Jimmy Choo’s  

Yes you are my savior, for birthing me into this toxic room

Now I know what fresh air and sunlight feel like

I am my own hope, my own strength, my own god

I am a REAL woman