Freedom, Meant To Be

You come around without warning

Ignoring my protests, my pleas

To be free.  I promise if onlys,

Even prayers on Sunday

If only you'll leave me be,

In barter we dance and dip

But we cannot agree upon

The price of my freedom.

You come around without warning

Discarding my petition, discounting

Me.  You lurk in the shadows

Biding your time, waiting

More patient than infinity.

You need only to whisper

And I am easily seized, you

Fill the room where I sleep

Until you're all I can breathe, the

Weight of you bearing down on my chest.

You come around without warning

Pushing past my defenses, your

Whispers of doubt drown me in

Uncertainty, from birth to this day

I'm yielded at your feet, my hope

You took, leaving me to believe

All was meant to be, this woman

I had become would pass without discovery.

You come around without warning

Widening the lines, forcing me to follow

A life thwarted, complicated by convention,

Not stopping—out of fear, and

Swallowed by self-made doubt. 

I flew through the days,

Not stopping  to sip Maderia,

Read prose, love a lover.

I cried in rage, battled myself;  push on and find

this dream or sit without action, knowing

this is all you will ever be.  

 

In my eyes, I see a flicker

Of this woman ethereal and free

Not lost, a nomad wandering

In search of a life that was meant to be.

A lifetime I've given

From birth to this day,

No more, there is nothing

Left to give, this is all there is

There can be no more, this woman

Before you is not all she ever was meant to be.

You come around without warning

Losing ground each time, I unfold before you,

The woman in me wanting freedom

From a skin no longer her own, no longer yours.

Freedom, a state of mind,

As are the chains that bind

The women in me, for I am many.

Behind me stands a girl with hope, is sublime,

Thwarted in a life complicated by convention,

Tied by chains only in her mind,

She traveled alone in frustration because of un-realization.

You come around without warning

Stand before me in the dark,

And see me, stay a while see another side of me,

See what I see, that

No one has tried to give me what I need.

My eyes flicker in the gloom, hesitate

Then assimilate to the this place

Of storage.  Longing, hope

And promise reside here behind

Memories—disappointment and maybe

Someday, and if only dreams, too.

Waiting in the dark,

Between before and now,

A fleeting awareness

Of my misplaced self.

Now the woman in me, dances on graves

caring not for rules of conduct or

Ties that bind, I unfold before

the mirror—naked.  My impurities, flawed soul

The broken pieces, I carry in a silk purse

For the women in me, for I am many,

As a reminder of where I came from.

Freedom for my body that has carried

My burdens, my heft, and has buried

This heart, nurtured the soul

When all was bleak, when doubt swallowed

In one gulp.

This woman I was, and always meant to be

Wandering, a nomad, ethereal and free.

I was always where I needed to be, where I was,

The skin around my bones never felt so right.

You come around without warning

In barter we dance and dip

But we cannot agree

The price of your freedom,

Doubt, I have buried you, far beneath my feet.