In January Came Poetry
At January 20th at around 8 AM, I found myself standing by the printer in the library, trembling, bawling. It has really come to this. What for so long seemed an impossibility within a day materialized. Donald Trump is the President of the United States.
What I soon accepted as reality drowned me in anxiety, vulnerability, and disappointment until everything became a blur. One night it manifested itself into angry scribbles onto a tiny notebook. Each time I picked up a pen and paper, a tiny weight was lifted off of my shoulders. I discovered a new world with writing- feelings of grounding and salvation appeared between the words on those pages.
In hope that someone might have felt that same sense of hopelessness on that dark January day, and with that I present to you a series of poems called In January Came Poetry.
Friday January 20 2017 / Nightmares At 1600 Pennsylvania Ave
My heart hurts,
My tummy aches,
Mommy, Daddy,
Why does our country break?
Just one man,
So much hate
That’s really all it takes?
We cannot disrespect history,
Those who fought and embraced-
All the pain and the suffering.
I will take nothing
None of this bullshit,
I am done with it-
With his cowardly face.
I want none of it,
Shake me awake-
Is my country a disgrace?
No it isn’t.
Yes we can,
Give me love,
Give me faith.
We can find it,
We can do it,
Don’t let them take what is ours away.
Monday January 30 2017 / A Journey to Self-Love
In the beginning I felt hopeless
I felt heartless
I was not myself.
I lacked strength,
I could not stand up straight.
I fought hard for years,
Numbers bouncing up and down on a scale,
Numbers that pulled strings on my heart and left tears.
Girls, Mothers, Brothers, Sons and Fathers
Everyone had something to say,
Everyone had standards that twisted and turned my stomach into knots,
I was not what they wanted.
I was not their sexy.
I was MY own sexy, what's so wrong with that?
One day, five years into this fight,
I looked in the mirror,
And saw something beautiful.
And from that day on,
Something sparked in my mind-
You, my love, deserve to feel beautiful.
You, my love, are in fact beautiful.
No person no magazine no makeup
Nothing can stop or change the beauty that one holds within their soul.
From that day on,
I became beautiful.
I saw makeup as a form of art,
No longer a cover up to who I was,
I learned to love my face with and without makeup,
To love my stomach with and without rolls,
To love my brain with all of its complications,
All of my flaws,
All of my jealousy, my anger, my passions-
They are me.
So if I can give advice to young women today,
I say:
Don't falter, Don't be Trumped.
Let your anger become your motivator,
Fight for love, for yourself, for others.
Don't let society fool you-
For what they taught you of beauty is in fact bullshit and your shit is the best shit.
Embrace every stage of self improvement.
Don't ever forget the journey
and the mistakes you made
and the lessons you learned.
Because that's what life’s about.
And in the end- to be happy with yourself is the most important thing of all.
You are the one stuck with your brain and your thoughts at the end of the night for the rest of your life,
So you might as well be damn happy with that brain.
Tuesday January 31 2017 / A Turn Back Of The Clock
How insane?
And in vain?
We the people, need help.
Back in chains,
With our pains,
Under Trump’s stormy reign.
So engrained,
And entertained,
Those young Republicans must have felt.
They pertain,
To none other
Than the White Man’s strong belt.
What a shock?
Turn back the clock,
Forty years back in time.
Here we are,
Broken and Scarred,
Begging, “please no more pain”
How insane,
And in vain,
That he can continue his reign.
//
As I sit at the table in my conference this evening,
I think to myself what an unusual feeling.
History repeating itself,
Back at the start- no broken Glass Ceiling.
Parks, Lafayette, Nash, and King-
They paved us the way for this small little meeting,
In Washington and Selma,
Direct action, nonviolence- all carry meaning.
Civil rights history is rich full of risk taking and little meetings-
Don’t let down these activists, leave their legacies beaming,
With success and lessons learned,
No more bias, no more fiending.
We shall stand proud and tall, with just that same feeling-
That of passion, and of fear,
And of none other than grieving.
For the gains we make,
Come with losses we will take,
Just as history goes,
And our world grows,
We shall honor all of those
Who risked their lives for our rights,
And never stop the protests, poems, and fights,
With our goals of love, equality, and unity in sight.
