the poetic greats whisper to me
“Young women, live lives of freedom now
Wait not for the liberation of gray hairs, and saggy skin,
Be free now in your youth”
The eyes of the greats bear down on my blank pages
Daring my pen to dance the flamenco, tango
break out from its measured two-step
My virgin hands caress the reams of blank pages before me,
wondering if they truly could move as though the book were a fond, familiar lover
Comfortable, free, open
I feel the chains of the generations fall from my pen,
freed by declarations of being
a little chocolate girl,
a phenomenal woman,
young, gifted, and black,
beloved…
Would I dare inherit a legacy two sizes too large for the box I reside in?
The greats call me to catapult high, high, high above the four walls
and to be free.
