I didn't know how to tell
So I bled ink instead of tears
I didn't know how to yell
So I hid the pain away for years

Why
Because it is what it is
Accept it
You don"t have to like it
How you choose to travel on your journey
Is your choice
Tune into your inner voice
Tune out the noise
Find the special in every single day
No matter what it is because it matters to you
Enjoy it any way
Don't spend your life asking why
In the Blink of an eye

I will not be
subdued.
Cages don't suit me.
I have to be free.
Fly
run
sing
dance in the
open fields, swim
in the river with
the fish and water snakes.
My soul can't be
taken without my permission.
The access is denied.
My heart isn't yours to
mock and ****.
I will rise like
the phoenix from
the ashes and sail on against
the azure sky, free and
untethered.
Resurrected
I'm back from the dead.

It's funny in the dark
Hilarious in the void
Right up until the point
Your ego gets destroyed.

Ok, there’s no jailbreak.
Make room for my innocent alter ego,
because there’s nothing to rebel against.

There are zero classes in my nascent,
year-long, Harvard master’s degree.
They call it ‘self directed study’
and like rockets have stages,
I’ll have ‘self paced modules.’

Am I suddenly at Oxford University?
They’re quite famous for that (no formal classes).
Or am I suddenly grown up and trusted?
I obviously don’t have it all figured out yet,
so I’ll just trust the process.

When I started that other school
(that shall not be named), my advisor
handed me a computer printout - a list
with something like 40 courses on it.
I thought, “Oh, my God,” but one by one,
year over year, I checked-off those courses
and voila! They handed me a diploma.
It was a process.

I understand, if you’re disappointed about the jailbreak, but there’ll
be coffee breaks, lunch breaks, study breaks, bathroom breaks
and more than a few self-directed dance breaks. So stick around.

“You know,” my therapist said, so very seriously, a few years ago,
“you keep laughing.”
.
.
I've Got the World on a String by Robin McKelle
****** Soul Picnic by Ledisi & Billy Childs

I could've just laid down if
I wanted to

ignoring the bells that echoes
inside my head

Let the earth swallow me
among withered leaves that decay
beside me

Let the world dry out
as if all lamented things
belong to me

I could act as if
my heart is an icy winter water,
never to beat, never to warm at all

Granite skies would drift above me,
haunting me in my night and
summer days

But in the thunder that frightens me
A swift lightning would pass me by,
a crack of gold in my darkest night

The flood crashing through doors,
through all the breathe that I've lost
I would learn to hold every air that I touch

All the celestial mass throbbing in my chest
The distant rumble of supernovas
that tears me apart,
and black sunshine that shines on my face

Even if midnight splatters beneath my eyes,
with all the stars that glimmer
that badly wants to fall

Even if half of my shadow is blown to nether
I would suffer everyday, and in my pain
I knew I could feel

I would die everyday, with all lamented things
and in all my deaths

I have learned to live