One of those way too hot summer days but I’m trying to make it work.
Haven’t had a meal since Monday, yet I’m feeling they’re ready to lurk.
Putting my best foot forward on the dusty, forgotten town roads at north –
Not even five minutes in, a horde on my back breaking all the walls,
Even the fourth.
The sentences sneak up slowly, they’re there to capture and also – to kill.
Haven’t thought of myself this way. My blood runs cold, it stays still.
Every step I take gets heavier – or am I heavier now? Impossible to tell.
The darkest of thoughts thus far rush to my brain, and my eyes blink,
Ready to swell.
Shaking and scared to the core, I walk faster to avoid the burning heat
Of the words spoken so meanly, so categorically, and I know I don’t deserve
The right to breathe
Unless I’m good enough, tiny and form-fitting enough,
Plenty from all the sides and angles enough,
Enough, enough, enough.
Why wasn’t it enough?
Why did you have to say it out loud, would it make your parents proud?
Why did you chase me down like a hunter chases down its prey with a hound,
Hoping I won’t make a sound?
Because here I am eight years later writing this story,
Hopeful, enough and proud, wishing my father would call me
To also admit that, honestly, he’s been bathing in his own “sorry”,
And too blinded by the shine of gold, for the lack of a better allegory.
But on my worst days I’m still in that summer day eight years back, ready to go,
To disappear into nothing – if that’s more pleasing to strangers who I don’t even know.
Placing my best foot forward, keeping it together so tight it my break my heart altogether
But I guess it’s all a circumstance of the gruelling weather
And my thighs not being lighter than a fallen feather.
-JW
The Daily Writing of Jackie Wright 