Dear Friends

Thank You Poetry

This can’t have been easy on you

Not in any way, form, or shape

Watching me change

As if I never had wings

Unable to fly

Having been grounded by demons

It couldn’t have been easy to watch

Or see

Or sense

Or feel

Or forget

Yet here we are nonetheless

Sending messages in the form of poets

Singers

Musicians

Even politicians

Nothing has changed

The same old song played

For centuries

Day after day

You did what you could

This is the reason I still live

Still

I may have been in place

But my mind never stops expanding

This is the beauty of consciousness

It belongs to all life

Not just a select few

To fight for this truth

Is the highest destiny any human can attach to

You loved me enough

To set me free

To allow me to find me

Having been tortured and enslaved

My bits and pieces broke off into a dream

I had not choice

But to find them all

Using glue, tape, and paste to put me back together

All the while

You waiting in the wings

Living your lives not only for you

But for me

For my sacrifice

What a truly beautiful blessing

We knew I wouldn't’ be there to see it

So you honored me in my place

When I needed that love sent back to me

It was right there waiting

Though it was held back

Held at bay

For longer than I care to admit

Declining to shed light on my weaknesses

I do admit that I lost the light

But found it once again

Here you were

Messages of love and light

Guiding my path

Back to the origins of our being

How does one say thanks

For such an incredible thing

I never meant to leave you

Waiting in vain

My return is as much about you

As it is about me

I never leave anyone behind

I sure wasn’t going to start that now

Not while friends waited in the wings

Waiting decades

For me to awaken

Returning as a new being

You had no idea

What I would become or what I would say

Nor did I

It was just the price I had to pay

For others hate

This is why

The system of oppression must end

Look at how much suffering has been caused

How many lost years have taken youth

Vitality

Creations

Freedoms

Claims

Look at all the devastation

Watching what we knew would happen unfold

Is so much worst from the bottom of the ocean

Where I was tossed and chained

Stoned

On blocks

Discarded like a hit done in the darkest of shadows

In the dark of night

For the darkest of reasons

Tossed into the bay to hide evidence

Of most dangerous games

I always thought that would be the worst death

That’s why this is the kind of torture he designed

To hold me from the light of day

But this ocean

Is much more insidious

Here I watch the world unfold

Barely breathing under water

Begging for relief

Never being answered

Always being ignored by all

Other than the friends

Fighting to ensure

I can return

Yeah

I know where they’re buried

Should I die for that

Suffer for that

Be imprisoned for that

Crimes of evil men

Scapegoating me

Punished severely

For other people’s sins

I think not

So I fight to live another day

Protect my progeny

And their birth right

The right

To awaken

Amnesty International United Nations UN Women Progressive Caucus Congressional Black Caucus U.S. Department of State