Wingless

I love myself

The curl of my hair and the curve of my jowls

I love myself

The flap of my arms and the bulge of my belly

I love myself

The round of my hips and the thick of my thighs

I love myself

The color of my skin and the heft of my ass

I love myself

And that is revolutionary

Incendiary

Caring

Apocathery

Turning lead into gold

Has nothing on turning

Hatred to love

Ridicule to rejoycing

Countless messages

Be thin

Be professional

Hate what you are

It's uncouth

Unclean

Unworthy

You further me

With your hatred

I have one hater today

I need five tomorrow

And I have so many

But I'm strong like that

I spit back the koolaid

Not everyone can

It's difficult

It's terrifying

It's a step out into an unseen void with no net below you

It's forgetting you have wings because everyone has magic you don't

And then you step off the ledge

Plunge into the unknown

Someone screams at you to flap

And you do

You have wings

Wings amongst the wingless

Who have magic that propels them

And they miss the hidden places

Noone screams at them to flap

And you learn how to flap

How to ride the wind

Watching those winged ones

Because what do the wingless know of updrafts and gliding?

Nothing.

And the strain is hard

Your muscles doing unfamiliar work

But it gets easier

When you see aerial acrobatics

Pirouettes and dives

And the wingless could do it

They have magic

It could work

But it is nothing like the exhilaration

Of catching the wind at the last moment

Of using your body to soar higher and farther

And the risk is greater

If your body fails you

You've nothing left

But there are hidden nets

Hidden places

Where somebody bumping along

Because their wings are exhausted and their mind is frayed

Those hidden places are refuge

And in the refuge

The winged gather.

Promises

A promise is a promise

No matter how it goes

A promise is a promise

No matter how it grows

I write for love

I write for life

I write for hate

I write for spite

I write because

What I want

What I love

Can't be found

In what I read

Like a sparrow to dove

Women who save the world

Women who are knights

Women who fight for themselves

Women who fight for right

Black heroines who are loved

Cherished and admired

Black heroines who are princesses

Trapped in spires

Though my heart lay in fantasy

In worlds yet unseen

I never see myself

In the pages between

Am I not worthy?

Am I not strong?

Am I not beautiful?

Am I so wrong?

I want the unthinkable

I want it more and more

A lesbian knight saving her black princess

Perhaps by a seashore

There is no moral to this tale

No happy after all

Just pain and hurt and want

Bruises of the fall

I want to say so much

Fight with all my might

You will not reduce me so

I won't suffer this plight!

But I am tired now

And disappointed in myself besides

I should have avoided the woes

That nightly, my soul rides

I should have been stronger

I should have been better

I should have known more

I should have fought together

With whom, I can't say

Just someone that's not here

Because in their absence

I can blame myself for my fear

Fear of home

Fear of roam

Fear of health

Fear of wealth

I don't fear these things

I just can't get them

The glass overhead

Covered in men

Who clear their throats at me

"Ahem"

White asses overhead

All the livelong day

Forgive me if once in a while

I dare to look away