this poem was inspired by how i feel when i’m performing on stage. even though i’m standing alone up there- i feel inside of me every woman who lived so i could be here today. i am the product of countless lifetimes. so i am never alone. when i’m not sure where to get the energy from to be larger than life i think about my mother my grand mother and her grandmother. they give me the energy to bring you my best self up when i’m standing in front of a microphone.
can you hear the women who came before me
five hundred thousand voices
ringing through my neck
as if this were all a stage built for them
i can’t tell which parts of me are me
and which parts are them
can you see them taking over my spirit
shaking out of my limbs
to do everything
they couldn’t do
when they were alive
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