My fix

Poetry is my drug

my natural high

when I start

I cannot stop

Patience

Be patient with me

I promise you won’t regret it

Much like the seeds that take time to grow

The fruits of what you sow now

will bear the crops for years to come

What is this feeling in my heart?

What is this feeling in my heart

That leaves me confused

It feels like my heart is being pressed

up against my chest

or that it has a life of its own

or is being kneaded by soft hands

I never used to get this in younger years

Did I even have a heart before?

Is this what they call feeling?

Is this what makes us human?

Never silenced

Stifled in speech

but not muted

Women’s lives

sometimes supressed

never silenced

Unmet potential

You once said at the start

That I was the type of woman

To make you a better person

If you hadn’t have resisted, nor been so stubborn

and seen the potential I did

This could have been true.

But there you stay, still and static, holding onto all that you knew

Growth has to come from the self first,

before it can from others

My success should also be yours

And it as then

That I realised you were not the one

But a weight on my heels

Dragging me down

Not lifting me up

So I had to say goodbye

— my success should also be yours

The reader

He opens the book of her life

With pages yet to be written

A blank canvas that winks with excitement

at all the adventures, places, touches and experiences

yet to be explored.

Will you take pen to paper

and be her reader?